Rehabilitation horrors haunt welfare department

While Operation Muskaan is being carried out across the country to rescue and rehabilitate destitute children, a survey by the Hyderabad District Child Protection Unit reveals that children rescued from the city and rehabilitated in their home state lead a miserable life. While infrastructure is a key factor, many children run away from the destitute homes.

A bout 50 children were rescued from Santosh Nagar on Friday by the Hyderabad CID branch as part of Operation Muskaan (earlier known as Operation Smile). The campaign, initiated by the Centre, attempts to rescue destitute children from child labour and begging and will be on till July 31. In this phase of the campaign which began on July 1, 243 kids have been res- cued so far.

This is not the first time that the drive has been initiated in the city. Earlier in January, Operation Smile rescued 408 street children working in bangle factories. The kids were then rehabilitated back to Bihar and West Bengal in five phases from February to April from where the children were brought from.

A follow up of the rescued children however revealed the chinks in the rehabilitation drive. In April, four officials from the Hyderabad District Child Pro- tection Unit surveyed 20 houses around five urban, semi-urban and rural areas in Bihar and found that these kids in shelter homes didn’t have proper facilities. The sur- vey revealed that food was not being served to children on time, many kids were cramped into a single facility and the teacher-student ratio dispro- portionately ranged about 1:130.

Even the schools that these children were enrolled into lacked basic infrastruc- ture. Shockingly, it was revealed that some of the rehabilitated kids migrated again to places in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were they were found to be working in brick facto- ries. These children were also diagnosed of trauma due to the working conditions. Lamenting on the sorry state of affairs, officials at the Child Protection Unit said, “We have notified the findings of the survey at the Sarpanch level and State Government to improve the conditions of the shelter homes.

But beyond that, the situation is out of our control.” This time, the kids rescued on Friday are being directed to various shelter homes and re- habilitation centers across the city. The Child Welfare Com- mission (CWC) plans to re- unite the kids with the parents and enroll them in schools. The process to locate the par- ents of the kids currently housed at Government Chil- dren Home for Boys in Saifabad has been initiated.

“We are planning to enroll the girls in a shelter in Kas- turba School in Bahadurpura and the boys into a govern- ment school while the hunt for parents is on. The process will begin as soon as the CWC grants the official order,” said District child protection offi- cer, MD Imtiyaz Rahim. 11 of the kids rescued will be sent back to Bihar as they face the language barrier.

By:A LEKHYA T ADEPALLI