City faces alarming rise in addicts, juvenile beggars

He said that due to the negligence on the part of the government, such children are being exploited by different mafias, who use them for begging, drug trafficking and other illegal activities.

Rana said that ninety percent of street children are users of different intoxicated items in which 74 per cent use glue and heroin. Another 43 per cent of the drug-user children are of ages under fifteen. He mentioned the several children have, so far, died while using these drugs.

“Similarly, the children are also being used for drug peddling and are severely punished and sexually abused in case they refuse to do so”, he said.

Rana lamented that there was no law for the rehabilitation of such children in Sindh while the Punjab government has taken the initiative to introduce a law in this regard. He said that rehabilitation centres have been set up for street children in twelve districts of Punjab but no initiative has been taken in Sindh so far. He said the recommendations in this regard had been given to the previous Sindh Chief Minister but he refused to legalise the matter.

He also said that due to increase in the street children the street crime rate is on the rise day by day as a number of children are getting involved in drug trafficking and addiction in the city. He further said that more than 15,000 street children in Karachi alone are being used for sexual abuse.