City Desk :
The coronavirus pandemic that ravaged the society has a heavy impact on the street children of the country, exposing them to extreme poverty, insecurity and drug addiction.
When the COVID-19 began in Bangladesh in March 2020 and everyone was struggling to find a safe abode to prevent the lethal virus, 10-year-old Towhidul Islam had nothing to do without staying at a rail station in Noakhali, as he had no home to find refuge.
“There were lockdowns. There was no movement of people. Doors of all remained shut and that was why I was just starving. Once I knocked the people’s doors looking for food, they asked me to go away as they were concerned of getting infected from the virus,” he said.
If anyone gave him any food keeping a safe distance, Towhidul was able to eat something; otherwise he had to remain hungry for the whole day.
“A very hard time I passed during the lockdowns. I roamed door-to-door. People hardly came to me for help,” he added, reports BSS.
Once the lockdown was eased, Towhidul went to Sylhet by train. But he suffered from severe fever and laid down on Sylhet rail station platform for a few days.
“One day, when I woke up, a person gave me bread and a banana to eat. But, I could not eat those as I lost test of food. I only drank water from a tap. Later, I ate a little and started recovering from the fever slowly,” said Towhidul, who lost his parents in a road accident a few years ago and failed to remember his home address in Noakhali.
Later, Towhidul came to Dhaka by a train from Sylhet and stayed at Tongi, Airport and Kamlapur rail stations for over a year, and finally took abode to a transitional shelter centre of Local Education and Economic Development Organisation (LEEDO) at the city’s Mugda.
Emon Ahmed, a 14-year-old who has been living in Kamlapur rail station for three years, said the COVID-19 pandemic made his life harder as all shops and houses were closed during the lockdowns.
“I collect scraps from the city streets and earn money by selling those to buy food. As there were lockdowns across the country, I remained idle outside Kamlapur rail station. I had to wait for someone giving me food. Many days I did not eat anything without water during the pandemic,” he said.
Hundreds of thousands of homeless children are living on the streets in Bangladesh, and most of them had to face the similar fate like Towhidul and Emon due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), there were over 1.5 million street children in the country in 2015, suggesting the number could rise to 1.6 million by 2024.
Bangladesh has already started inoculation for schoolchildren aged between 5 and 11 and above. All the children aged above 5 years will be brought under the coverage, according to the Ministry for Health and Family Welfare. Earlier, children aged at 12 to 17 years were vaccinated for COVID-19.
But, no initiative is yet to be taken by the authorities concerned to get street children vaccinated as they have no birth certificate that is mandatory for registration for the COVID-19 vaccination.
“I have been living in Kamlapur rail station for the last three years. I have passed the whole coronavirus period here and felt sick several times, falling prey to fever and cold, but I am yet to be vaccinated. As I have no birth certificate, I am not inoculated for COVID-19 yet,” 14-year-old Mohammad Emon said.
Homeless children in Bangladesh live in extreme poverty and they lack access to basic rights like education, healthcare and social protection.
bdulla Al Mamun, child protection and child rights governance director of Save the Children in Bangladesh, said the street children have no guardians, so they have no birth records. “Now the street children are not the part of the planning the way children are getting vaccinated,” he added.
He suggested preparing a database of the street children and vaccinating them at selected points using their fingerprints.
However, Women and Children Affairs Secretary Md Hasanuzzaman Kallol said the government will vaccinate the enlisted street children first and then steps will be taken to inoculate the remaining homeless children.
Many people have lost their jobs and income sources during the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing poverty and simultaneously accelerating family feud in both urban and rural areas throughout the country.
Due to the extreme poverty fallen during the pandemic, the parents of Sathi, 10, got divorced in 2020. Later, her mother married a guy again and shifted to Gazipur from Netrakona with her new husband. Sathi also came to Gazipur with her mother but a few days after her arrival, her stepfather started beating Sathi mercilessly, forcing her to come down on the streets.
“I was beaten every day, so I had no alternative to coming down to streets. I first came to Airport rail station from Gazipur. I was there for a month and then I came to Kamlapur station,” Shati said.
Eight-year-old Mohammd Faisal along with many others has been staying at Kamlapur rail station for the last six months since he and her mother were abandoned by his father.
“My mother is sick so she cannot do anything. That’s why I live on streets. I earn by begging and spend the money for food,” he said.
LEEDO founder and executive director Forhad Hossain said in the last two years, about 700 children were recovered from different places of the city following legal procedures and most of them came from broken families.
