Though
the majority of the street children
manage to earn or scavenge their daily
food , they are denied the basics
of survival, all street children and
ragpickers are:
- Abused and
exploited.
- Deprived:
lacking job, money, food and shelter,
they are forced into begging,
thieving, drug peddling, pimping,
and prostitution.
- Regarded
as juvenile delinquents and antisocial
elements, they are often falsely
accused of crimes and sent to
secure homes of correction, or
worse, put into adult prisons
- Engaged in
gambling, a popular pastime on
the street.
- Denied education.
- Cut off from
parental influence and guidance.
Most
importantly, the children on the streets
remain deprived of their basic needs
of food, shelter, clothing and the
security of family love and a home.
With no adult to care for them, these
children have no role model for guidance,
surviving and fending for themselves
and coping with all the problems of
the local community, way before they
have developed the physical and emotional
maturity this demands.
Most
street children and ragpickers suffer
from diseases like scabies; infestation
of lice; chronic dysentery; worms;
TB; epilepsy, lung, ear, dental, nose
and throat infections; chronic cuts;
unhealed abrasions and some, sexually
transmitted diseases, all these are
caused by extreme poverty, exploitation,
malnutrition and unhygienic surroundings
in which the children are forced live.
In a recent survey it was estimated
that there are about 70,000 ragpickers
in Bangalore city (50% of these Ragpickers
are children) and 65,000 street children
living in extreme physical and spiritual
poverty. They live on the streets,
railway platforms, and the unhygienic
disease-infested slums in and around
Bangalore city, where 750 slum areas
have already been identified.
These children are shunned by society
as they are in rags, filthy, infested
and smell badly, they are very suspicious
of everyone, having known only hard
knocks, and cannot believe that anyone
can give them unconditional love.
They are afraid of the police and
give false names if arrested, when
they are arrested they are put in
“cooler rooms”, where
many are sexually assaulted, and abused,
so even if a child should have the
chance to return home they would be
too ashamed to do so. |
