By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, Feb 3 2004 (IPS)

”When my father divorced my mother, I decided to come to Karachi and look for her. I still have not found her,” says Hyder, a boy who has roamed this sprawling Pakistani port city’s back alleys for three years.

”When my father divorced my mother, I decided to come to Karachi and look for her. I still have not found her,” says Hyder, a boy who has roamed this sprawling Pakistani port city’s back alleys for three years.

More popularly known as Kasuri, as he comes from the small Punjabi town of Kasur, he has come to the offices of the Azad Foundation, a non-governmental organisation working with street children, to have a wound on his foot cleaned and bandaged.

Kasuri, stoned, speaks in a trance-like manner devoid of any expression. Wearing a worn out muslin shirt open at the neck and pants that barely cover his calves, he seems oblivious to the biting cold.

His friend Shakeel, also stoned from sniffing glue and on the brink of puberty, has survived on Karachi’s streets for more than 10 years. He came from Okara, also in Punjab province, after both his parents died.

”I was gang-raped by four policemen in Landhi jail where I was put behind bars under Section 109 for loitering,” he says.

With a flourish, he takes off his thin shirt to reveal blade wounds on his back that he says he has received over the years.

Shakeel earns a living by begging. ”I fake a limp and can easily make 100 rupees a day from unsuspecting people,” he says, referring to the local currency equivalent of 1.74 dollars.

Abdullah, initiated into street life relatively recently, feels homesick. Appearing far too small for his age – he says he is 10 years old – gives a toothy smile and explains why he had his head shaved. ”The glue got stuck in my hair,” he says.

Abdullah says he comes from a nearby fishing village where his father, a teacher in a ‘madrasah’ or Islamic religious school, hit him violently on the slightest pretext. So he ran away. ”But I want to go back now,” he adds. ”I’m tired. Can you send me back home?” he asks IPS.

Navaid Hasan Khan, Azad Foundation’s chief executive officer, says there are some 13,000 to 15,000 street children in Karachi alone and the number is increasing. In fact, he describes this estimate as conservative.

There are no official statistics, however, and this platoon of street residents remains faceless until thrust into headlines by events such as the murder in 2000 of 100 boys, all of whom were seared in sulfuric acid by the same killer.

Kasuri scores his daily dose of glue at Promise House, a shelter for street children opened in 2003. At the shelter, he and others receive a free supply of glue – but the dosage is gradually decreased in an effort to wean them off glue before they turn to harder drugs, which is an even bigger problem.

The effort also is aimed at preventing the children from sniffing glue in plastic bags, a practice that has killed some by depriving them of oxygen and that has exposed many others to toxins present in the plastic.

”We give them paper bags and rags and tell them about shallow inhalation. Our purpose is to wean them off drugs gradually and reintegrate them back into their families, which is the most difficult as they are not willing to go home,” says Saleem Azam, the doctor who founded Promise House.

Nearly one in four glue sniffers surveyed by Azad Foundation said they took cannabis and raw liquor as well as glue. The longer they use these substances, experts said, the greater the risk they would resort to heroin later on.

Azam has worked with drug addicts for 23 years and says he finds street children difficult to manage.

”They are stubborn and precocious, practise sex actively with a leaning toward homosexuality, have suicidal tendencies and think nothing of inflicting pain on themselves,” he says.

”They are from very poor families, where domestic abuse is rampant, where they have already been physically, mentally and sexually abused, where they have already seen drug use. Restless and extremely unhappy, they flee and enter the harsh and hostile street environment,” Azam adds. ”Unable to handle that either, they seek refuge in drugs.”

According to an Azad Foundation study, street children come from large, very poor families. Once on the streets, they survive by polishing cars, begging, picking garbage or picking pockets.

”These children, once counselled, can be veered away not just from substance abuse but all the other anti-social activities they are involved in and can be rehabilitated back into their homes,” says Hasan.

Absent such efforts, street kids are consigned to a harsh life.

”They live in groups. Their areas are demarcated and one group would dare not venture into the other group’s domain. The children can well fend for themselves. The newcomer has to really work his way into the group and may well have to satisfy the leader in more ways than one,” says Amjad Rasul, programme manager at Azad Foundation.

A large majority of the children are involved in sex for money, research by the foundation has also showed. Yet they lack information about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV/AIDS, much less how to protect themselves from infection.

”Their knowledge was based on information gathered from friends, porn films and their own experiences,” says Hasan. ”They indulge in sex for pleasure or for money and in the bargain develop STDs.”

Azad Foundation now runs safe-sex workshops. With help from local philanthropists, it operates a mobile dispensary where street kids – many of them grossly malnourished and suffering a host of infections, injuries and respiratory ailments – can be diagnosed and receive medication.

But those who provide shelter and health services to the street children say their dream is to move beyond making street life less harsh. At Azad Foundation, the long-term plan includes setting up a support programme for children as they re-integrate into society, perhaps even into their families.

