On the occasion of Children’s Day, Express focuses on children from across Telangana who run away from unstable living situations to Hyderabad to live on their own where they are vulnerable to abuse & exploitation and fall through the gaps of the very systems designed to protect them
HYDERABAD: A year after his mother died, eight-year-old Srikant’s (name changed) father told him to leave the house. The widowed construction told his son that he would not be able to care for him. Srikant, who has never gone to school, had already been working on construction sites in his hometown of Tandur, Vikarabad, some 75 km from Hyderabad. After his father told him to leave, the boy spent a year sleeping on the platforms of the Tandur railway station, with blankets shared with other such homeless children.
“Working helped fill my stomach. I am good at wiping cars clean at the railway station and carrying bricks at construction sites. I earned `10 - `50 everyday and could buy the kind of food I like,” he told Express from a juvenile home in the city, adding that he worked to eat coloured papadam everyday. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) terms children like Srikant as ‘Children in Street Situations’, describing them as an extremely mobile, floating population to which it is difficult to put numbers.
In Telangana, it is the capital of Hyderabad to which children from across the state run away mainly because of unstable family circumstances, including physical, verbal and sexual abuse according to officials. In the city, these children are vulnerable to further abuse, being trafficking and worse. In some ways then, Srikant is among the more fortunate of such children, so far at least.
He was recently picked up by the Tandur police who presented him before the Hyderabad Child Welfare Committee which sent him to the home. He will soon be sent to another home run by an NGO which will help educate him. Still, exuding innocence his world remains small: all he aspires to is continuing his work cleaning cars and carrying bricks.
In Srikant’s case, the system seems to have worked. This is not always the case. The children are often picked up or rescued by police officials who present them before the district child welfare committee. The committee takes the decision as to what to do with the child. However, out of 31 districts in Telangana only the 10 erstwhile districts have CWCs in place, despite district reorganisation having concluded a year ago. Officials say constitution of the remaining CWCs is in the pipeline. Further, the state has only four juvenile homes -- three for boys and one for girls -- one each in Warangal and Nizamabad, and two in Hyderabad. These homes are supposed to be supervised by the State Women and Child Department but officials and voluntary organisations say the conditions leave much to be desired.
“Several cases of sexual abuse come to light in the homes due as the older children, be it boys or girls, who are often confined to these spaces. They bully the younger children and also sexually abuse them during the nights,” said a clinical psychologist and a CWC member.The member also alleged that, the juvenile homes do not have the proper personnel to monitor the children and brush improprieties under the carpet to protect their jobs. There are other concerns as well. “It is not a homely atmosphere. There is no proper sanitation and the food provided is not nutritious enough for a growing child. Moreover, their recreating is limited to movies which drives them to encourage a vagabond lifestyle,” ET Manjusha, vice-president, City Civil Court Bar Association said.
However caring for a child who has learnt to live independently is also not easy. “They are conditioned to have an individualistic mindset. It takes a lot of time to convince them to give up their way of living, especially when they have easy access to a lot of things and are used to living on their own,” said Shyamala Devi, Chairman, Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Hyderabad.
“Giving them good food holds key to initiate the rescue operation as several children are deprived of nutritious food from the place they come and many are even on verge of starvation,” said Bro Justin of Don Bosco Nav Jeevan, an NGO working for the cause of rescuing and providing shelter for street children.
The NGOs and government homes also try to reintegrate the children with the families, whenever possible, but this does not always work out.Suresh (name changed) ran away from home for a second time this year after his mother beat him and told him to go and die. This time the 14-year-old brought a friend. The duo were found at the Secunderabad railway station just hours after arriving there from Nagarkurnool and are likely to be moved to an NGO. Suresh first ran away in 2015 and was rescued from the same railway station. He was sent to an NGO and studied for a year before being reintegrated with his family -- partly because he wanted to go back home. This time he had hoped to move in with his late father’s elder brother in Hyderabad but the relative did not answer his phone calls and he was picked up by then. Suresh, too, then has been relatively fortunate so far.
However, too much in the functioning of the system with regard to these vulnerable children is up in the air. This year, Save The Children (STC) and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights created a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to deal with street children. This SOP has not been implemented in Telangana as the overseeing state-level statutory body, the State Commission of Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR), has been defunct since February when its sole member’s term ended. Further, the High Court in August stayed all proceedings of the commission after a petition was filed pointing out that rules hadn’t been followed in appointment of the chairperson. The onus of looking out for children in vulnerable positions then has fallen almost entirely to the 10 CWCs, members of which claim that they self-fund their transport even when part of rescue or review operations.
Meanwhile, children in street situations make a living as ragpickers, hawkers, alms-seekers, shoeshine boys or helpers in hotels. According to Childline India, 50 per cent of such chidlren work for 10-13 hours a day and according to a survey published in 2015 in Indian Journal of Community Health on Nutritional Status and Substance Abuse among Street Children in South India, 42 per cent of street children were involved in substance abuse and 14 per cent in sexual risk behaviour, risk of exposure to substances and abuse being higher among those staying in railway premises, on streets, and working in hotels for more than five years.Relatively speaking then, Srikant and Suresh may have indeed been fortunate so far.
Children in street situations are prone to Susbtance abuse
Physical and verbal abuse
Sexual violence, Child labour
Diseases due to lack of sanitation and nutritious food
Rag picking
Psycho social stresses
Powers of the SCPCR
Receiving evidence on affidavits
Requisitioning any public record or copy thereof from any court or office
Issuing commissions for the examination of witnesses or documents
While inquiring into any case, the commission has the power to summon and enforce the attendance of any person and examining him on oath
Recommendations of Save the Children
STC has created a detailed Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) in association with the NCPCR to deal with Children in Street Situations. According to this...
SCPCR will be responsible for taking up cases of these children and monitoring convergence of various departments to identify, rescue and rehabilitate these children. However, the SCPCR has not been constituted in TS yet
The stakeholders include — the SCPCR, CWC, District Child Protection Units, Child Welfare Police Officers, Special Juvenile Police Unit Child Care Institutions, District Magistrate and Childline Services
Role of the SCPCR
Examine and review the provisions in the law for protection of child rights, and recommend measures for their effective implementation
Make recommendations regarding any provisions in the law to the Central government
Inquire into violation of child rights and recommend initiation of proceedings in such cases
Undertake and promote research in the field of child rights
Status of SCPCR in TS
A body was constituted on February 19, 2014 months before the state was bifurcated
The Commission functioned with three members, for more than a year, after three of six members moved to Andhra Pradesh, despite it being a violation of the Commissions for the Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005
One of the three remaining members resigned for a better opportunity, while another left because their salaries were not being paid on time
The commission functioned till February 19, 2017 with a single member, Achyuta Rao who claims to have disposed off more than 150 cases of protection of child rights
A new commission was formed this year with six members. However, Achyuta Rao took it up in HC that there were a lot of violations leading the Court to dissolve the Committee
Official of the Women Development and Child Welfare are awaiting orders to begin the process