KARACHI, Jan 18: The way police deal with street children play a crucial role in setting future path of this ‘vulnerable and dangerous’ segment of society, observed a workshop on Wednesday.

The workshop was organized by the Provincial Commission on Child Welfare & Development, a wing of social welfare department and financed by the UNCIEF, on Wednesday at the National Institute of Public Administration, exclusively for police officials of Saddar and Jamshed towns.

It was aimed at sensitizing police officials about highly sensitive psychological position of children living on roads and making them realize their responsibilities — to serve and to protect.

Azad Foundation Project Coordinator Aqsa Zainab said that policemen were largely unaware of their duty in case of dealing with such children. A survey revealed that a large number of such children was settled in Saddar and Jamshed towns, as such police officials from these areas were invited.

She said the attitude of police officials played key role as runaway children and other forced on to streets mostly suffered from mental disorders, which also multiplied possibility for these children to adopt criminal activities.

Citing the survey done in the year 2001, she said that most of street children complained of being harassed by the police. “Police must know where to take a child for proper counselling,” she added.

It was observed that these children may be allergic to confined environments, which could prompt them to runaway from shelters and as such these children must be dealt with according to their condition and past experiences.

Resented by some comments, police officials attending the workshop demanded that they be removed from any such negative list, saying that the conduct of a particular official could not speak for the whole department. They said it was not merely the responsibility of police but a combined task for civil, legislative and law enforcing agencies along with private sector.

Secretary Social Welfare Department Mehtab Akbar Rashdi distributed certificates among participants of the workshop. — PPI