You see them all the time. You don't notice them every time. They are there at the traffic lights selling pens or wanting to give your windscreen a nice wipe. They are there scavenging, hoping to eke out a living through your trash. The perceptive see them late at night sleeping by the roadside, either getting a shut eye after a long day, or oblivious to the world 'under the influence'. More often than not, it is substance abuse.
These are Karachi's street children.
But they also look happy, if appearance can be a reliable measure of happiness. Going beyond the extended hand and the practiced speech that sparkle in the eye is hard to miss. You can also detect that smile, only momentarily masked by the need to look wretched, that breaks out into a grin as they run to their friends, empty handed or not. Is deprivation, or adversity, an essential ingredient of happiness? Is this why we rank relatively high on the global happiness index?
No one really knows how many of them there are. No one knows for certain if they are out there helping their families get an extra buck or have been forced out there to fend for themselves: abandoned and left to their own devices; begging, stealing, or 'selling' themselves. Increasingly, one sees a growing number of girls.
Many of us are happy to unload our loose change on them; even ten rupee notes. And we drive on, our conscience slaked. Some aunties would admonish them: "Why don't you work? Go get a job", not just to get rid of the eyesore but subconsciously wanting a larger cachet of 'domestic help'. Others curse the government, like they do for so much else.
Once every while, government does spring into action. Vans appear and we see the police shoving kids into them, like chicken being forced on to those crates that we see at our butcher's shop. They are driven away - but the problem doesn't go away. Like the proverbial bad penny the kids have a habit of reappearing, in the same neighbourhood, around the same roundabouts. It is the turf assigned to them by their 'handlers', who also have to 'settle' their release with the police.
It is not that the government is oblivious to what is often referred to as a 'menace'. They know the problem. It is the solution that they grapple with. Government has a boilerplate approach: enact a law, set up an organization with the right title, have a development scheme to fund the brick and mortar, and create more jobs to please political constituencies - or enrich the leaders.
The government did come up with laws on child labour and child welfare. It set up the Child Protection Authority, headed by a grade 20 officer. It already has shelter houses like Dar-ul-Atfal and Dar-ul-Aman. Many jobs have been created in the name of the street children. But their numbers continue to grow, with no signs of their plight abating.
Government's approach to child welfare is not too dissimilar to their approach to education or health. If these sectors are not delivering it is not for want of expenditure. Billions have been spent on the 'hardware' - many more schools, many more health facilities. For schools a lot has also been spent on teachers training, on text books, on 'missing facilities' like drinking water and toilets - and boundary walls. For health facilities we spend so much on outreach programmes and medicines and basic health units.
Even the so-called 'ghost factor', where we have schools without teachers and hospitals without doctors, has been somewhat controlled through better use of technology. And yet some 25 million kids remain out of school and a sicknessin a low income family is a 'May Day' call.
We see the same results for children, abandoned or obliged to take home something to provide sustenance to the family. In the process, and almost without exception, they get traumatized. It is a lot more than a loss of dignity or self-esteem. The 'handlers' not only strike fear and subject them to physical abuse but they are also happy to offer them to whoever matters for their carnal satisfaction. It is on the street that the seeds of crime get sown.
The government of Sindh came up with a sensible scheme for the rehabilitation and reintegration of street children. In a rare admission of its limitations the government agreed to set up the physical infrastructure but have a competent civil society organization to manage the rehab/reintegration process. The scheme was approved and funding provided seven years ago. Quite predictably, the scheme had to be revised and refunded as delays had led to cost escalation.
The Korangi complex - to house, rehabilitate, and reintegrate street children into society as good citizens - is still under construction. Meanwhile, and unsurprisingly, many jobs have been created to protect the street children.
How does one go about finding a competent civil society organization to manage the facility? Experience in this area is severely limited. It is not a matter of just providing shelter and feeding and clothing the children. Almost without exception the children suffer from trauma of one kind or the other. They have been maltreated at home, forcing them to run away. On the street they have suffered abuse of every kind, from the guardians of law as well. Most find solace in drugs. Even those who return home at night succumb to peer pressure and take to drugs.
The worst thing you can do is to forcibly put these kids into shelter homes. Coercion will just not work - at the first opportunity they will escape and get back to their handler. You really need to motivate them, to convince them that they need help and that you can provide this kind of help. Chances are the only people these kids would listen to are those who 'have been there' themselves; who experienced trauma, got treated for it, and are now leading a normal life.
How many civil society organizations are there in town equipped to first motivate traumatized street children into getting treated and then treat them in a manner that minimizes relapse?
If there aren't shouldn't the government first develop such organizations, rather than throwing more money into brick and mortar?
shabirahmed@yahoo.com