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A STUDY OF RUNAWAY CHILDREN FOUND ON RAILWAY PLATFORMS

CONDUCTED ON BEHALF OF SATHI

BY

NEERAJA RAGHAVAN

BANGALORE

DECEMBER 2006
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SUMMARY............................................................................................................................................................................4
Unusual cases.......................................................................................................................................................................6
INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................................................................8
METHODOLOGY..................................................................................................................................................................9
REASON FOR RUNNING AWAY........................................................................................................................................10
Unusual cases:....................................................................................................................................................................13
Were any children pushed out of the house by their own families?....................................................................................14
Frequently asked questions:...............................................................................................................................................16
What can be done to prevent a child from running away?..................................................................................................16
Do children ever lie about the reason they left home? Does the truth later come out?......................................................16
Was it the mistake of the child or the parent that caused the running away of the child?..................................................19
Examples of each of the above:..........................................................................................................................................20
Examples of addicted children:...........................................................................................................................................27
Duration on the platform......................................................................................................................................................28
Unusual cases:....................................................................................................................................................................29
Shelter Duration...................................................................................................................................................................31
Examples of children who spent different durations in the shelter:.....................................................................................33
Age of runaway children......................................................................................................................................................34
Unusual cases:....................................................................................................................................................................36
What was the condition of the child when contacted?........................................................................................................37
Correlation between condition of child on contact and duration on platform:.....................................................................37
Precedence of any (other) runaway case by same child or in family..................................................................................40
Habitual Runaways?............................................................................................................................................................42
Does a runaway child follow the example of someone who had already run away from the family?.................................44
Family Background..............................................................................................................................................................46
Economic Status of family...................................................................................................................................................47
Father’s Occupation............................................................................................................................................................48
Mother’s Occupation............................................................................................................................................................52
Type of Dwelling .................................................................................................................................................................54
How did families react to restoration of their runaway child?..............................................................................................55
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Did any families reject the child restored to them?.............................................................................................................57

Could it be that the family is an indifferent or uncaring one?..............................................................................................59
Examples of single-parent, broken families and orphaned children:..................................................................................59
Family’s reaction to the child running away........................................................................................................................63
Examples of different reactions:..........................................................................................................................................63
What kinds of efforts were put in by the families to find their child?...................................................................................66
Examples of efforts put in by families to trace their children:..............................................................................................66
Parents’ Assistance.............................................................................................................................................................71
Geographical distribution of 153 cases...............................................................................................................................72
Children who could not be reunited with their families........................................................................................................74
Children who were deeply impacted by the camp...............................................................................................................75
After home placement, did any child run away again?.......................................................................................................76
What kind of follow up was done to find out if the child was being treated well?...............................................................77
Response from Police.........................................................................................................................................................79
Unusual cases.....................................................................................................................................................................79
CONCLUSION:....................................................................................................................................................................80
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SUMMARY
Work done: Three hundred cases of runaway children rescued by Sathi, Prayas and SF have been studied. Each case
study has been read through twice or thrice, edited for English language and readability and checked for repetition.
Several repeated cases were weeded out. The edited document now contains no repeated cases, and is being separately
given as a soft copy, on a CD, as a word file.

Excel sheets prepared by SATHI for 153 cases have been analysed for the following:
 Platform life of the child
 Family profile of the child
 Location of home of the child
 Reaction of parents to running away of the child
 Arrangements made to ensure that a similar problem is not faced again

An excel sheet was made by this researcher for 300 cases, to study the cause of the problem: why the child ran away.

Findings: Broadly, these are the findings:

1. The most common reason for a child running away is tensions within the family: a quarrel, beating, abuse or
certain expectations (to bring in an income, to retake an examination, to study better, to do household chores) from
the parents/guardians that the child is unable to fulfill. Ranking a close second to this factor is abuse of the child
at the workplace, where exploitation by the agent who fetched the child a job, or the employer himself, is
(naturally) enough to frustrate the child, who then runs away.
2. Who is to blame for the child’s running away? This is a difficult question to answer. Specifically, the seeming
cause is a quarrel where the parent or elder brother beats the child and this prompts the child to run away. But
these situations are never (or hardly ever) a one-of-a-time instances: they build up over time. Thus, this is a point
that cannot be objectively analysed. There is a huge element of subjectivity. For the sake of record, however, this
report contains a tabulation of the ‘person responsible’ for the final event that pushed the child to leave home.
It is important to bear in mind, while sifting through the data below, that such events seldom happen because of
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one single episode or person. Again, as seen in the section on reason for running away from home, it is clear that
family (parents) rank topmost as the persons responsible for the pushing event, with the child him/herself
a close second.
3. The most vulnerable age is between 12 and 16, the adolescent period when rebellion and assertion of
independence are natural. Hormonal changes that occur at this time may also be incidental in prompting a child to
eke out his own life.
4. The sudden release into an unsupervised and free lifestyle pulls many a child into bad company and triggers
addictions and bad habits. Children who stay for long on the platform succumb most easily to smoking and
inhaling solution (which gives them a kick). A few even turn homosexual.
5. Most runaway children come from poor-to-very poor families with no regular income at all, while many fall into
the 1000-2000 rupees per month bracket. Despite this, most of the families are caring. Most families put in a lot-to-
moderate effort to locate their missing child and most parents finally assisted the rescuers in restoring their child to
them.
6. What kind of professions do the parents engage in? Most fathers were either coolies or farmers/agricultural
workers. Some had expired. Most mothers were housewives, while many were coolies.
7. Most children were in a normal state of physical and mental health. A few were dirty, sick or frightened at the
time of contact.
8. Does a runaway child follow the example of someone who had already run away from the family? Clearly, from
the analysis herein, there is no such trigger of precedent runaway cases.
9. Does a child get into the habit of running away from home? Have most of these rescued children run away more
than once? Contrary to expectations, it was found that most children have run away for the first time.
10. How long do these children spend on the platform before the rescue staff of SATHI find them? While most
children are found within days of their coming to the platform, a few are contacted only after months and even
fewer, after years.
11. How long do they spend in the shelter? As can be seen from the graphical analysis herein, most children are
repatriated after a maximum of five days in the shelter, with the maximum number of children being repatriated
after merely two days at the shelter.
12. Did parents seek the help of anyone else before their child was restored to them? Yes, many went to
astrologers, lodged a police complaint, advertised in the media and spent a relatively huge amount of money trying
to trace their lost child.
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13. What kinds of arrangements were made to ensure that the child did not run away again? No particular
arrangement was done for this purpose, but in about 30% cases, follow up was done by calling up and enquiring
whether the restored child was still at home. Some parents themselves called the office to inform of their child’s
continued safety. It was found that most children wished to continue their education, while wanting to take up any
job was the second most popular option.
14. Were there any children who could not be reunited with their families? Yes, of the 300 cases, 9 could not be
reunited. [The latter number does not include those who were restored to O.H.’s but later ran away from there as
well.]
15. Were any children rejected by their families? Yes, in rare cases this did happen, but in a few of these cases,
SATHI was able to turn around the mindset of the families.
16. Did the police render assistance to SATHI/Prayas/SF in tracing the child’s family? Out of 300 cases, the part
played by the police has been specifically mentioned in 46 cases, where contrary to popular belief, the police
were by and large helpful.

