In Lahore’s Liberty Market, nine-year-old Mujahid and eight-year-old Ali sell boiled eggs from evening until midnight. The sons of a menial labourer, they attend a private school during the day and earn a pittance at night, simply so they can take Rs200 home with them. Faizan, 10, sells children’s books on The Mall, where many families do their shopping from. He left school a year back, to help his elder brother earn a livelihood for his family. In the humdrum of Lahore’s markets, it is easy to lose the whereabouts of these children.

Were it 1999, they could have easily fallen prey to Lahore’s version of Jack the Ripper, a man named Javed Iqbal, who sodomised and murdered innumerable children, leaving behind no trace of their bodies as they were strangulated, cut into pieces and then dissolved in acid drums. His horrendous criminal activities continued until he was arrested the same year; most of his victims were runaway boys or street children, aged six to 16.

“There are three categories of street children; street-living children, street-working children and street children living with families,” explains Nazir Ahmed Ghazi of Grass Root Organisation for Human Development (GODH), which works on the rehabilitation of street children. “These children are vulnerable to many kinds of abuse, including drug and sex abuse — if not by anybody else, then certainly by other street children elder to them.”

Unless rehabilitated, street children’s lives will remain at risk

Indeed, Iqbal’s accomplices included 17-year-old Sajid, 15-year-old Nadeem and 13-year-old Sabir — boys who had turned into abusers after being at the receiving end of abuse. Iqbal was convicted in 2001, and awarded a death sentence along with Sajid. After a few days of being convicted, Iqbal and Sajid were found dead in their cells inside Kot Lakhpat jail. Jail authorities termed the deaths as suicide, but Iqbal’s lawyers and media reports suggested it was murder.

Iqbal’s case should have shaken the conscience of the nation and the powers that be, but despite 13 years having elapsed since the incident, the on-ground situation regarding street children remains abysmal. According to some reports, there are about 1.5million children on the streets of the country, mostly in urban centres.

"But poverty here is so crippling that even parents sometimes approach us to ask if they can leave their children with the Bureau. Sometimes, providing for the entire family becomes almost impossible for these parents.

“In Lahore, the main centres of street-living children are Data Darbar, the railway station, its surrounding markets as well as Thokar Niaz Baig,” explains Ghazi. “A great number of street children are found in posh locality markets too, such as Defence. In fact, children found from Defence are often kept in bondage at the houses of the affluent.”

Despite the high numbers of street children in Lahore and how intractable the situation may seem, incremental efforts to redress the situation have also taken root. Experts and activists ascribe this success to the Child Protection Welfare Bureau (CPWB), an “autonomous body” which was established under the Punjab Destitute and Neglected Children's Amendment Act-2007. The CPWB has its centres in seven cities of Punjab, and provides a number of facilities, including lodging, to children once it adopts them.

Per the law, children are defined as “destitute” or “neglected” if they have “a parent or guardian who is unfit or [too] incapacitated to exercise control over the child.” The Bureau receives calls and complaints through its helpline, 1121. After rescuing any runaway or missing child, the CPWB takes them under its protection and asks a court to provide “clearance”. With these formalities out of the way, a child’s rehabilitation starts in earnest.

"Some children have been living with the Bureau since the past seven or even more years. They are going to turn 18 soon, but there is no policy on how to integrate them into society after that point. There is a need to make a clear-cut policy in this regard.

“In Lahore, we have more than 350 kids at a time; sometimes the figure can go beyond that,” says Rizwan Ahmed, the child protection officer at CPWB-Lahore. “The bureau has taken 27,000 children under its care since it started working in 2005 and facilitated many others. Our issue is more about what to do with these children after they turn into adults.”

Indeed, 17-year-old Mobeen Ali* is a young man on the cusp of adulthood. He has been with the Bureau for the last five years. “My father went missing, and I came here after the death of my mother. I have a grandmother and an uncle living in the city, but I would not want to live with them,” he says.

Ali is pursuing an FSc degree at a private college; he spends his mornings on campus and goes to an academy for further classes in the evening. He aspires to be an engineer but he does not know where he would go after he turns 18.

“Some children have been living with the Bureau since the past seven or even more years,” narrates Ahmed. “They are going to turn 18 soon, but there is no policy on how to integrate them into society after that point. There is a need to make a clear-cut policy in this regard.”

As it is, the weight of pending requests is already very high at the CPWB. “We get children mostly from police stations, hospitals and the trader’s community whenever they find someone in need of help. But poverty here is so crippling that even parents sometimes approach us to ask if they can leave their children with the Bureau. Sometimes, providing for the entire family becomes almost impossible for these parents.”

In the absence of strict laws for the protection of children, there is always a chance of authority being misused. In 2012, two cases were registered by the then CPWB- Faisalabad district officer against 11 employees of the Bureau for mistreating children and sexually abusing them.

The inquiries conducted by police and commissioner’s office termed the cases as motivated by personal vendetta but there are still an ongoing inquiry into that episode by the provincial home department. The CPWB’s internal inquiry had found some truth in allegations made from both sides.

There is a proposal to turn the CPWB, currently working under the Punjab Home Department, into a subservient part of the Social Welfare Department, but Rizwan Ahmed argues such a step would reduce the Bureau’s effectiveness. He says that to control the number of street children, the government should start a fund to help families keep children with them.

“There should be some fund like Benazir Income Support Fund to help the poor and destitute families raise children and stop them considering the children a burden or using them to increase income,” Ahmed suggests.

Meanwhile, Ghazi argues says that there should be legislation on compulsory schooling of children and punitive action for the parents who don’t send children to schools. “All the out-of-school children naturally turn into street children or become a part of bonded labour, living in conditions where they become vulnerable,” he says.

But there is consensus among all on one fact: saving these children from more Jawed Iqbals needs a lot more from society than is currently seen.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, December 14th, 2014