PESHAWAR, Nov 20: The children staged interesting skits to highlight the miseries of the begging and working street children, urging their parents to take care of their offsprings by admitting them into the centre for street children to make them useful citizens in future.

The function was arranged by Terre des Homes (TDH), a Switzerland-based NGO, here at the Street Children Centre on Wednesday, to observe the Children Rights Day.

An Afghan child, Saleem, who enacted as a dental surgeon, examined the teeth of a small girl and advised her extraction of her sick tooth. He began the process by catching the teeth in a forceps to pull it out.

As no anaesthesia had been administered to the child, she wept and resisted the doctor, but as the doctor was deaf and could not hear the screaming girl and continued applying force and finally succeeded in his efforts but in the process, the girl died.

When the people raised hue and cry over the inhuman act of the doctor who pretended that the girl was still in anaesthesia and that she would recover. Meanwhile, he ran away from the scene to escape the wrath of the people.

The children also presented religious and other songs and poems depicting the importance of the Children’ Rights Day.

In this way, we are trying to show the world that how the children in developing countries are exposed to such cruelties, said Olivier, Technical Advisor of the TDH.

He said that his organization operated in 40 countries of the world and ran 150 projects to improve the condition of the children by imparting them informal education and necessary know-how to develop their skills.

According to him, they provided health education, recreation, education and protection to as many 120 children at the centre, which was established in January 2002.

On the occasion, a child also read a poem wherein he urged the children to get education to help their parents in future. Similarly, many other children told about the sufferings of the street children and the way they face hardships while begging in streets and bazaars.

Mr Olivier was of the view that the children were a great asset for the community in general and their families in particular and there was an urgent need to provide them with basic education so they could grow up in an atmosphere conducive for the prevalence of a better society.

“I have been reading here in second shift (evening) from the last two months. The teachers teach us Pushto, Dari, English, geography and mathematics. I have learned a lot. Initially, my parents were unwilling to allow me, because they wanted me to beg and earn some money, but now they are happy,” said Gul Wali, who said that he was still a scavenger.

The children celebrated the Day in a befitting manner. They clapped profusely after every item presented from the stage.

Fazal Mehmood, project coordinator of the Centre for the Street Children, informed that they were carrying out activities aimed at the well-being of the children. He said they visited streets and distributed football etc among the children to engage them in useful activities.