Punjab hands over 13 runaway boys to Sindh govt

Published July 24, 2014
The runaway children, aged between 12 and 16, getting off the Karakoram Express after it arrived at the Karachi cantonment railway station from Lahore on Wednesday.—Fahim Siddiqi / White Star
The runaway children, aged between 12 and 16, getting off the Karakoram Express after it arrived at the Karachi cantonment railway station from Lahore on Wednesday.—Fahim Siddiqi / White Star

KARACHI: The Punjab Child Protection Bureau on Wednesday handed over 13 runaway boys to the social welfare department of Sindh to reunite them with their families in the city months after they had left their homes.

The social welfare authorities claimed that the children would be kept at Darul Itfaal (shelter home for children) until their families were located, but the government lacks one for boys in Karachi as the lone facility in the city offers accommodation to girls only while those for boys are situated in Hyderabad and Sukkur.

The development has revived the debate over the need for the establishment of the Sindh Child Protection Authority despite the lapse of over three years since the enactment of the SCPA law for the provision of the rights of the children in need of special protection.

Sindh has no facility to house street children being sent back from Punjab

Speaking to the media at the Cantonment railway station after disembarking from the Karakoram Express, Mohammad Amin, an official of the Punjab Child Protection Bureau, said: “We have arrived here from Lahore to hand over the 13 children from Sindh to the relevant authorities.”

He said the boys had come to Lahore four to six months ago.

All of them were runaways or those who had suffered different forms of torture in Karachi.

“Some of them had left their houses after being fed up with domestic problems. The rest were street children who escaped from Karachi to get away from different forms of torture they were going through,” he added.

In all, 19 children belonging to Karachi had been taken into custody by the Punjab authorities, Mr Amin explained. While five of them had already been given to their families who reached Lahore, another boy was found to have provided wrong address to the officials who learnt that he actually hailed from Multan, he said.

“Of the remaining 13 children, we counterchecked the details with the officials in Sindh and escorted them to hand them over safely to the Sindh government,” he added.

The 13th child

Also present at the railway station, Manzoor Ahmed Bhatti, a construction worker who resides in New Karachi, told the media that his 13-year-old son, Shan, had run away four months ago after a domestic quarrel. “He ran away after a quarrel with his siblings. We searched him everywhere even in mortuaries, but he was found nowhere,” said the father of eight daughters and four sons who had shifted from Ranipur to Karachi some two decades ago.

He said the family had even lodged a report with the local police about the boy’s disappearance. “Believe me, I actually had placed him among the dead and was mentally ready to receive a call from police for the identification of a dead teenager. I did receive a call from the police and welfare department after four months and my heart missed a beat when I was informed that my son was alive,” said Bhatti with a smile on his face.

He kissed the cheeks of the skinny child who like all the other boys was wearing trousers and T-shirts provided by the Punjab authorities.

“I was very angry,” said Shan, while referring to the dispute that caused him to flee home. “Everyone was teasing me and no one was listening to what I wanted,” he said, adding that he just wanted a few rupees to hang out with friends but the family had refused him.

The 13-year-old said he begged for a couple of days in Karachi, pulled together the cash and then boarded a Lahore-bound bus. “I wanted to leave the city so that no one from my family can find me. I wanted to run far away from them.”

Within a few days, he overcame his anger and then longed to see his family, but the situation had changed as he was a stranger in Lahore and surrounded by criminals. “I cried for my family, I wept but found no one to wipe my tears off,” he said.

One day policemen rounded him up along with other children and handed them over to the authorities concerned. Finally, he said, the officials got his details and shared them with relevant officials in Karachi.

“I will never run away again,” said Shan while looking ruefully at his father.

Not as lucky as Shan

Similar tales were narrated by the other boys though they were not as lucky as Shan as the authorities will have to look for their families in the neighbourhoods they provided details of.

“We’ll keep these children in our Darul Itfaal (children’s home) and help them get skilled in various vocations until their families are located,” said Nuzhat Ara, a director of the social welfare department.

However, it was not clear where those children would be kept. The government runs a home for girls in Karachi and two others for boys in Hyderabad and Sukkur. The Karachi facility is located in a huge building dedicated for the purpose in Shanti Nagar but it is yet to be made a safe area for the girls in need.

Sources said the authorities had earlier contemplated handing over the boys to a privately-run facility for child protection, as the former lacked a better place for accommodation, but they decided to send them to the Darul Itfaal after a section of the press criticised them for failing to establish an authority long overdue to take care of children in need.

Officials were not clear whether they would send the boys hailing from Karachi to the Hyderabad facility or carve out some place in the shelter for girls.

The Sindh Child Protection Authority Act, which was meant to provide for the establishment of an authority to ensure the rights of the children in need of special protection measures, had been enacted in 2011. But the government has been dragging its heels over the establishment of the body that should have come into being within 60 days of the enactment of the law.

Officials in the welfare department said they were still waiting for the issuance of a notification of relevant rules, a prerequisite for the establishment of the authority meant to monitor child protection related issues at the provincial and district levels.

Iqbal Detho of the Save the Children said that constant delays in establishing the authority worsened the situation of child rights in Sindh.

The Sindh Assembly had passed the Sindh Child Protection Authority Bill in May 2011 and the governor assented to the bill in June to ensure the rights of children — people up to the age of 18 — who need special protection measures.

Sources blamed the government for the delays in making bylaws that hindered the establishment of the SCPA.

According to the law, a child in need of special protection measures includes the one who is victim of violence, abuse and exploitation; subjected to physical and psychological violence, sexual abuse or commercial sexual exploitation; forced into the worst forms of child labour, exploitative labour or beggary; subjected to human trafficking within and outside Pakistan; being misused for drug trafficking or subjected to abuse of substances like glue drugs, spirit; engaged in an armed conflict; without primary care givers; and affected or infected with HIV/Aids.

Published in Dawn, July 24th , 2014

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