Of the 300 cases edited, only nine children could not be reunited with their parents.

Unusual cases
 Seventeen-year-old Prasanna Patel (case 216 of 300 edited cases) was a unique girl, in that she was so
inspired by the life of Buddha, that she left home for the Himalayas in search of Truth.
 Nikat Sheikh (case 282 of 300 edited cases) had heard about Mumbai, and also that she can earn lot of
money in Mumbai which was why she left home. A girl who left home in search of adventure is unusual
indeed.
 Kunta Ravi’s (ID NO VC05050288) was an unusual case in that his parents rejected him and refused to
accept him during repatriation. They told Sathi staff that Ravi had been very naughty had already stolen
money many times from home, so they didn’t want to put up with him anymore. Later, Sathi staff took the
help of a few neighbours and relatives to convince the parents to reunite the child back with the family.
 Avinash (Wadi) (ID NO. WD05110183) was a seven-year old whose father was so addicted to alcohol that
he left his child on the train, after getting him to beg money for his alcohol consumption.
 Deepak (Case 165 of 300 edited cases) an eight-year-old boy, lives with Mr. Mehender Singh and calls him
“father”. Deepak was left by his own family at Ludhiana Station. Mehender Singh, a staff of the railways,
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found him and searched for his parents. He took him to various places where his parents could have been,
but they could not locate them. Then he accepted him as his child and started taking care of him. At school,
he had had a fight with his classmate and he broke his head unintentionally. He got scared that his father
would beat him up, and also that the boy’s parents would scold him. Deepak took the staff directly to his
place from the railway station. His father was pleased to see Deepak. He asked him where he went. His
father had been to an astrologer to ask Deepak’s whereabouts. The astrologer told him that he was
somewhere very far from this place. Deepak was very happy to see his father and his elder brothers and
sister. No one in the family talked about the incident that had happened in the school. His father told the staff
about the background of the child. The father treated him like his own son. He had great love and affection
for Deepak. Staff believes that Deepak is very lucky to be part of an affectionate family such as this.
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INTRODUCTION
This is a report of cases of runaway children, rescued by SATHI on railway platforms and (many of them) later reunited
with their families.

The purpose of this analysis was to take a fresh look at the work that has been done by Sathi for several years now, to
look for patterns and trends and correlate various causes with effects.

 Why, for instance, do these children run away from their homes?
 Who is to blame for their running away from home?
 What kinds of families do they run away from?
 Do the families reject their children after Sathi finds them and takes them back?
 What are the aspirations of these children once they are restored to their respective homes?
 How long do these children roam around on railway platforms?
 Do the children fall into any bad habits or addictions while they stay on the platforms?
 Could Sathi effect a transformation in the mindsets of the children through counseling or the camp?

While a total of three hundred case studies was edited, (and is being given separately on a CD as a word document) this
report contains an analysis of those cases which were transferred to an excel spreadsheet, by Sathi office. Since a total of
150-160 cases were transferred thus, this document contains and analysis of these cases only, for the following
parameters:
1. Life on the platform: habits and addictions acquired by the child while on the platform
2. Duration on the platform
3. Duration in the shelter
4. Age of runaway child
5. Condition of the child when contacted
6. Precedence of any runaway case in the child’s family
7. Number of times the child has run away from home
8. Family Background: Mother’s Occupation, Father’s Occupation, Monthly Income, Type of Dwelling
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9. Whether or not the family was a caring one

10. Family’s reaction to their child running away
11. Efforts made by the family to trace their child
12. Assistance provided by the child to SATHI in repatriation of their child
13. Geographical distribution of the runaway children, state wise and district wise

For certain parameters, the entire set of 300 cases were analysed, and these are listed below:
1. Reason for running away
2. Chronic Runaway children
3. Children who could not be reunited with their families for various reasons
4. Assistance provided by the police in repatriation of the child

In addition, only for those cases where data was available, the following was also analysed:
 After repatriation, did the child run away again?
 Future plans of the child after repatriation

METHODOLOGY
Analysis of the data was done by using the software MS EXCEL, and plotting graphs as allowed for by the software.
For parameters highlighted thus, manual counting and tabulation was done, especially as this analysis had to be done
by thoroughly reading each and every one of the 300 case studies more than once.

