Rehabilitating street children

THE state of thousands of rootless children living on the streets of urban centres, including Dhaka, is, to say the least, appalling. Two separate reports, prepared by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) and the Ministry of Social Welfare and submitted in a recent seminar in Dhaka, have brought several aspects that need urgent action, to the fore. The number of children without any form of parental or state care has been on the rise. The lack of care suffered by them is simply inconceivable. This is all the more so when in all human societies the objective remains to take care of children for their obvious vulnerabilities and dependent nature. In this context, it should be too apparent that institutional care must be there and ought to increase to rehabilitate the rootless, street children effectively. The findings of the reports, show that about 41 per cent of the street children have no sleeping beds, 84 per cent have no warm clothes, 54 per cent do not get nursing and 75 per cent cannot go to the doctor when sick. About 44 per cent of the street children are addicted to smoking, 40 per cent do not take a bath every day and 35 per cent have no access to toilet facility. The reports also said nearly 51 per cent children are scolded by other people, 20 per cent are tortured physically and 14.5 per cent of street girls are sexually harassed. A move was started in the eighties by the then government to create facilities for the care of the rootless or street children. Efforts were then made to educate them, house them and gradually provide for their upbringing. But this move ended with the change of government in the early nineties. The project gradually failed from lack of sustained interest. Had it continued, the state of affairs concerning the street children could have, perhaps, been different from what it is reported to be now. If the rehabilitation programme had continued in right earnest in proper direction, it could have been a major contributor to easing a socio-economic problem of serious dimensions. The rootless children grow up unloved and uncared for and easily become victims of various anti-social activities. They are usually found associated with bomb blasts, acts of terrorism, stealing, etc. But it could be the opposite happy experience if measures were taken over the years -- systematically and progressively -- to rehabilitate such street children and transform them into productive individuals. There is no reason why a proper rehabilitation programme for the street children can not be taken up afresh with full vigour, if the government plays a good supportive role. Many individuals and organisations can be expected to come forward with enthusiasm to lend sustainable assistance to any government programme to this end. The pressuring need here is to sensitize, motivate and invite all concerned to join in such a noble endeavour. But first of all, an institutional mechanism under the government's auspices should be visible to the people for channeling their assistance to such children. The Government only has to pick up the threads of the earlier programme, restructure it, as and where necessary, to help overcome the problems that had earlier forced its scrapping. If revamped it can serve the needs of the present times and then be carried forward. Some infrastructures were earlier built to set up school buildings for the street children. Such buildings should be cleared of all unauthorised occupants in cases where it is necessary and these would then need to be turned into other forms of support for them. The main requirement here is the political will to operationalise anew a proper rehabilitation programme for rootless or street children and gradually strengthen it, after reclaiming and recovering all past facilities which were developed for a similar project.