Street Children with Disabilities
Isolated Living Style of Disabled Kids Living on the Street
May 9, 2009
Street children with disabilities are in many ways invisible in the society and even in schools. They are not listened to and they often considered incompetent because of a physical defect.
Treated as burdens, these children are seldom addressed by their actual names, rather they are called by their disability in its rudest and cruelest interpretation. Very often they are mistreated and teased for their impairment and disability.
Many of the street children with disability are being used as beggars as their disability creates sympathy and attracts people’s sentiment. If they are employed they receive a very low rate of wages.
Abuse of Street Children With Disabilities:
"Physical abuse like beating, physical punishment, etc have been reported as most common among the street children with disabilities,"says the Centre for Services and information on Disabilities. Their fathers and brothers in their families primarily enacted these incidences. They also fall victims to such situations at the hands of other community people, their non-disabled friends at workplaces and streets as well. The dependency of the disabled children particularly the disabled girl is one of the factors for such sad events.
Almost all disabled girls have revealed incidents of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse varies from indirect abuse to rape. In most cases, disabled girls experience repeated and continuous disturbance by street boys and even elderly people who propose, use words to stimulate them sexually, offer money for mutual sex etc. (Centre for Services and Information on Disability).
Confidence and Ability of Street Children With Disabilities Underestimated
Most children on the street with disabilities, including the severely disabled like absolute visual impaired or physical impaired, express firm confidence andability to be involved with education (Centre for Services and Information on Disability).
A good percentage of respondents have certain level of skills and involvement in specific work assignments. They are willing and are confident to upgrade their level of skill through undertaking vocational training.
The preferred trades and areas of such skills are mainly repairing of rickshaws and bicycle, repairing of electronics equipment, tailoring, handicraft products, etc. Many of the respondents have strong confidence to run small shops or vender business if they are provided with financial assistance on credit basis.
Unfortunately, employers do not have confidence in their ability, and development agencies do not have adequate awareness on dealing with disabled people. These are results of people not wanting to have additional burden by including disabled people/children in any activities.
Disability awareness among the children especially the street children both non-disabled and disabled are very trifling. By changing our attitudes the lives of these children could be brightened up.
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