Trends have been described at the end of every table or graph. Conclusions have been given both within the main body
of the report, as well as in the summary at the beginning. Further, in appropriate places, unusual cases have been
highlighted and frequently asked questions also discussed.

Numbering of cases: In many cases, an ID Number has been provided by SATHI to the case, and this appears in the
edited report as well as in this document beside the name of the child. In larger number of cases, however, there is no ID
number provide, and so the serial number in the word document containing 300 edited cases is given alongside the name
of the child, e.g. “Raja (case 120 of 300 edited cases)” means the reader can scroll down to the 120 th case in the word
document containing 300 edited cases to read the full case study of Raja.
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REASON FOR RUNNING AWAY

As this was the most critical parameter in the entire study, this was studied and analysed for 300 cases by this
researcher.

Broadly, the causes could be categorized as follows:

1. The child simply got lost without having any intention of running away: This ranked fourth in the frequency of
thirteen causes. This could happen while the child was waiting on a train or platform for other family members, or
while en route in search of a job with the family’s consent, or at a crowded place like a temple or fair when the child
accidentally got parted from the rest of the family. In any case, this cause is distinct from all the others in that
the child did not intentionally leave home without the consent or knowledge of the family. Some examples
are 15-year-old Srishail (BN 06010126) who was driven to seek employment due to extreme poverty, [and was
spotted on the railway station by SATHI staff] and K Anjanaeyalu (BN 06010133) who was also in search of a job
when he got lost. Lohit Rathod (BN 06010128) got lost while searching for his cousin, and Shiva Kumar (BN
06020105) got lost while visiting his sister. Raja (case 120 of 300 edited cases) ID No: BG05070154 comes from a
family who are all on the street. So he is technically not a runaway child. Wandering around begging and trying to
eke out a living, his family could not be traced by Sathi as Raja had no idea where they were.

2. The child left home in search of adventure. Some times, bad company misguided the child to be pulled by the
lure of a big city, or dangled tempting prospects of earning big money in a metropolitan city. At other times, the child
was just plain bored at home, not having enough to occupy his energy and mind. For instance, Nikat Sheikh had
heard a lot about Mumbai and that one could earn plenty of money there, so she left home in search of adventure.
Similar is the case of Shakti Nayak who was attracted by big money in the city of Delhi and hence ran away from
home. Arshad Basha (CN 05060870) and Puran Giri (CN 05060872) left home and the workplace, respectively, in
search of adventure.
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3. Job Search: Distinct from cause 1 above, this is when the child left home without anyone’s knowledge, in search
of a job so as to fend for him/her self. Stemming usually from poverty, this could also be caused by a frustration
with living conditions in the child’s own household and a desire for freedom and independence. An example of such
a case is Vijay (CJ 05100009) who left home in search of a job, after he was taken to task by his family for
committing small errors in the execution of household chores.

4. Dislike school or studies: Many children leave home quietly because they do not wish to study. They could either
be pressurized by teachers at school to do their homework, or beaten by their parents to study. Examples of such
cases are Kishore (CJ 05100004), Mustaffa (CJ 05100012) and Mahesh Chavan (CJ 05100013).

5. Fear of punishment: A child may steal or injure another on an impulse, and then be overcome with fear of
retribution. This could prompt the child to run away from home. In this regard, it is worthwhile mentioning a few
unusual cases of fear: eight-year-old Deepak (case 165 of 300 edited cases) had had a fight with his classmate
and he broke his head unintentionally. He got scared that his father would beat him up, and also that the boy’s
parents would scold him. Twelve-year-old Bala Venkat Reddy (case 114 of 300 edited cases) left home after his
father was assassinated by a group of factionists, in front of his own eyes. He was very afraid that they might kill
him, too, and had run away from home on the same day. He refused to return home because he was once again
afraid of the factionists, who were responsible for killing his father, and had to be counseled before repatriation. For
instance, Prabhu (CJ 05100001) got scared when the cattle that he had been asked to take for grazing wandered
to the neighbouring field. Thinking he had lost the cattle, the poor boy ran away fearing punishment.

6. Family Quarrel: This ranked topmost in the frequency of 13 causes. A beating or scolding given to the child for
any reason may provoke the child to run away. This and the next cause (family pressure) are often overlapping with
each other, in that “quarrel” refers to disharmony within the family--- for reasons other than expectations of
academic performance or income generation. For instance, when Deepak (JC 05100019) was scolded by his
mother for demanding money from the neighbours, he ran away from home.

7. Family Pressure: This ranked second in the frequency of 13 causes. Most families have certain expectations of
their children: to study well, do household chores and in low-income families, also to bring in money at the earliest.
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Failing to meet any of these expectations causes tremendous pressure on the child --- who then runs away. When
Shyamsunder (CJ 05100007) was beaten by his elder brother because he did not do some household work, he
simply ran away. Ravi (WD 05060616) was forced by his brother to work, and that prompted him to run away.
Kannayya (BG 05080089) was scolded by his mother for not bringing in the rations: and that was enough to make
the boy run away.

8. Dislike hostel: In their eagerness to ensure proper education of their wards, many poor parents incur expenditure
to enroll their children in hostels, which, unfortunately, the children do not enjoy living in. So the child feels cornered
by the expectations (and committed expenditure) of the parent and the unfriendly conditions at the hostel --- and
then runs away. Orphan Ramu (BG 05070139) had the traumatic experience of living in a hostel and being
sexually abused by the women in a neighbouring women’s hostel: the poor boy ran away with revulsion. When
Venkata Reddy (BG 05080073) fell sick in the hostel, he missed his mother so much that he ran away from the
hostel with the intention of returning to her.

