Living in the open, surrounded by risks

They are three sisters (all minors) whose father died due to excessive drinking four years ago. Their mother runs a roadside tea and gutka stall which hardly ensures two square meals for the family. The family doesn’t have a house and lives in a temporary shelter under a flyover in Lucknow .

“There have been instances when the men who come to the shop strike a conversation with us . Some of them even offer us a movie show and dinner,” say the girls.

For them, each day is vulnerable. When the sun sets and the traffic on the roads increases, life becomes all the more unsafe.

“Such girls undergo sexual, physical and mental abuse on a daily basis. Many of them don’t even realise that they are being misused and exploited for petty favours,” says Ashish Srivastava, who works for the rights of trafficked girls.

“Teenage pregnancies are common. A number of girls even lose their lives because of this,” says Shachi Singh, who has been working for street children and those on railway stations for over a decade.

Shachi recalls, “I remember there was a girl on the railway station. One day when we went, the children told us that she had died because she was pregnant. She was only 13-years-old.”

Such instances aren’t uncommon. Among all other women, those living on the streets are a very vulnerable lot when it comes to rape and sexual assault. While cases of sexual crime against those living in slums often come to light, any kind of assault with street children is hardly reported.

“How can we expect a teenage girl sleeping on the divider of the road to be safe? She is exploited daily,” says Usha Vishwakarma, a social worker.

“They are soft targets of auto drivers, rickshaw pullers and even those who move in big cars”, she adds.

“Crime with such people continues to go on as no one takes the initiative to raise a voice against it. Somehow they have accepted such crimes as a part of their daily lives,” says Sangeeta Sharma, member Lucknow’s child welfare committee.

“No cases of rape, sodomy or murder of street children is ever recorded. Who is going to file an FIR for these children who have been abandoned by society and trapped by gangs?” she adds.

Those working in the sector say that it is these girls who are pushed into prostitution and are trafficked . “We see a lot of little girls begging on the roads. But as soon as they attain teenage, they disappear from the roads. Has anyone ever tried to find out where these girls go? The fact is that they become part of a bigger crime,” says Sangeeta Sharma.