Contents

AKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................................................................... 2 Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 3 INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................. 4 WHO ARE STREET CHILDREN? ....................................................................................................................... 5 REASONS FOR BEING ON THE STREETS......................................................................................................... 6 Economic Factors: ..................................................................................................................................... 6 Family Factors ........................................................................................................................................... 7 Personal Factors ........................................................................................................................................ 7 Physical Violence....................................................................................................................................... 7 Poverty ...................................................................................................................................................... 8 Peer Pressure ............................................................................................................................................ 8 Non caring Parents.................................................................................................................................... 8 Wanted Freedom ...................................................................................................................................... 8 Didnt want to go to school....................................................................................................................... 9 Other reasons ........................................................................................................................................... 9 Living style of street children ...................................................................................................................... 10 Group membership ................................................................................................................................. 10 Sleeping place at night ............................................................................................................................ 10 Health conditions .................................................................................................................................... 10 SEXUAL BEHAVIOR & PRACTICES ................................................................................................................ 11 SUBSTANCE USE .......................................................................................................................................... 11 CHILD LABOUR LEGISLATION IN PAKISTAN ................................................................................................. 12 REASONS OF ACCEPTING STREET CHILDREN IN PAKISTAN ......................................................................... 12 No law to safeguard street childrens rights ............................................................................................... 12 Child Protection Bureau CPB....................................................................................................................... 13 Program for Street Kids............................................................................................................................... 14 RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................................. 15 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................................... 16

AKNOWLEDGEMENT

We deem it our utmost pleasure to avail this opportunity to express gratitude and deep sense of obligation to our teacher Prof.Zahid Aziz for his valuable and dexterous guidance, scholarly criticism, untiring help, compassionate attitude, kind behavior and moral support. Through the project he helped us and guided us in every aspect, as that was a very new experience for us.

To all those children Living in the streets of this world

Street children of Pakistan Abstract

A number of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America have implemented successful interventions to ameliorate the street child phenomenon. However, Pakistans efforts for eradicating the problem have been limited and According to Asian Human Rights Commission, there are 1.2 million children on the streets of Pakistan's major cities and urban centers, constituting the country's largest and most ostracized social group. There are a plethora of complex factors that have coalesced to create a socio-economic climate conducive to the persistence of street children. The US war in Afghanistan which began in October 2001 led to the immediate influx of approximately 200,000 Afghan refugees into Pakistan, and of the 1.5million refugees that crossed the border in 2001 an estimated 59% were children. The Afghan children are discriminated against in terms of employment opportunities and physical and sexual abuse and exploitation. The survival of a street child is substantially defined by severe socio-economic instability and deprivation leading to high risk coping strategies. Evidence indicates that 90% of street children in Pakistan are involved in inhalant abuse; this combined with risky sexual behavior and vulnerability to disease, makes street children one of the most ostracized and marginalized social groups in the country. Despite preventative measures from the national government and rehabilitative Projects sponsored by non-governmental organizations, policies and programmes in Pakistan are both quantitatively and qualitatively inadequate. Examples of successful interventions internationally, in terms of preventative programmes and rehabilitation through education and vocation, provide lessons for Pakistan.
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INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND

Street children have been a distinct social underclass which has stayed neglected by the world for a fairly long period of time. The issue of street children remained dormant until1996 when UN officially short listed this issue as one of the major social anomalies our world is being faced up with today. Over the past few years, the world has witnessed a visible increase in the number of children living and working on the streets, to an extent that today the numbers have reached epidemic proportions. The exact numbers of street children has always remained unknown since these children are usually not counted, nor are they subject to census. Even the modest of the estimates indicate that there are millions of children living on the streets the numbers rapidly growing. In the majority of cases street children are first and foremost the victims of poverty and factors closely associated with it. Several other factors are usually considered to be responsible for the prevalence of street children. Some of those are conflicts with in the family, poor parenting, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, peer influence, domestic violence, death of parents, urbanization, famine and war, all of these activate the desire to seek opportunities outside the home environment or parental control. But such a rosy dream shattered up when they face the brutalities of the real world Children who have to work on the streets because their families need money to survive, children from poor families who sleep on the streets, orphan and abandoned children who parents have died because of illness or war or to whom it was simply impossible to look after their children. A certain number of those children are be born into unworkable home situations where poverty, overcrowding, physical or mental abuse prevail. Some of them run away from abusive homes only to find themselves in an even more abusive environment. Sleeping under bridges, in doorways and public places, they are often the victims of sexual abuse, violence and exploitation, and lack access to adequate health care, nutrition and hygiene. They constitute a marginalized group in most societies, where accessibility to the basic necessities of life including food, shelter, education and health care is severely restricted

WHO ARE STREET CHILDREN?