9. Abuse at workplace: This ranked third in the frequency of 13 causes. Most children who are sent by their
parents in search of work have to face cheating either by the agent who gets them the job, or by the employer who
often ill-treats, exploits and refuses to pay them. This naturally prompts the child to run away from the workplace
and go back in search of family. Anji (BG 05090103) found that his employer used to send him of on boring
errands instead of making him do tailoring work as had been promised at the time of his appointment. As tailoring
was the kind of work he enjoyed, he ran away. Raju Kumar and Sanjeet Kumar (cases 180 & 181) were not
treated properly by their employer, so they ran away. Sayeed Mohammad (case 172) was often beaten up by his
employer and so he ran away.

10. Chronic runaway: Some children have become habitual runaways, in that they are too restless to stay for long at
home. This makes it difficult to pace them at home, as there is no saying when they will run away next. Causes for
this could vary: from an unhappy family to sheer boredom. Devender Nath is a chronic runaway, so much so that
his family is no longer affected by his disappearance.
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11. Abandoned: In rare cases, the child is found abandoned by the family due to sheer poverty or due to the parents
not getting along. Sai (BG 05070138) was an abandoned orphan who ran away from his adopted family several
times. Seven-year-old Sai Prakash (WD 05110179) was abandoned by his mother on the platform, as she wanted
to go off with the man whom she was having an affair with. Avinash (WD 05110183) was abandoned by his
alcoholic father who made the seven-year-old boy beg and sweep to earn money for his liquor purchase.

12. Others: A few children run away for reasons not falling into any of the above categories: like a girl, Prasanna Patel
(case 216), who left for the Himalayas after she was inspired by the life of Buddha, and another girl, Shakuntala
Taka (case 288) who was married and who went from her mother-in-law’s place to live with her husband, and the
latter sent her back.

13. Not clear why: Despite interrogation of child as well as parents, in a few cases it was not possible to ascertain the
exact cause of running away. Such cases are like those of Saddam Nizamuddin Dusre (case 271), where the
family also did not feel he had any cause to run away from home.

Unusual cases:
 Seventeen-year-old Prasanna Patel (case 216 of 300 edited cases) was a unique girl, in that she was so
inspired by the life of Buddha, that she left home for the Himalayas in search of Truth. Sathi rescued her
from the platform and reunited her with her father. When Prasanna saw her father, she showed an
expression more of surprise than happiness, as she was very determined to go to the Himalayas. After a
great deal of persuasion, she agreed to go back home on the condition that she would again leave for the
Himalayas after a year.
 Nikat Sheikh (case 282 of 300 edited cases) had heard about Mumbai, and also that she can earn lot of
money in Mumbai which was why she left home. A girl who left home in search of adventure is unusual
indeed. She was repatriated by SATHI on 7th January 2006.
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Were any children pushed out of the house by their own families?
Not a single such case exists. Yes, a few were abandoned, and these are described above in point no: 11
“Abandoned”. Several were sent out in search of employment either alone or with an agent/prospective employer.

Results are represented below for 300 children in a tabular fashion as well as graphically:

S No: Reason No: of children Percentage

1 Lost, not runaway 30 1.3
2 Adventure 28 3
3 Job search 9 3
4 Dislike school, studies 18 4.3
5 Fear of punishment 23 4.7
6 Family Quarrel 51 5
7 Family Pressures 47 6
8 Dislike hostel 14 7.7
9 Abuse at workplace 39 9.3
10 Chronic runaway 9 10
11 Abandoned 4 13
12 Others 15 15.7
13 Not clear why 13 17
TOTAL NUMBER 300 100

The graphical representation (on the next page) of the above cases is arranged in ascending order for greater clarity.
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Findings: Clearly, the most common reason for a child running away is tensions within the family: a quarrel,
beating, abuse or certain expectations from the parents/guardians (to bring in an income, to retake an examination, to
study better, to do household chores) that the child is unable to fulfill. Ranking a close second to this factor is abuse of
the child at the workplace, where exploitation by the agent who fetched the child a job, or the employer himself, is
naturally enough to frustrate the child, who then runs away.

Frequently asked questions:

 What can be done to prevent a child from running away?

With the kind of energy a teenaged child has, it is important to keep him or her engaged in something absorbing, and also
to be sensitive to signs of repression or rebellion. Family quarrels affect a child of such sensitivity deeply, and it is
important for parents to learn to handle violent expressions of differences with maturity. However, when tempers ride high
due to poverty and strained living conditions, it is only external agencies like NGOs and social workers who can render
true assistance to parents who are oftentimes as stressed as (if not more stressed than) the runaway child.

