Goa - Oblivious boy amidst new year celebrations
Written by sreedev
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| Me, Sandeep(Middle) and the boy. |
This boy ran away from his house 2 days back. His father who is a
Sub-inspector of Police used to beat him regularly. One day while this boy
was returning from his friend’s house, his dad came and started beating him on
middle of the road which made him decide to leave his house on the same day. He
reached Goa and was planning to get in to some job, of course he was out of
cash. He was starving since a day and was sleeping on a chair at a park near
Panjim. He was surviving in a bottle of Limca since a day and we could figure out
his dwindling health. He feared we would hand him over to Police but still
he was asking us to take him with us and give him a place to stay. We checked his
bag and found some books related to medical entrance and some tuition notes, he
was preparing for medical entrance after Plus two. By the time he detailed
about the joint family and situations he was going through when he was
back there in Hyderabad. After 15-20 minutes
of conversation we understood that he is so brilliant and good performer in
curriculum. On the way to Goa he contacted his mom once to inform that he is
going away from home, we both where wondering thinking about his mother’s condition. A day back
he met a taxi driver in town. This boy might have discussed the same story with
him; that taxi driver gave him a Club owner's number and advised this boy to
contact that owner for a job. He was planning to visit the owner on the same
day at evening 3 and was on the way to find this club when we met him. The
piece of paper he took out of his pocket was the address and number of that
club owner. We tried called that owner and he replied to come to club at 3.
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| Waiting for the team to arrive. |
We were in dilemma and was feeling uneasy to leave that boy like that. Frankly, I was not that mature enough to handle the situation, but Sandeep was stern and was suggesting me to take this boy to nearby Police station or church. But I felt that plan is not going to work anyways. We realized taking him to Police station will be a bad idea, because his father is a Sub Inspector and it would be like giving back to beast’s hand. Sandeep started surfing through his contact list to ask someone for a sensible advice. One of his senior Rahul has worked in many NGO and he is well versed with such situations. Rahul told us to contact child helpline (1098). We called child helpline and detailed them everything that happened. The team asked for details like, how we met? How old is this child? What’s his condition? etc. Then they told us to wait near the Park at Panjim. Within half an hour, one team with 2 women and a men came walking to us and took him to their office which was nearby. We joined them just to make sure that the boy is in safe hands. Once they reached their office, they started intriguing the boy to understand more about boy which was their regular procedure. After some time this boy started bursting out in to tears and started thanking us for taking him to a safer place like that. The head of the team was an old lady and her name is Susan. She gave us her word that they will take necessary action to ensure the safety of that boy. She thanked us for helping them for pulling this boy out of danger and told that this happens very often, in festive seasons the rate of child abuse goes high in such happening areas. She told us some similar stories happened in near time. That boy came and hugged us while we were about to leave and told us to stay in touch with him, then we thanked the team and walked out.
Living in a country with such a substantial population, there is greater
chunk of children who are struggling to get their daily meal done or a roof to
sleep in. In this same boscage there are chaparral who takes advantage of these
little ones. We should be sensibly aware of these mis happenings around us and
should be capable enough to respond. Official figures says, 12 million children
works daily in India, but many NGO claims its 60 million. Studies
says, around 53.2% children reported having faced one or more forms
of sexual abuse. When the numbers are such huge, the possibility of bumping in
to one of these victims is really high when we are visiting a place
in India. If that happens, be wise with how you act and should make that
fortunate for that child. There is a child help line which works all over India
- 1098. This is an initiative by Government of India and this team
is nowhere related to Police or military wings. There is an efficient team
working 24x7 in search of such victims to catch and move them to a safer zone.
If we find a child below 16 in a weird situation, anyone can dial to this
number. The team will arrive in spot without any compromises in an hour. You
don’t have to provide your details to them while taking that child, you won’t
get fastened with any Govt documentations. Never think you are wasting your
time doing all these in between your tour or travel, you are gifting a new era
of life to a child by doing this. What else you want to be happy to take back
home. So be wise when you travel and be prepared to act up on situations like
this. As this situation was an eye opener for me.
1098 is the child helpline which works all over India. Anyone
who finds a child getting abused or labored can dial to this number. The
team will be on the spot within an hour. 1098
will be live 24x7.
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| On the way to Panjim |