Children (under 18 years) who spend most of their time on the streets. There are between 10 to 100 million street children worldwide, depending on the exact definition used. The target group is homeless and vulnerable street children including their families, who are at high risk of exploitation and physical and emotional abuse, especially through forced commercial sex and violence in the streets. "Street children" is a term often used to describe both market children (who work in the streets and markets of cities selling or begging, and live with their families) and homeless street children (who work, live and sleep in the streets, often lacking any contact with their families). At highest risk is the latter group. Murder, consistent abuse and inhumane treatment are the "norm" for these children, whose ages range from six to 18. They often resort to petty theft and prostitution for survival. The phenomenon of street children poses a complex social challenge. These children are at alarmingly high risk for a myriad of physical and psychological problems as a result of both the circumstances that preceded their homelessness, and as a direct consequence of life on the streets. Our report has identified a multitude of issues and concern specific to this group of vulnerable individuals which need urgent attention. Out-of-school children often live in dreadful conditions and are victims of abuse. Many of them suffer from various diseases due to these conditions. Many have hardly been to school or no longer go to school. If these children survive hunger, thirst, dangerous and badly paid jobs, prostitution, sexual abuse, diseases, exclusion, police harassment, problems with the law, imprisonment, drugs, and household "jobs" that are really little more than slavery, they will grow up illiterate adults, and alienated from a society that failed to protect them. Children in these situations often have limited or no access to the formal education system due to poverty, discrimination, lack of identity papers, inflexible school timings, direct and indirect school fees.

REASONS FOR BEING ON THE STREETS

Economic Factors Family Factors Personal Factors Physical Violence Poverty Peer Pressure Non caring Parents Wanted Freedom Didnt want to go to school Other reasons

Economic Factors:
Pakistan is a developing country in South Asia with a population of 172 million and a per capita gross national income of US$ 420 .According to the World Bank, poverty remains a serious concern in Pakistan as 33% of the population live below the absolute poverty line (US$1 per day) and this has particular implications for children in Pakistan as 35% of the total population is under the age of 15 years. Most of the research conducted globally regarding the street child phenomenon indicates that poverty is the single most important factor in influencing children to leave their homes. An inadequate family income forces them to seek employment in the informal economy. The street children relate how, due to lack of stable or sufficient income, their parents had often sent them out to beg on the streets.

Family Factors
Abusive practices affect children in all circumstances in Pakistan, most commonly in families, where it is manifested as neglect, verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and infanticide. Outside of families, the abuse often takes the forms of child prostitution, displacement and child labor. Finally, within educational institutions and religious madrassahs, the most common forms of child abuse include rape, sodomy, excessive caning, battering, and verbal abuse. Large international studies have found that the majority of street children left home in order to escape dysfunctional families and lack of parent care in the form of neglect and physical and sexual violence. Although the studies in Pakistan are generally small, they do indicate that children are affected by neglect, and verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Parental arguments and split or broken families is also included in the family factors regarding street children. Many children also linked the poor living conditions of their home environment to an increase in various forms of violence within the family that ultimately contributed to them running away permanently.

Personal Factors
Many researches made it clear that the decision to live and work on the streets was sometimes partly (or wholly) their own, either through a desire to gain anticipated or because they had been attracted by images of the city in popular media such as cinema and television. Evidence suggests that many children in Pakistan make a personal decision to live and work on the streets to acquire autonomy. With a lack of social activities in the community and lack of recreational support within the home, many children, particularly those in rural Pakistan, are excited by the thought of vibrant city life.

Physical Violence
Physical violence within the family which included parental fights as well as physical punishments to the child as well constituted to be the prime reason for children to leave their homes. Violence forced the majority of these children to abandon their homes in the first place; the viciousness of life on the street forces them towards crime and substance abuse. The fact that an estimated 66 per cent cite physical abuse at home or at the workplace as the reason they ran away seems to prove American writer Zig Ziglars comment that Kids go where there is
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excitement;

they

stay

where

there

is

love.

