Campaign of street-children free nation gains momentum, 574 children rescued since 2016

Kathmandu - The government's campaign to achieve street-children free status is gaining momentum with the implementation of the related programmes. So far, 574 street-children have been rescued from various parts of the country and rehabilitation managed. Of them, 465 are boys and 109 girls. The campaign was launched in 2016. Even Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli in his message on the occasion of the National Children's Day in the last September said that the government was aiming to declare country free of street-children.

The Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizen has been undertaking various programmes to prevent any children resorting to street owing to various circumstances. The Ministry has been coordinating efforts with the National Child Rights Council and various other social organizations to rescue such children and to rehabilitate them. As per the report prepared by the Council, among the rescued ones, 30 were street-children hailing from various parts of India.

There are 255 rescued children in the contact centre, 99 in socialization centre, 50 in child shelter while 810 were handed over to their respective families. Similarly, 184 rescued street-children were sent for training and 59 of them were already working in various capacities too.

As many as 3,422 children were reported to be missing in the fiscal year 2018/19 and out of them 2,540 were found. The number of missing cases of children in the last fiscal year 2019/2020 stood at 2,729. Among them, 2,219 were found. The report said that the street children were among the high-risk groups and were prone to exploitation and abuses. Thus the State organs should moot plan and policies in the legal, administrative, social and academic levels to make sure no child is abandoned by his/her family or flee their home and resort to the street.