 Do children ever lie about the reason they left home? Does the truth later come out?
‘Yes’ is the answer to both questions. In some cases, the child lies outright at first and then slowly comes out with the
truth. In others, it is more subtle, in that the ‘apparent’ cause comes out initially, and later the root cause.
For instance:
 Rajesh Kumar (case 252 of 300 edited cases), when spoken to, said that a man had killed his father and elder
brother. He also said that the same person gagged him up and brought him to Delhi. He was kidnapped but was
left somewhere near the bus stand close to the New Delhi railway station. He did not know who the person was.
Rajesh said that he was hungry and thirsty, so he wandered into the railway station in search of something to eat.
However, after being confronted by Sathi, he slowly admitted that he had been lying and that he had run away from
his uncle’s place, as he did not like to study and wanted to go back to his mother and brothers. Rajesh Kumar
Singh was handed into the safe custody of his uncle on 21.01.06.
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 Ranjeet Kumar (case 225 of 300 edited cases) was initially reluctant to talk, but he soon came out with a story that
he ran away from home because his father used to abuse him. He said that his father used to beat him and not
give him food. During his stay in the shelter, he came out with the truth that he, with the knowledge of his parents,
was staying and working at his mother’s sister’s place. But when his uncle (mother’s sister’s husband) took away
his salary, he ran away and reached Old Delhi railway station. Ranjeet Kumar was handed over to his parents on
the 30th of December 2005.
 Lokesh (case 202 of 300 edited cases) a 13-year-old boy, was physically challenged, in addition to being blind. He
completely lost his vision at the age of four. His left hand and leg were paralyzed. He told the staff that he was
going to his uncle’s place (Father’s Brother, chacha) as his father had beaten him. He had left the home four days
ago, and was roaming. He went to Jammu by Metro Rail, he said, and came back by the same. As Metro Rail
doesn’t go to Jammu, Sathi staff asked him to tell the truth. He argued that Sathi did not know but Metro did go to
Jammu and he had indeed traveled by it. After some time, he told Sathi that he ran away from his place because
he used to get bored sitting at home. Lokesh was handed over to his uncle on 31 st March 2006.
 Narasimha (case 148 of 300 edited cases) first claimed that he had stolen some money for traveling to Bangalore.
The child agreed to come along to the shelter. On the way, he revealed the actual story that his father would not let
him continue with his studies and forced him to work in the field. So he had run away from home. Later, his father
explained that since his son had failed five times in the examination, he had put him to work in the field. Narasimha
was handed over to his father on 13.05.05.
 S Raghu and M Raghu (cases 145 & 146 of 300 edited cases) were quite smart and came up with a quick reply to
avoid this stranger accosting them on the railway platform. In answer to his query, they replied that they had come
with their brother and father, who were waiting, they said, outside the station and both the cousins had come inside
the station to see the train. They were good actors, and very casually asked the staff why he was asking these
questions. Eranna (staff) told them that he is running a hostel where they give food and work to runaway children.
He thought they were runaway children, so he came to ask them. The children then realized that they had just
missed a good opportunity to eat food. They came running after Erranna and said that they were lying; and that
they had run away from home because their parents had beaten them up for remaining absent from school. After
two days of persuasion, the children said they did not do home work that day, but played in the evening. The next
day, they wore the school uniform and pretended to go to school, but boarded the train instead and came to
Bangalore, because of their fear of the teacher’s beating. Both boys were handed over to their families on 24.5.05.
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 Manial (case 88 of 300 edited cases) was a physically handicapped boy. One day, he bunked his tuition classes &
also came home late. So the fear of his mother made him run away from his home. In the first interaction, he told
Sathi that he was addicted to solution, gutkha and alcohol. It was the 5 th time that he had left home. In the fourth
week of camp, one day, after moral classes, he came of his own & told Sathi that he had gone on telling lies,
regarding the reason for his leaving home. He now revealed the real reason: that he was dancing in the Ganesh
Chaturthy festival. He had got late and now thought that he would be beaten by his mother. So he did not return
home & just came to the station. He also told his correct address, after which Sathi informed his parents. They told
Sathi that while he was dancing in the Ganesh Chaturthy festival, his father had seen him. So, he thought that his
parents would beat him and he ran away. They were happy to take back their child on 10.10.05.
 Mustaffa (case 79 of 300 edited cases) was not interested in studying and so did not like going to school. He also
never liked his father’s behavior, as he was always beating him without any apparent reason. So one day, he ran
away from home. During initial contact with Sathi, he did not disclose the reason for leaving home. Addiction levels
for cigarettes, bidi, solution were also high because of being on the railway platform, in bad company. In the third
week of camp, he was specially counseled by the camp facilitator, and this inspired him greatly. He also got really
influenced in the moral story session by the story of Ram and his ideology of being an obedient son. His attitude
changed and he started realizing the importance of his parents. Next day (it was the day of “Ramzan” and he was
doing Roja) Mustaffa disclosed his entire history. He told Sathi that his father never beats, but Mustaffa likes to be
with his elder sister, who was married and staying with his husband. His father and mother were naturally against
this and did not allow him to go there, so he left home and landed up on the platform. He was home placed on
10/10/05 through the parents.
 Mahesh Chavan (case 78 of 300 edited cases) was not interested in talking with Sathi staff, in the first interaction.
But after building a rapport in a few days, he confided to Sathi staff that he was an orphan, and had landed on the
railway platform a long while ago. He was earning his livelihood by working in a hotel. He was brought to the
shelter and counseled again, but he was still not giving all the information clearly. In the first three weeks of the
camp, he repeated the above reason (for his leaving home) several times. But after a lot of personal counseling by
the camp facilitator, his mindset changed. By the end of the third week, he stared sharing his feelings and narrated
the actual events that had happened to him. It turned out he was not an orphan at all. He told Sathi that one day,
he went to play cricket and returned home late. On the same day, he also bunked his tuition. For this, he was
scolded by his father. This hurt him a lot and without informing anybody, he left home the next day. When he was
on the platform, he used to earn his living by working in hotels, sweeping bogies, etc. In the fourth week of the
 19

camp, he agreed to go back home. The child was handed over to his parents by Shri Sanjay Jadhav (Assistant
Police Commissioner, Pune) on 9.10.05.

Was it the mistake of the child or the parent that caused the running away of the child?
This is a difficult question to answer. Specifically, the seeming cause is a quarrel where the parent or elder brother beats
the child and this prompts the child to run away. But these situations are never (or hardly ever) a one-of-a-time instances:
they build up over time. If the family builds pressure on the child to go to work, who is to blame? Their poverty and
oftentimes, the disinclination of the child, prompts the family to take this step. If the child dislikes going to school, can one
blame the child? How interesting is the school for the child? Thus, this is a point that cannot be objectively analysed.
There is a huge element of subjectivity. It is best to read through the detailed case studies in the edited word file to
understand this to the extent possible.
For the sake of record, however, we present below a tabulation of the ‘person responsible’ for the final event that
pushed the child to leave home.

