By Our Reporter
Shillong: Like other cities of the country, the number of street children in Shillong is no less minimal. The lack of assessment and categorization of the condition of street children has further worsened the situation, Additional Superintendent of Police (Crime) Vivek Syiem said.
With over 200-300 children living in the streets, the risk of them indulging in crimes is also very high, he said.
“Every year, around 1000 cases are registered and the bulk of these cases are thefts, robbery, threatening and assault,” Syiem said adding that about 10 per cent of such crimes are committed by juveniles mostly by children living in the streets.
Syiem was addressing a seminar on Mental Health of Children organized by SANKER at Pine Wood Hotel here on Monday.
This is a situation facing the whole country whereby according to statistics, out of 193 million children between 6-14 years in India, over 3 million children live on the streets and 150 million children work as bonded labourers. Less than half of India’s children between the age 6 and 14 go to school.
The overall incidence of physical abuse among street children, either by family members or by others or both was 66 per cent across the states. Out of this, 54.62 per cent are boys and 45.38 per cent were girls.
“There is no systematic approach for dealing with street children by the various departments including social organizations and the structure is inadequate to contain this problem,” the additional SP said.
While reiterating on the crimes committed by these children, Syiem said over the years, these children have become hardened. “We are giving more attention to them and we need a proactive approach right from policy making decision to society as a whole,” he said, adding that there should be empathy in addressing this problem.
Stating that this is one problem ticking like a time bomb, Syiem said the crime associated is highly dangerous. These children can move from committing petty crimes to rape, assault, molestation, etc.
“However, this is done when they are inebriated and this is due to easy access to intoxicants like dendrite which can in turn affect their mental psyche,” Syiem stated.
The additional SP also said they are focusing on missing persons, many of whom are children following the increase of trafficking from the state and the prevalence of child pornography in the North East.
Lauding the services provided by rehabilitation centres, Syiem however said that there must be something dysfunctional with these centers as there have been instances where a juvenile who was released from a centre commits bigger crimes.
“It seems like they graduated from petty crimes at the centers and then get back to the streets to commit more crimes. They usually build a network and learn most of the crimes from other juveniles and become hardened,” he observed.
Meanwhile, renowned Pediatrician of the city, Dr D Das spoke at length on the medical aspects of mental health of children saying that 70 per cent of the children do not receive mental health service basically due to fear of stigmatization and discrimination.
Stressing on the need to provide proper medical attention to these children, Dr Das said “Early intervention is very necessary and there is a need to follow the 3 W’s intervention — who, what and where”.
The seminar was earlier inaugurated by Meghalaya Legislative Assembly Speaker Charles Pyngrope.
Others who spoke at the function included renowned advocate VGK Kynta, Vice Chancellor of MLCU Dr GC Kharkongor, C Naronha, Dr Raman Krishnan, and SANKER pioneer, Dr Sandi Syiem.