I feel like weeping when I come across street children holding plastic bags filled with dendrite to their lips. Some work as conductors on vehicles while many others wash dishes in hotels to make both ends meet.
It is common to see these street urchins beaten up and sexually exploited at the hands of foreigners as well as local goons.
It seems that no one is bothered to ensure their rights to education and food. This is happening at a time when we are just making big noises about human rights in posh hotel conferences. There we hardly talk about the rights of street children or try to find ways to ameliorate their situation.
It is hard to find substantial reasons why so many children are still on the street though a large number of organisations are in operation in the name of addressing their problems.
One can sense there is no proper service provided by the organisations working for street children. Above all, the governments services to these needy children is a distant dream in our country that is going through a transition.
Some NGOs are working to offer basic services to street children providing non-formal education, medical support, offer daily meals and legal assistance when they get exploited.
It is unfortunate that many of the organisations working for these children have not lived up to their potential. After a stint at some centres having no long term psychological counselling services, the street children make a tragic comeback to the street. With little option left, most of the children prefer to remain on the street, and this vicious cycle never comes to an end.
If the police are to be believed, many of these street children resort to crimes, posing a threat to the citys security.
This problem often makes me ask myselfAre the government and these mushrooming organisations not able to do anything to ensure better life for street children? What is needed is sincere effort for their cause. Within a few months, if not years, the lives of these children, who are highly vulnerable to exploitation and health hazards, can be transformed.
Unicef has it that poverty is the prime factor behind this problem, and we need a long-term solution. A survey conducted by Children-Women in Social Service and Human Rights (CWISH) shows major factors leading to their migration to Kathmandu Valley are poverty, domestic violence, urban attraction and armed conflict. If a report of CWIN, an institution working for the needy children, is anything to go by, every year more than 500 new children converge in the Capital as workers or street children. These children are harassed, sexually exploited and made to work without payment. What the concerned stakeholders need to do is address the root causes of the problempoverty and unemployment in remote villages.
The UN has termed child labour as the worst form of human practices. Yet, what is disheartening is that common people, the affluent class as well as stakeholders keep these children as domestic helps exploiting them rampantly.
Above all, the government should ensure that these needy children have recourse to legal assistance in adherence with its commitment to the International Convention on the Rights of Children (ICRC).
The government should look after the education and healthy development needs of these children, who have every right to return to a safe home environment that provides them their rights.
First published in The Kathmandu Post on July 4, 2011