Poverty
Poverty is a main and a big reason for such children to leave their houses. Most of the research conducted globally regarding the street child phenomenon indicates that poverty is the single most important factor in influencing children to leave their homes When a childs parents die or become too old to work it is usual for the obligation of repaying the debts to be passed on to their children. Sometimes, however, the children are forced to take on the full burden of the debt from a much earlier age and a child's labor is pledged directly in order to obtain an additional loan of money or goods. Many children also linked the poor living conditions of their home environment to an increase in various forms of violence within the family that ultimately contributed to them running away permanently.

Peer Pressure
Pressure from peer groups also appeared to be a factor, especially for those who were not attending school for one reason or another. Some children are motivated by their friends to leave their houses and go together some where they can live without restrictions.

Non caring Parents

Abusive practices affect children in all circumstances in Pakistan, most commonly in families, where it is manifested as neglect, verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and infanticide Some of the major reasons cited for the occurrence of street children in Pakistan include parental arguments and split or broken families Children are frequently beaten in Pakistan for minor offences such as bad behavior at home or poor performance at school.

Wanted Freedom
This desire is linked to the economic situation although there are deeper connotations as Pakistan is governed by strict Islamic principles, and children have little scope to act on their natural instincts and inclinations. Some of the street children (2.4%) described how they had run away from home due to love and attraction for the opposite sex, which was not tolerated in
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their home). Another commonly cited personal reason for street life is the glamorized portrayal of the city in popular media such as cinema and television which gives courage to leave their houses.

Didnt want to go to school

A large number of children complained that there was a consistent demanded from their parents to generate good results in education, which ended into an aggressive outcome if not fulfilled by the child. They continues physical and mental violence makes them mentally sick resulting them to leave their houses.

Other reasons
It is also evident that a large number of children living and working on the streets in Pakistan are refugees from neighboring Afghanistan, of whom UNHCR estimates there are approximately 2 million. Thrust into an already difficult economic situation with extremely high levels of competition, those refugee families that take refuge in urban areas are further neglected by the official development assistance, which concentrates on those inhabiting the official UN camps outside the cities. As such, thousands of Afghan children now work the streets as the principal wage-earners for their families.

Living style of street children

Group membership
It was interesting to note that all such children never live their lives alone, but usually stay within groups in the company of other street children. 78.5% of the children that they stay within a larger group of fellow street children. These groups are usually controlled by a group leader, who is usually an elder, either the strongest boy or the one who owns the place. Children were of the opinion that living in open places gives rise to the feeling of insecurity and they remain vulnerable to abuse. Being a part of group they perform all the rituals and enjoy life in their own ways.

Sleeping place at night

More than half of these children had been sleeping on the streets at footpaths or parks. Some children reported that they had been sleeping at various Mazars or darbars (shrines). A very few children informed that they slept at either their own workplace or at the place where their friend works.

Health conditions
The major problems of street children regarding their health are GIT upsets Respiratory tract infection, Fever and skin infections. Other complaints included Headaches, flu, cough, generalized weakness, unspecified aches and myalgias etc. The lead reason reported for not seeing a doctor was lack of finances Other important reasons reported were a fear of injection, dont know a doctor , dont want to go because doctors are not cooperative some of them relies on self treatment . The common ailments of street children in Pakistan include: injuries, respiratory and skin infections, dermatological conditions and malnutrition. These children are also at increased risk of acquiring sexually-transmitted diseases such as HIV due to their exposure to high risk sexual behavior. According to the research of the Azad Foundation, 4 out of every 10 of these children examined were infected with Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Sexual abuse with the street children is very common, along with physical abuse.
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SEXUAL BEHAVIOR & PRACTICES

High proportions of children reported a lifetime prevalence of experiencing a sexual intercourse. There are some who only steal and provide them for prostitution or offer services in exchange of a meal, like providing a massage or euphemism for sex. Not only that large proportion of children was found to be sexually active, they were found to have initiated sexual activity at a very young age, which is against the norms in a state like Pakistan. Children were inquired whether they had been raped or sexually assaulted while living on the street. A fairly high proportion of children admitted that they had been raped (76%) while living on the street. Half of the remaining 24%children informed that they had never been sexually assaulted or raped.

