PESHAWAR, July 31: Unfriendly atmosphere at home and uncongenial social environment cause the children to run away from their homes, says a survey report prepared by the NGOs Coalition on Child Rights (NCCR).

Last year about 404 children were found missing in Charsadda, Haripur, Mardan, Dir, Bannu, Swabi, Karak and Dera Ismail Khan. The children left their homes to escape the harsh attitude of their parents and other family members or corporal punishment at schools.

Professor Ismail of the NCCR attributed the increase in the number of runaway 

children to the fact that parents in most cases were unaware of the psychological needs of a growing child. 

Parents and teachers needed to be educated about the psychology of a child to curb this trend, he observed.

Bad company also contributed to children’s escaping from their homes, the report revealed.

A new factor that lures the teenagers to run away from home is Jihad. About 6.68 per cent teenage boys, in the year 2002 left their homes and joined 

Jihadi organizations, whereas young girls between 16 and 18 years of age preferred to run away from their families because they were forced to marry against their will, the report said.

Another factor adding to this trend was unemployment. The report said that some children opted to move away from their homes to get to big industrial cities like Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi. These children were engaged in manual chores like shoe polishing and selling newspapers to earn a living.

According to the survey conducted in eight districts of the NWFP, only 22.77 per cent parents reported the disappearance of their children to the police, whereas 77.23 per cent avoided to report.