A good percentage of the runaway children are from educated families and the lure of the city life is making them flee from their homes, an analysis done by the Child Help Desk Services (Childline-1098) that monitors and rescues such kids at the city railway station suggests.
At least three to five runaway children are rescued at the city railway station on a daily basis. According to Child Help Desk services (Childline-1098), 532 children were rescued last year when compared to the 521 in 2017 and 465 in the previous year.
Since 2015, about 1,518 runaway children including 172 girls (almost 10% ) have been rescued by the Childline.
A survey conducted recently by the Childline suggests that 22% of the rescued children had confessed that they fled their houses being attracted by the cities. Some 18 % had run away owing to academic stress and 17 % of the children had said that that they had left their houses to earn money.
Further, about 16 % of the children had run away owing to the neglect or poor parental counselling. The survey has also revealed that 12% of the kids had run away being influenced by their friends and 6% left home owing to their love affairs.
“Most of the children are caught between 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. In most cases, the children were found running away during the school hours or in the night after their parents went to sleep. In some cases, they ran away after school,” Child Help Desk Program Coordinator John Peter told The Hindu .
Parental counselling
Chairperson of Children Welfare Committee (CWC) R. Shyamala Rani said parental counselling could address many of such cases.“Regular interaction with children plays an important role here. Understanding them can deter the kids from the ideas of running away from home,” she said.
Giving details about the counselling of the rescued children, Ms. Shyamala Rani said the officials first interact with the kids to know the issued that made them flee.
“We also call the parents and counselling sessions are being organised. The Childline has united 95% of the rescued children with their parents thus far,” she added.
Staff crunch
Meanwhile, the Childline team members said that staff crunch was holding them back from functioning effectively. Now, the team has 12 members with a coordinator.
“Every month, around 120 children running away from houses are being reported, but we end up rescuing around 50 at best, that too with the coordination of RPF, sweepers, catering stalls and etc. The increase in the Childline members can help them to rescue more children,” Mr. John Peter added.
