Street Children in India: Overview, Causes, Effects, and Solutions

Street children are found in many cities in Republic of India. There are many causes and effects of these street children in the country. Possible solutions will help reduce their number, and these solutions are provided in this piece of write-up.

The high number of street children recorded in India does not say well about the country at all. Some Indians become ashamed when such topic is raised among people from other parts of the world. It is one of the pitiable situations found in the country. In a popular India movie called Slumdog Millionaire, we see how the homeless children were treated in the country. The worst among this is that some of these children have any part of their bodies amputated (eyes or legs) by those that force them into the streets to make money for them. The street children in India are used by the superior and wicked citizens in the country to make money. The mafia gang masters, who use these children for making money, who amputate the legs of these children sometimes cripple them, so that people can easily give alms to them. Sometimes the children are being starved when they do not make enough money in any day. Before amputation of the legs of these children, they are drugged and hired doctors worked on them; man inhumanity to man. The eyes of some of them are being condemned with concentrated acids.

The government of India is busy importing explosives and powerful weapons in the country without proper enforcement of Law that will protect these street children. Even if the country is making plan to be the World Power someday, is that why the number of street children in Mumbai, New Delhi, and that on the other streets of the country should be ignored? A report in 2014 said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared $19 billion of arms procurement proposals since taking power in May, almost double India’s spending on weapons in the last fiscal year as he tries to modernize the country’s military. This is the money that will be more than enough to take care of the street children who are begging in the streets of the country.

What is the statistical report on the number of street children found in India? Is the statistics encouraging or discouraging in all? India has an estimated one million or more street children in each of the following cities: New Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai. According to Verma and Saraswathi, when considering India as a whole, there are over 11 million children who earn their living off the streets in cities and rural areas. This is really a big challenge to the high economically profiled country, India.

A number of factors have caused the high number of street children in India today. Among the causes of street children in India are:

• Overpopulation;
• The carelessness of parents;
• Poverty; and
• Dead conscience; and
• Death.

India is one of the most populated countries on the planet, earth, having population of above 1, 210, 193, 422 (approximately 1.2 billion) based on the 2011 census. The population of the country continues to increase on daily basis with little or no control on the challenge.

Because many parents in the country are illiterates and lack the knowledge of family planning, they give birth as if they are hens that hatch many eggs in less than one month. The members of the Islamic religion in the country do not have family planning in their diary at all. Because of overpopulation of children in the country, many of them find themselves in the streets where they hustle for money.

Some Indian parents are too careless when it comes to taking good care of their children. Because Mumbai has so many activities going on there, some children quietly move out from their homes to the city to enjoy good lives. They sometimes come to this part of the country to watch the shows of the popular Indian movie industry called Bollywood. After enjoying the show for that night, they sometimes find it difficult to locate their homes. The only alternative left for them at that point is to start wandering through the streets of the country.

The unlucky of this kind of children sometimes end up in the hands of men and women who initially pretended to be good to them without the children knowing that they were nothing more that mafia gangs who want to make money with them. These set of cruel people lure these children into beggars on the streets.

India is made up of people who live in abject poverty. Mumbai for instance is an urban area in India; yet having high number of poor people leaving in it. The high number of people living in that area has no house of their own, but, lives in slum as there is no money to hire or build good houses. Poverty is one of the major challenges that have been in existence in the country for years.

Some parents are poor and do not have the money to train their children. Because there is no enough money for the feeding of these children, some out of hunger venture into hawking on the streets. Not only that these children beg on the streets to make money but are subjected to child labor which affects them directly or indirectly.

It is only a man whose conscience is dead that will rejoice in the agony of others. A man whose conscience is dead subjects people to bitterness and make profit from their bitterness. The “beggar mafia” in India rejoice in the bitterness of the children whom they lure into begging because their consciences are death. In fact, these men have sold their souls to devil. They are devils in human nature.

How can a man amputate the legs of innocent children just because he wants to make money with them? What will he achieve with that kind of money? This is satanic and inhuman, and the only person that can do such thing is someone whose conscience is dead. If to say the conscience is still living, he must first put himself into the shoes of those children before taking such action.

A person is said to be dead when the person is no longer living. That is to say that death occurs when one does not breathe. It is a situation when life is no longer found in an animal that was breathing before. Some parents in India are dead due to hardship and poverty menace in the country. Their lives expectancy became shortened because they find themselves in dirty environment which lead to their death leaving the children stranded. Another factor that sometimes leads to the death of parents is wars.

Because the children do not have any parents because of death, they began to live in streets. They source alms from the pedestrians and travelers on the streets by begging for foods and money to sustain their lives. Many children find themselves on the streets of India because their parents are dead.

The effects of street children on the Republic of India are numerous and pitiable. The effects are being observed on daily basis in the country. Hence, the effects of street children on India and the children are, but not limited to:

• Rise in poverty;
• Bad reputation;
• Malnutrition;
• Rise in illiteracy; and
• Health Challenge;

Though large population of Indians are under the punishment of poverty, the poverty level of the country will keep increasing if the street children in the country are not being controlled. Ignoring these children to keep on parading themselves in the streets is like telling more powerful poverty to come and engulf the country. There are many Indians that are fed-up with the current status of poor people in the country.

