Most of Pakistan’s street children live in the teeming, southern city of Karachi. The latest estimate of numbers comes from 2005 when the United Nations said that between 1.2 million and 1.5 million children lived on Pakistan’s streets – but activists say that their numbers are rising.
I met 10-year-old Ashiq as he was sifting through a mound of rubbish. We were in a park in central Karachi – down the road from the mausoleum of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
This bright-eyed boy was willing to talk as he worked – his slim, young fingers clearing a path through the dump.
Ashiq is a street child and a scavenger – he works as part of a group which operates in this area. He is also part of a pattern dismaying charities and social activists who say that the number of children on the streets is increasing by the day.
Most of them start like Ashiq, who works up to seven hours a day in the blistering heat. He stopped and showed me his bag of pickings from the day.
“I collect plastic bottles,” he said, “and other things I can sell on to be recycled.” It earns him about Rs 100 a day.
Ashiq admitted it is hard work, but he also said that he is happy with life. “I get money at the end of the day,” he said, “and I use my earnings to buy biscuits.”
He earnestly maintained that he doesn’t take drugs – unlike many other street children. Social workers from the Azad Foundation – a charity that works with such children – confirmed this.
Ashiq’s eyes sparkled when I asked him what he would really like to do. “I want to play football and cricket with the other children in the park,” he said softly.
“But people say that we are dirty; they chase us away. It makes me feel bad.” Ashiq also said that he wants to go to school. “I want to join the army when I grow up,” he said.
Ashiq has only been on the streets a few weeks now. He ran away from home after being repeatedly beaten by his father.
He said he is happier here, as he has enough to eat and gets whatever he wants – demands his poverty-stricken father could not fulfil.
WAITING FOR FOOD: Deprivation is the biggest reason forcing parents to abandon such children or compelling children to leave home.
On the streets, there is plenty to eat, as was evident when I visited Karachi’s most famous Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine.
Financed by wealthy Pakistanis, restaurants here distribute free food such as chicken biryani and mutton pulao.
Most of those waiting were children – some couldn’t have been older than five or six years old. Milling around with plastic bags, they jostled with grown-ups to get their share. It is a fight that they are not ready for – but have no choice because they have been thrown into it.
They appeared safe here, but great dangers await them outside on the streets. Most of the children are picked up and recruited into gangs within a few weeks. Others are forced to become commercial sex workers.
Rana Asif – who runs the Centre for Street Children charity – puts the blame for this on the government. “Police are not providing protection to children,” he said.
“But it is providing protection to criminals and abusers. They have their own interests and get financial benefit through children’s activities. And they’re getting cuts from criminal gangs. That’s why police are not helping these children.”
Other local charities and social activists confirm this view. They said that it is not just criminal gangs targeting these kids – jihadi groups also scour the streets looking for easy recruits.
The police themselves denied these allegations. “There are occasional cases of some low-ranking officials being involved,” a senior officer told the BBC on the condition of being kept anonymous. “But these people are usually caught and punished.”
Officially, police maintain that they don’t have enough resources to provide adequate protection for the children.
There is some help out there, though – the Azad Foundation runs a centre to teach girls skills to keep them off the streets. Reading, writing and basic arithmetic are all part of the course.
SNIFFING GLUE: Ten-year-old Yasmin was drawing a big, yellow sun when we met her. Her father is a heroin addict and forces her to wash cars and beg on the street to fund his habit.
Some girls her age have already been forced into prostitution. There are other cruel fates awaiting these vulnerable children.
In another park a few kilometres from where Ashiq works, a group of boys huddled together. As the call for prayers ringed out, they tightened their circle.
It is only when I was right next to them that I saw that they were sniffing at dirty clothes dipped in strong glue.
Nineteen-year-old Irfan was one of the gang. He told me that he has been on the streets since he was seven.
“I steal and take drugs,” he told me. “When I sniff glue, my mind becomes numb and I am happy all the time. I do want to leave the streets, but I don’t think that will ever happen now.”
The same pessimism is shared by the majority of street children. Because their young lives are twisted by abuse and neglect, few last as long as Irfan. Most will die before their 18th birthday.