It is important to bear in mind, while sifting through the data below, that such events seldom happen because of
one single episode or person:

Number of cases analysed below: 103

S No: of
No: Person Responsible cases
1 Mother/Father/Parents 32
2 Self 31
3 Employer 8
4 Friends 8
5 Uncle 6
6 Brother 5
7 Others 4
8 Teacher 2
9 Nobody 2
 20

10 Grandmother 2
11 Stepparent 3

Examples of each of the above:

1. Parents: On 3rd April 2005, Sathi staff came in contact with a girl, Karri Sunitha (ID NO VZ05040273) who was
found weeping on the Vizag Platform. Sathi Staff spoke to her amicably and brought her to the shelter. After proper
counseling, she said that her family consisted of her father, mother and 2 elder sisters. Her father is a lorry cleaner,
and mother, a house wife. She used to work in an STD Booth before leaving home. She also said that she had
married a boy in the temple without either parents’ sanction, and later, the boy had cheated her after spending 10
days in a hotel. Thereafter, after her return home, her parents started abusing her until, one day, even they rejected
her and sent her out of home. Sathi staff motivated her to go back home, during her stay in the Observation Home
of 10 days. She agreed to go back home and was accompanied by Sathi staff to her house on 15 th April 2005. Their
parent’s response towards her was totally different from what she had assumed. They all wept and hugged the girl.
Her mother fell at the feet of staff to express her gratitude.
2. Self: Ravi, ID NO WD05060616 aged 15 years, hails from Gulbarga district of Karnataka. He had discontinued his
education after completion of seventh standard. His family consists of his father, mother and two elder brothers. His
father is a Govt employee in the BSNL office, while his mother is a servant in a hospital. Both his brothers are
masons. One day, his elder brother abused him and forced him to work in a hotel. But the child was not interested
in working there, as a result of which, he unknowingly boarded a train at the Gulbarga station and got down in
Wadi. He remained idle on Wadi platform for 2 days and had to starve for want of food. Sathi staff contacted him on
16 June 2005, and brought him to the shelter for further counseling. After that, Sathi staff understood that he is a
mentally retarded child and contacted the police to take their help. Soon after this, his parents contacted Sathi over
telephone and his mother and brother arrived at the shelter, to collect their child, on 17 June 2005. His mother fell
at the feet of Sathi staff to express her gratitude.
3. Employer: Taposh ID NO CN05060876 was sent by his parents with his cousin brother to learn goldsmith’s work at
Salem in Tamil Nadu. But the treatment that Taposh received (from the owner and other persons) at the place of
training was not good. So Taposh planned to go back (Kolkatta) his place. In search of Kolkatta bound trains, he
 21

reached Chennai. Sathi staff met the child on 10/5/05. Sathi observed the child for two days continuously. Taposh
had given Sathi a clear address and route map to reach his home. Luckily, on 12/5/05 the parents of another child
(also belonging to Kolkatta) came to collect their son, Sabeer. So Sathi staff persuaded the parents of Sabeer, to
inform Taposh’s parents of their son being in a Chennai observation home. No sooner did they arrive, than they
said: “It is our duty to do this work,” and promptly informed the parents of Taposh after going back to their place. On
7/6/05, Taposh’s father and uncle came to Chennai to look for their son.
4. Friends: Arshad ID NO CN05060870belongs to a poor family. He is a semi-orphan. His mother works as a servant
in the neighbor’s house. He stays at his uncle’s home, he has no elder brother. As Arshad is very dull in education,
his mother enrolled him in an arrabi school. Arshad’s mother said her child had fallen into bad company, and they
had misguided him to leave home. Further, as Arshad has a keenness to see new places and learn their histories,
he came out one night and caught the Chennai train. On 26/5/05, when Sathi staff met the boy for the first time he
shared his experience. The Bangalore Sathi staff contacted the home of Arshad and gave the message that their
child is in Chennai, whereupon they immediately arranged to call Chennai staff by telephone, and explain their
financial problem to travel to Chennai. Sathi then said that they would provide their return tickets, and Arshad’s
mother came to Chennai on 7/6/05 and took her child.
5. Uncle: Shailesh, ID NO. JC05100020, a boy of 15 yrs, was a native of Shikhrapur. He had studied up to 8th
standard. His parents were Potters by profession. He had one elder sister, one younger sister & a brother. One of his
uncles, whom his parents respect a lot, was also living with them. But Shailesh was always beaten by his uncle for not
going school. Fed up by the beatings of his uncle, he left home one day. 0n 01/09/05, while wandering on Pune
station, he was found by a Sathi social worker. On 10/10/05, in the camp-ending ceremony, a couple came along with
his uncle. After discussing with them, Sathi came to know that the couple were the mother & father of Shailesh. After
talking to them, Sathi came to know the exact reason of his leaving home. Shailesh was surprised to see them at the
camp. Thus he was home placed from camp through his parents.
6. Brother: Biju Dey ID NO CN05060875 belongs to a poor family from West Bengal of Shillong Distt. Right from
childhood, he has been working in a Tea hotel. He has one elder brother, one younger brother and sister. Biju is a
very silent and innocent boy, he doesn’t know anything about the outside world, or about anyone other than his
family. Due to heavy work load at his work place, the child was not interested in continuing his work. So he had left
work and come back home. After learning about this, his elder brother had hounded him and had burned him with a
hot iron on his left leg. Biju Dey then left home and by changing several trains, he reached Chennai. On the way,
 22

