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City's hapless street children

95pc of them growing up without any aid

Raihan Sabuktagin
More than 95 percent street children in the city remain out of any assistant either from government or nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), experts say.
Deprived of their fundamental rights, these children are growing up without education.
The Department of Social Welfare that deals with the street children has no data on the number of the street children in the city at present.
However, a government baseline survey conducted in 2004 revealed that at least 2,49,000 street children were in the city in that year.
The survey under 'Appropriate resources for improving street children's environ-
ment project' conducted by the social welfare department indicated that the number of street children was increasing alarmingly in the city.
At present the government is implementing 'Protection of Children at Risk (PCAR)' project to mainstream the street children into society7.
Under the project, the Department of Social Welfare in cooperation with its partner NGOs is providing assistance to the street children in the city since April 2007.
According to PCAR records, the project provided aid to about 3,000 street children in the city in the last 21 months.
"This project could cover only a fraction of the street children of the city,” an
expert working for PCAR project said expressing frustration on the situation.
He said the government is providing food, shelter and some skill training to the street children in the city though five partner NGOs. These NGOs are operating four shelter homes in the capital. The project is scheduled to complete this month.
“Now the project is almost complete. But we don't know what will happen to these shelter homes if the project does not continue in future,” said the expert.
Apart from the PCAR project, there are some other NGOs that are providing shelter to street children in the city but it is too small to be mentioned, he added.
Mohammad Abual Hossain, project director of
PCAR, told Star City7 that the government is trying to address the problems of the increasing number of street children in the city.
The government is working hard to solve their problems. Several shelter homes have been launched through NGOs in Dhaka and other divisional cities, he said.
"But, practically without help from community and other sources, the government alone cannot solve the problems,” he noted.
About continuation of PCAR project, he said the government is going to extend the assistances to the street children till December 2010.
Aminul Islam, coordinator of an NGO that has several shelter homes in the city said,
“We are operating shelter homes in the city under PCAR project but the coverage will not cross five percent of the total street children."
He said children outside the coverage of the government and NGO assistance often violate the rights of other street children.
Street children are found in bazaars, commercial areas, bus terminals, hotels and parks, on the pavements, around the stadium. They try to earn a living through collecting garbage, breaking bricks or pushing rickshaws. Some of them work in roadside tea stalls while some are just beggars. Some street children are involved in petty crime.
The. underworld gangs use the street children in drug peddling, snatching, toll collection and other crimes.
Dr MSI Mullick, an associate professor of psychiatry at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, says children growing up in deprivation are accustomed to extreme behaviours, primarily because of inferiority complex. "You cannot expect good behaviour from a person who have not been treated well by others, can you?”