Street children are known to be poor people. It is only the poor in the society that go to marketplaces and streets begging for alms from others whom they think are better than them. So, when they grow in that their poor state, the level of poverty in the country will increase because of them lack necessary skills that will help them earn good amount of money.

How will you feel if you are an Indian and travel to Europe just to hear Europeans discuss shamefully on the high level of street children in your country? Will you feel good or bad when this kind of topic is discussed about your country? Do you think a discussion like that brings good or bad reputation to your country?

The high population of street children in India has really painted the image of the country black. It is an action against Child Act as it is now taken as business in the country. Some children are made blind with the use of chemical by criminal mafia gang, because they want to make money through child exploitation. Some people think that all Indians are wicked because these heartless men remove one or two of the legs of these victims because they want to enrich their pockets.

A child is said to be suffering from malnutrition when he or she is lacking some necessary nutrients in the food he or she consumes. On the other, malnutrition can be said to mean when people do not have enough food to feed on. Any who suffers from malnutrition looks dry because the necessary nutrient that world have brighten him or her is lacking.

Malnutrition is one of the effects of street children in India. The children are not being fed properly by the mafias whose main interest is to make profit from such children. Even after staying and begging under hot sun, and passing through such stress, the wicked bosses find it difficult to feed these children. The children are not even allowed to spend from the money they received from alms givers during the begging because there is usually monitoring eyes on them when on duty.

Many street children in India are illiterates. Even those that had the opportunity to attend schools before being lured into such business did not go high. Most of them who were opportune to attend at all stopped at the primary school level. It is not encouraging at all of for India.

When about hundred Indian children are lured into street begging this year and more than that number added to the number the next year, what it implies is that the level of illiteracy in the country keeps increasing on yearly basis. The children do not have time to attend school as they are always busy on the street making money for those that sent them. In fact, these children are just slaves in the hands of those that victimized them.

The state of health of street children is in shambles. It `is pitiable and not encouraging. Because these children live in environments that are filthy, their health status is in danger. They fall into this kind of disease today and find themselves in the other tomorrow. All these keep eating them up yet they are forced into streets to beg irrespective of that.

Instead of taking care of the health status of these children, they are instructed to show more melancholic faces so that any passer will give them good amount of money. Who will rescue these children from this kind of status? Some of them even die because of poor health standard they are subjected.

It is not only all about writing about the bad state of street children in India and close book but also about the possible practical solutions to rescue these children from such irritating situation. It is irritating because watching how the legs of these children are removed is very much an eyesore. The solutions to street children in India are:

• Setting up strong monitoring team;
• Poverty eradication;
• Seriously punishing the street children syndicates.

The reason why many beggars mafia are still growing wing is because the government of the country has not set-up strong monitoring team that will trap the heartless people down. When a team like this who will work with all sincerely to save the poor children is established in the country, street children in this part of the world will be a history.

The team should send their agents who will monitor these children to detect where they end up their account on daily basis. The agents sent should not wear their uniform so that no one will know who they are. They should perform the function smartly in the sense that nobody will know what they are really doing. When they gather all the necessary information on the situation, they should arrest those that victimized these children. After this, the families of these children should be located and handed them over to their parents or relation. Those who do not know their parents any longer should be trained by the government.

The government of India and people who are up and doing in the country should help in poverty eradication in the country by creating jobs for the citizens of the country. The government of India should look into the poor parents in the country and make plans on how to help them.

There are some entrepreneurs in India who are making good amount of money. This set of people should sponsor skill acquisition programs for parents which will help increase the earnings of these parents. When the earnings of these parents are increased, they will be able to sponsor their children effectively without sending them to the street to beg or hawk for goods to make money in turn.

The act against Child’s Right is a criminal act. It is an act against the Law and any found in that offense should be punished equally. Punishing those who lure children into begging on the streets of the country will make people to learn and cancel anything that will make them to feature into such wicked act. The punishment should be harsh and made clear to all the citizens of the country so that people will be afraid to practice such kind of wickedness.

The presence of street children in many cities of India is one of the challenges in India. These are children who wander from place to place like sheep without shepherd. Crises in India have resulted to large number of these children in the country. The government, organizations, individuals, and you as a reader of this article should contribute in reducing the number of street children in India. Discussed under this topic are the overview, causes, effects, and solutions to street children in India.

• N. C Bipindra and Anurag, India $19 Million Weapons, Bloomberg News Publication Company, retrieved February 21, 2015.
• Naik, Poonam R., Seema S. Bansode, Ratnenedra R. Shinde, and Abhay S. Nirgude, Street Children of Mumbai: Demographic Profile and Substance Abuse, Ebscohost Connection, retrieved February 21, 2015
• Verma, Suman; Saraswathi, T.S. Adolescence in India:Street Urchins or Silicone Valley Millionaires?. p. 122.