Street children
A dog took away a bit of a poor man's flesh while both were fighting for the same scrap of food . The report says about 120,000 people, most of whom are Toaki, eat rotten foods from dustbins, drink dirty water from water bodies, lack alternative clothes, sleep without a house and suffer from diseases. As a student of Social Welfare, I got a chance to work with such Tokai or Pothokoli and have so far discovered family violence, abandoned by parents, second marriage of mother or father, extreme poverty, trafficking, homelessness caused by river erosion as the causes of their coming to street. But this isn't over. Drug dealers use them for peddling drugs and so-called politicians use them to throw bombs and sometimes shoot them to make an issue of agitation. And thus, they with political backup one day tremor the city as top terrors and drug dealers. Young girls, on the other hand, fall victim to forced prostitution and eventually become an agent of a deadly disease-- HIV/AIDS.
It seems that these ill-fated Tokais are to be harvested, not to be cared. The government has hardly taken programmes designed for the Tokais. Fortunately some NGOs like Aparajeyo Bangladesh, Safety and Rights Society have come up with some help like giving them basic education, training in some vocational and technical fields, healthcare and recreational and counselling facility. It is expected that the government in collaboration with NGOs will launch effective programmes to ensure them a safe and secure life. If they are imparted vocational and technical training and sent abroad as manpower, they may get a decent life.
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