he saw Mumbai and other places. He was sitting in Chennai railway station when some social workers contacted
the observation home, where they enrolled him. Finally, on 24/6/05 his father came and collected Biju Dey .
7. Others: Ramu is an orphan child, aged around 14 years. Though he had spent 2 years on the platform, he was not
addicted to bad habits. He lived in Goa- Stephen’s hostel. There was a women’s hostel close by and they used to
call him to have sex. He found it disgusting and ran away from there. Due to his prolonged stay on the platform
and disinclination to return home, he was selected for the camp at Bangalore. He revealed that he does not have
parents. At home, his aunt and grandmother would beat him so he disliked going home. In fact, he admitted that he
was once home placed, from Pune, by Sathi organization. Sathi Bangalore confirmed from them that Ramu has no
parents. He was handed over to his aunt at Boggapadu, Khammam Dist-AP. After the camp, Ramu has been
admitted in an organization called Ashraya 30 th Sept 2005. They are running a residential bridge course.
8. Teacher: Raju ID NO CN05050866 was the son of a labourer who wanted his child to be highly educated, and so
admitted Raju in a private school. But Raju acquired a bad reputation at school, as he always used to quarrel with
other children. He had left home 4 times. One day while at school, Raju was caught quarreling with another child,
and so his teacher punished him. Then and there, the child ran away from school, for fear of his father coming to
know of the incident, and also punishing him. So he left home and reached Chennai by train. One of Sathi’s staff
visited his home and informed his parents. On 31 st of May, his father came to Chennai and took the child back.
9. Nobody: Arjun ID NO BG05080119 is a fifteen-year-old boy, originally belonging to Salem, Tamil Nadu. He has
studied till 5th standard. Both his parents work as labourers (stone breakers). He had come to Bangalore with his
uncle, in search of work, and had then got lost in Ulsoor. He roamed around on the streets for a day and was
thereafter located by the staff of Sathi. He was in the shelter of Sathi for almost 19 days. The volunteer child from
Sathi escorted him to home.
10. Grandmother: Siddalinga’s (BG05080067) father is dead while his mother is alive. Siddalinga explained
that his grand mother used to tell him to do the household work, and would scold him for not doing it. But
Siddalinga has to take the 10 th std exam, and so his mother used to tell him to concentrate on studies. Due to this
conflict, he ran away. Sathi told his mother to ask the child’s grand mother not to assign any more household
chores to him. His mother agreed, and assured Sathi that she will convince Siddalinga’s grand mother not to do
this. She added that had he told this problem at home, instead of running away and putting all through the trouble
of searching for him in Belur, Hassan --- they had even planned to move to Bangalore to search!--- the problem
would have been solved. Meanwhile, she said, she got the message from Sathi about their having her child with
them. She happily took the child back home.
 23

11. Step-parent: Kumar ID NO. BN05100019 told Sathi that he comes from a lower-to-medium income group
family. His mother is dead and his father then re-married. The step-mother does not treat him properly and often
scolds and beats him up. So he ran away from home. To convince the child to go back home, intensive individual
counseling was done, wherein Sathi told him that they would talk to his mother. Sathi also told him of the hazards
of street life and how home is always safer for anybody, be it a child, adult or an aged person. The child gave the
address of his home and village. With the help of the police, Sathi tried to contact his family but never got a
response from them. Finally, Sathi staff went to drop the child back home. During the visit, the Staff spoke to the
stepmother on how to be patient with adolescent boys, why it is more important for the stepparents to be
particularly more caring towards children (because of the stigma attached), etc. The stepmother seemed to have
understood and she agreed to be more careful with the child hereafter, and to look after him.

Again, as seen in the section on reason for running away from home, it is clear that family (parents) rank
topmost as the persons responsible for the pushing event, with the child him/herself a close second.
24
 25

Having run away, what kind of life does the child have on the platform?

The sudden release into an unsupervised and free lifestyle pulls many a child into bad company and triggers addictions
and bad habits.

Represented below are some such addictions and sexual preferences:

TOTAL NUMBER OF CASES FROM WHICH BELOW-MENTIONED DATA WAS CULLED: 153

Percentage
Addiction No. of children (out of 153)
24.8%
smoking 38
11.1%
solution 17
1.3%
homosexuality 2
62.7%
No addiction 96
 26

Addiction of 153 children on platform

120

100

80
n
dre
chil
60
of
er
mb
Nu
40

20

0
homosexuality solution smoking No addiction

Type of Addiction
 27

As can be seen above, children who stay for long on the platform succumb most easily to smoking and inhaling
solution (which gives them a kick). A few even become homosexual.

Examples of addicted children:

1. Kishore (ID No: CJ05100004) was away from home for six months, and was highly addicted to Solution, Alcohol
Cigarettes, Gutkha & Bidi, because of such a long duration away from home.
2. Vijay (ID NO. CJ05100009) was addicted to Gutkha, Bidi & alcohol. His duration on platform was 2 months.
3. Nabijan (ID NO. JC05100022) had spent a total duration on the platform of 12 days and it was the 2 nd time that he
had left home. He was addicted to gutkha and solution.
4. Samadhan (ID NO. CJ05100011) had left home for the eighth time and was addicted to Gutkha and Cigarette.
5. Shailesh (ID NO. JC05100020) had spent a total duration on the platform of 12 days. During this period, he got
addicted to gutkha & solution.
 28

Duration on the platform

Depending upon the time of contact of the child with rescue staff, each child has spent a varying duration on the railway
platform, which obviously affects the child’s proneness to acquiring the habits and tendencies cited above.
Maximum children (58 out of 159) were rescued from the platform after they had spent only one day on the platform.

No: of days on
platform 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 15 16 20
No: of children 58 26 12 1 4 3 7 2 6 1 4 1 3
TOTAL NUMBER: 128

No: of months on platform 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 10

No: of children 5 1 4 3 0 3 2 1
TOTAL NUMBER: 19

No: of years on platform 1 2 4 5 6 7 8

No: of children 2 5 1 2 1 0 1
TOTAL NUMBER: 12

TOTAL OF ALL ABOVE THREE TABLES: 159

Represented on a later page are three graphs of the number of days, months and years spent by children on the
platform.

