Street kids of Nepal

The Pathetic Reality of Street Children in Nepal

Eliminating child labor is a sound financial investmentEmail Article Print Article Bhuwan

Thapaliya (Bhuwan) Over the past few decades, the standard of living of many urban Nepalese has risen beyond measure, even in the midst of political turmoil. But ironically, at the same time many poor children are struggling for survival out in the streets, sleeping on makeshift cardboard mattresses in main cities like Kathmandu, Pokhara, Dharan, Narayanghat, Butwal, and Biratnagar.

According to the CWIN (Centre for Child Workers in Nepal), every year more than 500 children are added to the streets of Kathmandu from different districts of Nepal like Nuwakot, Sindhupalchowk, Kavre, Dhading, Makawanpur and Dolkha. In the middle of this, we are compelled to doubt the so-called standard of living, when younger children are suffering throughout Nepal, due to multidimensional socio-economic-political problems. Is the standard of living mere economic jargon or merely a myth?

When we see children living on the streets the first question that comes to mind is "Why?" Forget about the standard of living, hundreds of thousands of children across Nepal are forced to live in the street and are subjected to exploitation, abuse and violence each year. They are trafficked into abysmal prostitution rings, forced into ceaseless violence and recruited into many other forms of modern slavery.As this trend mounts, the government of Nepal, the international community, civil society, the United Nations and UNICEF must pull their heads out of the sand. Urgent questions now demand clear answers.

What will happen to these children, or street children to be precise?Before we go further, let us be clear about the term "street children." According to Human Rights Watch, "The term street children refers to children for whom the street, more than their family has become their real home. It includes children who might not necessarily be homeless or without families, but who live in situations, where there is no protection, supervision, or direction from responsible adults."Moreover, UNICEF has sub-categorized and defined street children into three types:

Street-Living, Street-Working, and Street-Family.

According to UNICEF, children from street families are children who live on the streets with their families.Street working children are children who spend most of their time working in the streets and markets of cities, but return home on a regular basis.Among these three categories, the reality of street living children is pathetic. According to UNICEF, "Street living children are children who may have lost their families through war or illness, or have been abandoned because they had become too much of a burden, or else ran away from their abusive, dysfunctional, poverty-stricken families and now live alone on the streets.

""They work, living and sleeping in the streets, often lacking any contact with their families. These children are at highest risk of murder, constant abuse and inhumane treatment. They often resort to petty theft and prostitution for survival," reports UNICEF.Though the U.N. has estimated the population of street children worldwide at 150 million, nobody knows their exact number in Nepal -- street children are not easy to count because they move around a lot, within and between cities like Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur.

Moreover, it is no longer a secret that street children statistics (based on broad definitions of "street children") are just estimates, e.g. Kenya: 250,000; Ethiopia: 150,000; Zimbabwe: 12,000; Bangladesh: 445,226; Nepal: 30,000; India: 11 million, according to media reports.Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, is among those cities like Bombay, Manila, Rio de Janaiero, Mexico City, Bangkok, Nairobi, where the problem of street children is very high due to the rapid growth of urbanization and many other problems, such as economic breakdown, social distortion, natural disasters and increasing family disintegration.

Street children are the worst victims of child labor in Nepal. Life on the streets has always been unstable, but it is further unstable in Nepal due to the deteriorating socio-economic infrastructure.The life of the Nepalese street children is so pathetic that with the little money they make by street based jobs, such as rag picking, begging, porting, flower selling, newspaper selling, street vending, and shoe shining, they cannot afford one full meal a day, and most of the time they are hungry. It is hunger that is forcing them into criminal activities, and the ultimate reward they get is mob beatings or a jail term.To survive, every street child has to work very hard and in many ways they are threatened with various forms of violence.

Many such children develop physical complications related to their hazardous work and unhygienic living conditions. As a result, they become apathetic to social norms and values.The horrible tale, sadly, doesn't end here. According to the CWIN, street children are often at greatest risk of violence from those that are responsible to protect them -- the police and other higher authorities."Police often beat, harass, sexually assault and even torture street children. They may beat children for their money or demand payment for protection to avoid false charges, or for release from custody. They may seek out girls to demand sex. For many street children, assaults and thefts by the police are a routine part of their lives.

Some are even killed by police. Very rarely are those responsible brought to justice," reports CWIN.Street children are a pervasive problem in today's Nepal, and the problem cannot be solved in isolation. Schemes alone are not adequate.Where poverty breaks up families, economic and social policies must come together to help protect the dignity of children's lives. Moreover, the international community must back the efforts of countries like Nepal, that are willing to take comprehensive steps through programs with non-governmental organizations to reduce the number of children on the streets.Fortunately, people around the world are joining a growing conscientious community to act for the betterment of street children.

A legitimate global movement has emerged. Street children themselves are making their voices heard, for example, through grassroots movements such as the Global March against Child Labor.Street children and child labor are two sides of the same coin. To completely lift the children away from the street into a safe haven, we should first wage a fight against the child labor.Eliminating child labor is indisputably a sound financial investment.

A recent reconsideration by the ILO (International Labor Organization) estimates that eliminating child labor over two decades would yield an estimated US$5.1 trillion in benefits for both developing and transitional economies where most child laborers are found."Globally, benefits would exceed costs by nearly seven times. Each extra year of schooling stemming from universal education to the age of 14 results in an additional 11 percent of future earnings per year for a young student who stays in school," the ILO reports.Last, but not least, policymakers seeking to end the street children syndrome in Nepal must address the poverty that is most often the cause of the problem. Overcoming it requires an in-depth understanding of the factors that force children into streets, as well as effective interventions suited to each unique socio-cultural and economic environment.The problem of street children in Nepal is complex; so the policymakers most employ multiple interventions that are integrated with one another.

They should implement sustainable alternatives to keep children from returning to the hazardous and exploitive situations on the cold streets.An additional vital component of eradicating the problem is the insertion of community awareness activities in project designs. For example, a public awareness campaign to educate parents, community leaders, local organizations, teachers, and civil society about the multifarious hazards associated with street children and its negative long-term effects on future society would be beneficial.Let us not forget that the fight against street children is to expand the frontiers of human dignity and independence in the long run.