Children of street

07 Dec 2008
It was 19 Nov 2008. We, some members of the Centre for Security and Justice Studies (CSJS), went to the office of Street Talent Concern Nepal (STCN)—an NGO founded by street children themselves which is working for the rehabilitation of the street children—to talk to some street children gathered up there. There are several children’s homes but the problems of street children remain unaddressed. Our objective of the visit was to find out prospects to reintegrate the street children back to their families and societies.

The first thing that we all noticed was the strong smell of the dendrite (malham as they nick named it), a chemical substance used for furniture. Some of these children were inhaling the stuff. They told that these stuffs gave them some kind of “kick” and intoxication. These dendrites were easily available in the local market for seventy rupees (1US $). Manoj Khadka related that his grand father had brought him to Kathmandu. Now he enjoys his life in the street. He does some begging for money. He is aware of some children’s homes in the city which provide food to new comers and only biscuits to “old” children. Saroj Praiyar of Panauti said that he remembers coming with his mother who has eloped with three persons.

These children spend their nights under the open sky without anything to protect them from cold. The pavements of the streets and temples are their usual hangouts. They often spend days without food. They are engaged in rag picking, stealing, begging, pick-pocketing, and robbing “murga” –a drunk and helpless victim. These children fall prey to the early habits of smoking, drinking, drugs, and sexual abuse. The smaller ones are tortured by the hoodlums or “dada”. They take away the money from these small children. Often these small children fall from the river bridge and die in an attempt to escape from these “goondas.” As these children grow older they avoid begging and rags picking. They adopt new tactics to live. They indulge in bigger crimes.

The previous studies have shown that the tendency for children to turn into street is associated with landless families involved in low paid non-agricultural activities. Many of them are cases of single parent or stepparent families whose illiterate guardians do not care for them. Although many of these children would prefer to stay on the street and not rejoin the society as they enjoy the freedom, albeit precarious, of their lifestyle and regard social life as constrained; there are others who really want to resume their studies and go back to their homes. We think, there are opportunities to reintegrate these street children with their families and society.

Dr. Govind P. Thapa
President, CSJS