Abandoned and abused children find a home in New Delhi shelters

New Delhi: A dilapidated red-stone building in the lanes of Kashmiri 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 a hundred such 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 still battling for life at hospital was only one such abandoned child.

In the muddy courtyard of the Kilkari home, six-year-old Anisha is the youngest resident. She is trying to revive faint memories of the day she was found by police at the crowded Nizamuddin Railway Station a few months ago.

"My mother had left me at aunt's home... [I] don't remember what happened after that," Anisha told an IANS correspondent. The integrated police network of Delhi Police lists more than 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 the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), headquartered in Delhi, told IANS.

‘Regulation needed'

"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 there are more than 50,000 children in need of shelter 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 the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (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 to assist children in need of care and protection, nearly 500 cases that require intervention are received 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.

Mafia involvement

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 taken to a shelter.

What goes unnoticed 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.