AN upward of 3,000 children in the Gujranwala district take to beggary, child labour and addiction every year owing to family disintegration caused by conflicts in parents, second marriage issue and neglect they feel in large families.

Such unfortunate children are then physically and sexually abused in society that forces them into addiction and criminal activities eventually leading them to ruin.

Instances of this nature have been multiplying with every passing year. Eleven-year-old Muhammad Umar’s mother got divorce from his addict father, Liaquat Ali, of Sialkot. His brother went along with his mother while he remained with his father at the grandfather’s house. His mother remarried and moved to some other city with his brother.

Deprived of maternal love at the tender age, Umar had to face another setback when his grandfather left him at the mercy of his father who had started stealing valuables from houses in the neighbourhood. On the complaints of neighbours, the grandfather moved away after selling his house.

Umar’s life, henceforward, was one of untold ordeal as his father would beat him and abuse him, denying him the much-needed paternal affection. Circumstances made young Umar run away from his dwelling and during his over two-year stay in the city thereafter, he did car washing, worked at different shops and even started dancing with eunuchs.

Pavements near the railway station became his bed and his colleagues at shops and other places allegedly sodomised and thrashed him quite frequently. He said he then turned to addiction until the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau took him into custody.

Many children like Umar meet the same fate early in their lives which in most of the cases are cut short due to their indulgence in misdeeds.

Shafique Ratyal, the child protection officer at the CPB, told Dawn that the officials went to Sialkot in the search of Umar’s father but learnt that he had died while his mother could not be traced.

On the child’s identification, he said, they took him to his relatives but all of them refused to recognise and adopt him and the bureau had to accommodate him.

He said the child was doing well at the CPB and had recently won gold medal for showing excellent results in studies.

CPB Resident Director Rao Khalil Ahmad said the bureau had rescued 775 children during the last one year, out of which 727 had reunited with their families through courts and six had been referred to the Lahore office.

Socio-economic problems were the basic reason that led to family disorders and the CPB was offering counselling of the families and the rescued children to solve their social problems.

While the economic problems were being solved through microfinance facility of a maximum of Rs25,000 loan to help the destitute families start small businesses, he said.

Ms Saira Banu, a psychologist working for the CPB, told Dawn that due to lack of awareness, large family sizes and illiteracy, parents did not pay proper attention to their children and even thrash them for no fault of theirs which made them take up bad habits.

She believed that 90 per cent of the problems facing the children emerged due to family disorders that could be removed a great deal through counselling and follow-up.