By street boys, I refer to those children who wander idly in the streets. Sadly, their number is on a constant rise in Balochistan. According to a recent survey, Pakistan’s 1.2 million children are street boys. The capital city of Balochistan [Quetta] is the second in the list after Karachi.
The most worrying factor is, these children are small in ages who, when roaming freely in streets, take part in wrong activities which keep their future at stake. They also take part in illegal activities, drug addiction, sexual abuse and other street crimes. In such ages, they ought to have pens and books, but ‘we’ have given them tools to challenge the customs of the society.
Unfortunately, I find a number of street boys in my city [Turbat]. I find two main factors leading them to be among them; one, those who are homeless, and second those children whose parents are irresponsible towards them. They can turn offenders in the near future if we keep ignoring them.
Although Balochistan provides a number of natural resources to the Pakistani government and the sea water, the region is the poorest among the four provinces. Had the provincial or federal government conducted awareness and educational campaigns for the street boys in Balochistan, things would have been lot different. We could see every child with a pen, not a gun to rob his own brothers.
In fact, in recent days robbery has been a common practice in Turbat. Most of these thieves have a background of ‘street boys’ on who the government paid no attention in past. We will not be wrong to state that it is government who creates criminals in our society. Nevertheless, government can initiate a program to vanish criminality from our society, but they need to build up more schools and enroll the out of school children into schools which, it seems, they do not want.
The government can also establish technical Institutions for them and teach them technical works so that they make a living for them in future instead of meandering in streets uselessly. This will also boost up the economy of Balochistan which would directly help the increment of the national purse.
The government ought to begin strategies to end the concept of street boys in Balochistan from root level. From the child beggars to street boys to out of school children, the entire idle children are either to be admitted into schools or technical institutions. They are the future of the nation. When they go wasted in such small ages, it will not only be a loss to them in person, but they will also become a threat for the society as a whole in future.