SUBSTANCE USE
High proportions of children reported use of various forms of Tobacco including Cigarette smoking and use of tobacco in Pan. Cigarette smoking is an extremely prevalent characteristic found in all cities. It was seen that these children become involved with tobacco, start smoking at a very young age which serves as the first addictive agent used by the majority of these children, before they start experimenting and getting involved with other drugs. Other drugs include Hashish, Opium and Heroin. A study by the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Pakistan Society in the bustling southern city of Karachi found that 83 percent of 10,000 impoverished minors sniff glue to get high, mainly because of its trouble-free accessibility and low cost. Glue is usually bought from hardware and stationery stores, reveals the study, "Glue Sniffing Problem in Karachi." The favorite of addicts -- aged between 8 and 19 years -- is a brand known as Samad Bond, used to bind items like leather, rubber, wood, textiles and glass. They spread glue on a thick paper or piece of cloth, roll it and then light up, or pour the sticky substance into a shopping bag and hold it near their faces. Some addicts simply eat the glue to

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get high. These children, called sniffers, also use substances like paint, petrol, varnish and benzene for intoxication.

CHILD LABOUR LEGISLATION IN PAKISTAN

According to the constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan states, "No child below the age of fourteen shall be engaged in any factory or mine or in any other hazardous employment". Also, "All forms of forced labor and traffic in human beings, is prohibited". A number of laws contain provisions prohibiting child labor or regulating the working conditions of child and adolescent workers

REASONS OF ACCEPTING STREET CHILDREN IN PAKISTAN

Street children presence in Pakistan is often justified. The poor and illiterate families have little choice but to send their children to work. It may be a matter of survival for many million families in the country which prevents affirmative official action to combat child labor. Unfortunately, the government has to acknowledge the fact that poverty not only causes child labor, but is also caused by child labor. As a result, the number of child workers, according to unofficial sources, has gone up to ten million or more. The government usually justifies its action not to abolish child labor because families are too large and poor, there are not enough schools, lack of resources, and unemployment is too high. Therefore decision to alleviate poverty in the hope that street children would vanish once poverty is reduced. Similarly, if universal education is provided, child workers would flock to schools. But it is usually easier to say than done.

No law to safeguard street childrens rights

Contrary to the tall claims of protecting human rights of all the citizens, the federal government has so far introduced no legislation to safeguard street childrens rights. The number of street
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children is increasing with every passing day and they are susceptible to all kinds of violence and an easy prey for all types of abusers. Being young, poor, illiterate and defenseless, children are abused and exploited sexually, verbally, emotionally and psychologically.

Violence against children could range between harassment to pedophilia, sexual abuse and sodomy; they could be coerced to join gangs of criminals and used as drug traffickers or turned into beggars by beggars mafia. Only Punjab and KP have a legal system to address street childrens issue but, unfortunately, this sensitive matter is badly neglected in Baluchistan, Sindh and Islamabad. Police were also among the leading enemies of street children as indiscriminate violations against children were committed with impunity because of no fear of reprisal from the law and the society.

According to a recent global report on administrative detention of children in Pakistan despite Pakistani laws requiring that children should be brought to a magistrate within twenty-four hours of their arrest, many children were kept in police lockups for considerably longer periods before being produced in front of a magistrate, often for two weeks, and in one case, for three months.

Child Protection Bureau CPB

The Pakistan Child Protection Bureau (CPB) has been charged with the duty to take care of street children. The CPB reserves the right to take the children into their custody whenever they are brought to the offices attention. Under the Punjab Destitute and Neglected Children Bill 2004, the CPB reserves the right to take any street child into its custody and the designated CPB centers across the province are equipped to house, clothe, educate and feed the children until they can be sent to public school or returned to their parents. We have all the facilities and we reserve the right to return the child to his or her parents. If the parents are engaged in the beggary mafia we can choose not to return the child, in other cases we give the parents vocational training to ensure they can provide for the child. The bureau was operating on a shoe string budget even though it had elaborate facilities that had been set up by the previous government. We have the facilities to take care of many children

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but not enough of a day to day operating budget. Rescue 1122 has dozens of ambulances in each city we have only one for Lahore.

