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New Delhi: A
dilapidated red-stone building in the bylanes of Kashmere Gate in
old Delhi is home to hundreds of girls -- some lost, some abused
by close relatives, some forced away by their own family and
landing in the clutches of unscrupulous employers.
Like the Kilkari Rainbow Home for Girls, the national capital is
home to 100 such child shelters with thousands of children. A
closer look by IANS revealed that their stories are almost never
heard, and two-year-old Falak who was separated from her mother,
battered and is still battling for life at AIIMS was only one such
abandoned child.
In the muddy courtyard of the Kilkari home, six-year-old Anisha is
the youngest resident. She rubs the slate board clean every time
she draws something on it. She is trying to recollect faint
memories of the day when she was found by police at the crowded
Nizamuddin Railway Station here a few months ago.
"Mummy ne mausi ke ghar bheja tha...Yaad nahi uske baad kahan gayi...(My
mother had left me at aunt's home...don't remember what happened
after that)," Anisha told an IANS correspondent.
The zonal integrated police network of Delhi Police lists over
4,000 children missing in the capital.
"It is a vicious circle as metropolitans pull families from
smaller towns in search of employment and work. Rights are
violated when children from such families are lured for work,"
Shanta Sinha, chairperson of the National Commission for
Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), headquartered in Delhi, told
IANS.
"The implementation of child protection laws is not happening the
way it should. Other than stronger implementation, we need
regulation and monitoring," said Sinha, adding that there were
over 50,000 children in need of a shelter home in the capital
alone.
Battered baby Falak has been reunited with her mother along with
two siblings, but doctors fear it may be too late for the child.
She was earlier abandoned at AIIMS by a 14-year-old girl, who had
allegedly been pushed into prostitution by a man. She is at the
centre of a case that blew the lid off trafficking and
exploitation rackets in a country where 11 children go missing
every hour.
According to Childline India Foundation, a non-profit organisation
that runs a 24-hour helpline (1098) to assist children in need of
care and protection, nearly 500 cases that require intervention
are received by it every month in the capital.
"We have nearly 500 intervention cases coming to us on a monthly
basis. This means dealing with missing children, victims of child
labour, children who have been maimed and pushed into beggary,"
Komal Ganotra, specialist of training and advocacy at the
Childline India foundation, told IANS.
If an abandoned child is found by police, he or she is handed over
to the child welfare committee (CWC) to inquire about his or her
whereabouts. If it is not possible to relocate a child, he or she
is shifted to a shelter home.
What goes unnoticed, other than cases of abandonment and abuse, is
the alleged mafia involvement in organised crime against children.
"It is different to have an agency for a certain task. But the
pattern on crime against women and children needs to be tracked as
there is an organised mafia that pulls them from states like
Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh for exploitation," said Ganotra.
A study by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) - 'Action
Research on Trafficking in Women and Children' in 2003 - found a
grave link between trafficking and missing children. On an
average, of the 22,480 women and 44,476 children reported missing
in the country every year, over 5,000 women and nearly 11,000
children remain untraced.
Even if a child gets traced, there was a huge gap between
institutional care and alternative family support that was to be
given, said Bharati Sharma, former chief of the CWC.
"The child may be at a shelter home for any reason, but the
alternative family care at our institutions is lacking.
Understanding of children is very important," Sharma told IANS.
"There has to be better coordination among partner organisations
working on child rights like police, CWC, NGOs and government-run
institutions and a separate tracking mechanism for trafficking,"
Sharma added.
Anisha awaits the day when she will finally be able to complete
the picture on her slate board, and say where she came from.
"Didi (the caretaker) tells me, my parents will find me...But now
I like this home," she said, shying away, with her eyes fixed on a
rusted iron gate which reads - 'Welcome to the Kilkari Rainbow
Home for Girls'.
(Madhulika Sonkar can be contacted at madhulika.s@ians.in)
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