KARACHI, July 17: Although the number of street-children is on the rise with the increase in poverty, the province lacks shelter-homes for women and children.

There is not a single shelter home for boys in the entire province, except the one run by the Edhi Foundation in Karachi.

The city, with population of over 10 million, has few shelter homes for women, run by different organizations, having an overall capacity of not more than 200.

This was stated at an orientation workshop, organized by the Madadgar Helpline of the Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal-Aid at a local hotel on Thursday.

The participants of the workshop included representatives of various government departments and NGOs.

A representative of the social welfare department said that the Darul Aman, a government-run shelter-home for women in Karachi, has a capacity of only 35 women, but no women can be kept there without court orders. She further stated that similar Darul Amans are operative in Hyderabad, Sukkur and Larkana also.

Ms. Shahnaz, another representative of the department, suggested that a part of the Darul Aman can be specified for destitute women who can be kept there without court orders.

She said there is no shelter home for boys in entire province. However, a centre for the girls is being run in Korangi.

Dr. Nabeela Khan said they have received complaints that privately-managed shelter homes demand money from the poor and destitute women. Moreover, these homes refuse to provide shelter in case of runaway or missing children.

She said while there was less number of shelter homes and the old-age homes are non-existent.

On the achievements of the Madadgar, it was informed that its help-line received over 1,1000 distress calls from women and children between 2001 and June 2003.

It has 193 referral partners to whom 998 cases were referred, of which 550 pertained to women and others to children.

Zia Ahmed Awan, president LHRLA, said that his organization had undertaken a study on street-children and a report was being compiled.

Zia Awan said his organization had registered an increase in the cases of suicides by children which is alarming and since 50 per cent of our population consists of children, we should focus more on resolving the problems of children.—PPI