Program for Street Kids

Pakistan Society has established the only need-based and context oriented shelter home / residential facility for young street solvent abusers in Karachi called Promise House. In the Promise House, these runaway, abandoned, unprivileged homeless children, most of whom have been abused or rejected by dysfunctional and poverty-striken families are fed, clothed, given a clean bed, diagnostic and medical treatment, counseling, detoxification, non-formal educational and income generating activities, training, security and most important of alldignity, love and hope enabling them to improve quality of their life aimed at their social reintegration and helping them becoming functional and respectable members of society in future. The Promise House also works as a Crisis Centre where outside street kids can get immediate, round-the-clock emergency medical care including antiseptic dressings, medicine for minor ailments and the benefit of an attentive ear, an instructive tongue and a compassionate heart. Outside the Promise House, our Outreach Teams contact solvent abusing kids on the streets for providing counseling, motivations and information about harm reduction, detoxification and shelter home services. The outreach workers also provide them paper bags and rags to minimize inhalants related harm. Pakistan Society is also working towards raising public and political awareness of the rights and needs of street children especially those involved with drug abuse with a view to eliminate neglect, alleviate homelessness and educate high risk youth to be responsible.

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RECOMMENDATIONS
Although the responsibility of taking care of thousands of street children lies with the government, and to some extent NGOs working in this field. But this is such a deep rooted problem that such problems could be tackled by the voluntary action of any citizen to set up houses like Edhi, where the homeless and/or runaway children are kept away from harms. Such houses should be formed all over the country with the collaboration of the government and the taxpayers, each contributing their share either in the form of money, infrastructure or just work. Efforts should be made by using the media to reunite runaway children with their families, so that at least they can be taken off the streets immediately. Also a database should be maintained of runaways at the city level that should work independently, allowing parents to approach them without any hassle to report a missing child, as well as in collaboration with FIRs filed at police stations so that these can be compared among cities to facilitate the recovery of a missing child. Another tedious and lengthy, but vital process could be for volunteers in plain clothes and not officials, to roam on the streets in order to catalogue street children complete name, age, gender and place of origin. This will provide better data to the houses to accommodate these children, while it will also enhance to reunite runaways with their families. Existing laws must be implemented, and the gangs of beggars should be arrested and punished for 'child bondage and labor'. The children should be taken away from these people to be put into safe places so that they can lead a better and safer life than they are accustomed to. They can be given the basic facilities of life like security and three square meals a day. Unfortunately, when there is talk of efforts to solve the problems of street children, the first thing that is brought forth and argued is education and health, which are in their own sphere extremely important. When in fact the first step towards rehabilitating these children is to provide them with physical and sexual security, and a place where they can spend their day or sleep at night without any fear. If all this is accomplished and these children are given a chance to a better life, the major problem will be to accommodate them in a society by providing them with jobs and housing.
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This can be achieved with a joint system which would accommodate the older breed of street children, providing them employment into the same system of rehabilitation where they will be able to provide therapeutic rehabilitation to other children like themselves by not only actually understanding the situation but relating to the many apprehensions that these children themselves have faced.

CONCLUSION
Our study has documented an extremely high risk situation for children living on the streets on Pakistan. In the majority of cases street children are first and foremost the victims of poverty and factors closely associated with it. Several other factors are usually considered to be responsible for the prevalence of street children. Some of those are conflicts with in the family, poor parenting, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, peer influence, domestic violence, death of parents, urbanization, famine and war, all of these activate the desire to seek opportunities outside the home environment or parental control. Not only these children are deprived of the essential relationship with vital societal institutions that traditionally provide sources of support, but unknowingly are under a continuous threat of contracting the deadly virus which causes HIV. These children lack a sound basic knowledge of AIDS, and hang on to many misconceptions about its transmission. The street youth in Pakistan appear neither to perceive themselves at risk for infection nor to take precautions to prevent it. It is clear, therefore, that they do not have a full understanding of the implications of their sexual activities nor do they accept that the virus transmission routes have any relevance for them. Street children are particularly at high risk of sexual abuse targeted primarily because it is easier to access them. They constantly face abuse from other citizens and harassment by the police. As a consequence, some children begin to offer sexual services to these people and get involved in what is known as survival sex, which refers to the selling of sex to meet basic needs, such as food or money. Research has shown strong associations between survival sex and other highrisk activities, such as substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, and criminal behavior.

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