Excerpt:

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, Feb 2 2004 (IPS)

”When my father divorced my mother, I decided to come to Karachi and look for her. I still have not found her,” says Hyder, a boy who has roamed this sprawling Pakistani port city’s back alleys for three years.

More popularly known as Kasuri, as he comes from the small Punjabi town of Kasur, he has come to the offices of the Azad Foundation, a non-governmental organisation working with street children, to have a wound on his foot cleaned and bandaged.

Kasuri, stoned, speaks in a trance-like manner devoid of any expression. Wearing a worn out muslin shirt open at the neck and pants that barely cover his calves, he seems oblivious to the biting cold.

His friend Shakeel, also stoned from sniffing glue and on the brink of puberty, has survived on Karachi’s streets for more than 10 years. He came from Okara, also in Punjab province, after both his parents died.

”I was gang-raped by four policemen in Landhi jail where I was put behind bars under Section 109 for loitering,” he says.

With a flourish, he takes off his thin shirt to reveal blade wounds on his back that he says he has received over the years.

Shakeel earns a living by begging. ”I fake a limp and can easily make 100 rupees a day from unsuspecting people,” he says, referring to the local currency equivalent of 1.74 dollars.

Abdullah, initiated into street life relatively recently, feels homesick. Appearing far too small for his age – he says he is 10 years old – gives a toothy smile and explains why he had his head shaved. ”The glue got stuck in my hair,” he says.

Abdullah says he comes from a nearby fishing village where his father, a teacher in a ‘madrasah’ or Islamic religious school, hit him violently on the slightest pretext. So he ran away. ”But I want to go back now,” he adds. ”I’m tired. Can you send me back home?” he asks IPS.

Navaid Hasan Khan, Azad Foundation’s chief executive officer, says there are some 13,000 to 15,000 street children in Karachi alone and the number is increasing. In fact, he describes this estimate as conservative.

There are no official statistics, however, and this platoon of street residents remains faceless until thrust into headlines by events such as the murder in 2000 of 100 boys, all of whom were seared in sulfuric acid by the same killer.

Kasuri scores his daily dose of glue at Promise House, a shelter for street children opened in 2003. At the shelter, he and others receive a free supply of glue – but the dosage is gradually decreased in an effort to wean them off glue before they turn to harder drugs, which is an even bigger problem.

The effort also is aimed at preventing the children from sniffing glue in plastic bags, a practice that has killed some by depriving them of oxygen and that has exposed many others to toxins present in the plastic.

”We give them paper bags and rags and tell them about shallow inhalation. Our purpose is to wean them off drugs gradually and reintegrate them back into their families, which is the most difficult as they are not willing to go home,” says Saleem Azam, the doctor who founded Promise House.

Nearly one in four glue sniffers surveyed by Azad Foundation said they took cannabis and raw liquor as well as glue. The longer they use these substances, experts said, the greater the risk they would resort to heroin later on.

Azam has worked with drug addicts for 23 years and says he finds street children difficult to manage.

”They are stubborn and precocious, practise sex actively with a leaning toward homosexuality, have suicidal tendencies and think nothing of inflicting pain on themselves,” he says.

”They are from very poor families, where domestic abuse is rampant, where they have already been physically, mentally and sexually abused, where they have already seen drug use. Restless and extremely unhappy, they flee and enter the harsh and hostile street environment,” Azam adds. ”Unable to handle that either, they seek refuge in drugs.”

According to an Azad Foundation study, street children come from large, very poor families. Once on the streets, they survive by polishing cars, begging, picking garbage or picking pockets.

”These children, once counselled, can be veered away not just from substance abuse but all the other anti-social activities they are involved in and can be rehabilitated back into their homes,” says Hasan.

Absent such efforts, street kids are consigned to a harsh life.

”They live in groups. Their areas are demarcated and one group would dare not venture into the other group’s domain. The children can well fend for themselves. The newcomer has to really work his way into the group and may well have to satisfy the leader in more ways than one,” says Amjad Rasul, programme manager at Azad Foundation.

A large majority of the children are involved in sex for money, research by the foundation has also showed. Yet they lack information about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV/AIDS, much less how to protect themselves from infection.

”Their knowledge was based on information gathered from friends, porn films and their own experiences,” says Hasan. ”They indulge in sex for pleasure or for money and in the bargain develop STDs.”

Azad Foundation now runs safe-sex workshops. With help from local philanthropists, it operates a mobile dispensary where street kids – many of them grossly malnourished and suffering a host of infections, injuries and respiratory ailments – can be diagnosed and receive medication.

But those who provide shelter and health services to the street children say their dream is to move beyond making street life less harsh. At Azad Foundation, the long-term plan includes setting up a support programme for children as they re-integrate into society, perhaps even into their families.

Excerpt: