“I was scared of my parents sometimes. They forced me to work with them, but I wanted to play and go to school. That’s why I ran away from home. On the streets, I made friends who knew how to earn money. We would ask for money or earn it, we would do some small jobs here and there” says young Saleem,* who now lives in a shelter home. At the time I hadn’t anticipated the depth of the stories that I was to gather for Save the Children in the next four months, and with every new interview, things got more complex.
Street children or ‘children in street situations’ are a familiar sight in every big and small city in India. Today, the term “Children in street situations” is a constructed category in order to socialize the issue, but it does not constitute a homogeneous population. This makes it extremely difficult to use it for research, policymaking and intervention design.
In order to recognise the children, there are four broad categories: abandoned and orphaned child, missing or runaway child, street connected or community child on the streets and child begging on the streets.
One thing that is common for all street children is the fact that they are denied access to basic human rights, and are a highly vulnerable group. Children often move around foraging food, they are forced into labour, exploited by criminal groups, they slip into drug addiction and worse.
“If we got some money, we would buy food and diluter (a kind of drug). All my friends were really enjoying it so I also tried it. But I never really liked it” Saleem added sheepishly, knowing that he has left that life behind.
There are enough examples and encounters of the problems faced by ‘Children in Street Situations’. They are ‘multi-dimensional’ and so intricate that it is hard to sum up the challenges. It is never a linear story.
Survival – A Daily Challenge
Shaan was quiet and composed while he sat in the ChildLine booth of the railway station, “There was so much crime that I committed, jumping on trains and stealing things from people just to make some quick money and feed myself. There wasn’t a moment when I felt safe,” he said.
Every day is a battle for survival for food, water, clothing, shelter, medicine and protection for these children. On many nights, they sleep on empty stomachs. It is hunger that drives them to move from one place to another. They navigate the city alone and get exposed to the harsh reality. This struggle for survival compels them to start earning at an early age.
It is known that 70% of children in street situations are employed in child labour. They engage in a variety of forms of child labour and are often exploited by employers and the police, which is what puts them at constant risk, the risks of falling in the hands of criminals and getting engaged in petty crimes as Shaan did. They not only deal with the hazards of living in the open spaces, but most regrettably, the risk of being abused, exploited and neglected.
In a country such as India, where it is lucrative for employers to employ child workers, since it is cheap and labour laws are poorly implemented, the number of urban child workers is huge. Small industrial workshops, small and medium-scale hazardous industries, service establishments, and informal businesses such as rag-picking, porter and vendor jobs are where child workers are concentrated.
A large number of children work as domestic help, suffering abuse and exploitation at the hands of their employers, which is usually away from the public eye. A study on children as domestic workers indicates that almost 70% of children reported physical abuse, slapping, kicking, burning, etc and 32.2% reported sexual abuse. In addition, there are children involved in prostitution and bonded labour.
Vulnerable To Sexual Abuse
All children in street situations, whether those living with or without parents are extremely vulnerable to crimes of sexual abuse and violence committed against them. The perpetrator could be an adult or even another street child (under 18 years of age).
Lack of protection for children on or off the streets was captured rather starkly by the 2007 study on child abuse undertaken by the MoWCD. The study covered 2,317 street children as respondents across 26 districts of 12 states from different zones of the country. Of these, 55.3% were boys. Taking both severe as well as other forms of sexual abuse together, 54.5% of street children confirmed experiences of sexual abuse.
Another UNICEF report estimates that 27.1 million to 69 million children are exposed to domestic violence in India. Almost 70% of children as domestic workers reported physical abuse, slapping, kicking, burning, etc and 32.2% reported sexual abuse. In addition, there are children involved in prostitution and bonded labour.
Children For Sale
Young and vulnerable, children are losing their childhood forever to one of the most inhumane practices that remains one of the dark realities – human trafficking. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 174 children go missing every day, which is approximately 7 children going missing every hour. In the data from 2016, a total of 63,407 children went missing in that year and 50% of them still remain untracked.
Human Trafficking has been dubbed as the third largest crime in the world and India is no stranger to this unfortunate practice. India faces a multi-faceted problem of serving as a source, destination and a transit country for human trafficking violations.
“I was in the parking lot and my sister got hungry, so I went to the close by chaat thela (snack shop) to get her something to eat, I looked back and she was gone, I saw two men who had picked her up and were crossing the road with her, I ran after them screaming she’s my sister,” says Shaan*, he later added that he was five years old at the time of the incident, and his baby sister was two years old.
While the Trafficking of Persons bill was introduced and passed in Lok Sabha in 2018, it still remains pending in Rajya Sabha. It is interesting to note that much of what is proposed in the bill is already existing in other laws such as Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1986, Section 370 of the IPC. While stringent laws are critical to protecting the most vulnerable children, the measures must address the rehabilitation of survivors as well.
Can We Change This?
Children are the most valuable and vulnerable resource. The life on the streets, with a continuous threat of violence must end. A question I asked myself a lot in my travels, ‘Do I have the compassion to help change this?’
But as young people, it isn’t enough for us to just have compassion, to just ask a child on the street why they’re not going to school. It is imperative for us to engage with the policies, to know what to do when we see a child on the street and help end this cycle of violence.
*Names changed
Photograph by Vicky Roy for Save the Children