While most children are found within days of their coming to the platform, a few are contacted only after months and even
fewer, after years.
 29

Unusual cases:
 Deepak Devar (see case no: 278 in the 300 edited cases) is an unusual case in that he spent two full years on
the platform, after running away simply because his parents beat him because he did not work in the field. Yet,
even after such a long duration away from home, he wanted to go back when staff rescued him and
brought him to their shelter.
 Parveena and Rehana (cases no:s 300 and 301) are very unusual cases in that they spent a full five years
away from home, and were aged 4 and 6 years at the time that they were accidentally parted from their family.
Their family was traced by Sathi with a mere scrap of information: that their father (a Muslim) was a rickshaw puller
in Kharagpur. They were reunited with their parents who, at first, failed to identify their now grown daughters from
the photograph. The father told Sathi that in the initial days, he had used all his resources to search for the girls
and spent more than Rs 3,000/-.
30
 31

Shelter Duration
How long do children usually have to stay on in the shelter? While this varies depending upon the amenability of the child
to return home, the ease with which the family is traced, and the need to send the child first to a de-addiction or
reintegration camp, the following is a tabular and graphical representation of the same for a total of 153 children:

No. of No. of
days children
1 14
2 32
3 16
4 6
5 14
6 1
7 6
8 8
9 8
10 3
11 3
12 3
14 2
15 4
17 2
19 1
21 1
30 4
32 2
60 1
not
mentioned 22
 32

As can be seen from the graph, most children are repatriated after a maximum of five days in the shelter, with the
maximum number of children being repatriated after merely two days.
 33

Examples of children who spent different durations in the shelter:

 Jashidakthar (ID No: JC05100015), Ramya (ID No: WR05060832) and Kumar (ID No: BN05120084) were
repatriated after only two to three days in the shelter.
 Mubaraq (ID No: BN05120067) was repatriated after 14 days in the shelter, while Bala Venkat Reddy (ID No:
WR05060837) spent 15 days in the shelter.
 Shalish (ID No: JC05100020) spent 32 days in the shelter, Munavar (ID No: BC06020027) spent 30 days and
Salman (ID No: BC06020018) spent sixty days in the shelter.
 Salman (case 227 out of 300 edited cases) spent a good eight months in the shelter because he refused to give his
contact number repeatedly, and only when, in the eight months, he saw so many of his friends being reunited, did
he relent and reveal his address.
 34

 Age of runaway children

Which is the most vulnerable age for a child to run away from home? (Note: Usually, SATHI does not handle children older
than 15 years of age.)

Age of
child No: of
(years) children
4 1
6 1
7 3
8 2
9 8
10 5
11 5
12 26
13 20
14 36
15 24
16 20
17 6
18 5
19 2

In order to study the most vulnerable age for running away, a graphical study was done of the age of the runaway children
versus their number. Quite clearly, the most vulnerable age is between 12 and 16, the adolescent period when
rebellion and assertion of independence are natural. Hormonal changes that occur at this time may also be incidental in
prompting a child to eke out his own life. Results are shown on the next page:
35
 36

Unusual cases:
 Bimila Das was a twenty-five year old lady (case no: 249 of 300 edited cases) who left home with the full consent
of her family, to find work that would help alleviate the miserably poor living conditions of her family. However, she
was duped by an agent who had brought them to Delhi ‘for well-paid work’, and found justice due to the boldness of
her fellow victim, Lilima, who lodged a police complaint. Bimila is the oldest person rescued by Sathi. This is an
unusual case in the age of the person, much older than SATHI usually handles.
 Avinash Wadi ID NO. WD05110183 (case 71 of the 300 edited cases) was a seven-year old whose father was so
addicted to alcohol that he left his child on the train, after getting him to beg money for his alcohol consumption.
This is an extraordinarily young child to have been found by SATHI.
 Seven-year-old Sai Prakash (WD 05110179) was abandoned by his mother on the platform, as she wanted to go
off with the man whom she was having an affair with.
 37

What was the condition of the child when contacted?

In order to ascertain whether only sick or traumatized children ran away, a comparison was made of the condition of the
child (both physical as well as mental health) at the time of running away, and at the time of /contact on the railway
platform. Results speak for themselves:

Health of child when running No

away Normal Sick Entry
No: of cases 157 2 5
TOTAL NUMBER OF CASES ANALYSED: 164

Condition of the child when No

contacted Confused Normal Carefree Dirty Frightened Entry
No: of children 7 133 3 17 1 3
TOTAL NUMBER OF CASES ANALYSED: 164

A graphical representation follows on the next page. As can be seen, most children were in a normal state of physical
and mental health. A few were dirty, sick or frightened at the time of contact.

Correlation between condition of child on contact and duration on platform:

While all dirty children had not necessarily spent long durations on the platform (some had only spent a day), those who
had spent five years on the platform were definitely dirty. However, a couple of children (Raja (appu) BG05070154 and
Hanumanth BG05070150) were found in a carefree condition after their having spent 6 and 8 years, respectively, on the
platform, while Anil (Sunil) [BG05070149] was found in a confused state even after eight months on the platform. So the
correlation is blurred, if any.
 38

As can be seen from the above graph, most children were found to be in a normal condition when contacted.
 39

As can be seen from the above graph, most children were in a normal state of health when they ran away.
 40

Precedence of any (other) runaway case by same child or in family

Does a child acquire a habit of running away? Have most of these rescued children run away more than once? Of the 152
cases analysed, the distribution is as follows:

No: of times ran

away 1 2 3 to 5 6 to 8
No: of children 89 32 24 7
Percentage of
children 58.6% 21.1% 15.8% 4.6%

Contrary to expectations, it was found that most children have run away for the first time.

Examples of children who have run away more than once:

 Arshad Basha CN05060870 ran away twice, while Bathina Manikanta Kumar CN05050869 ran away thrice.
 Hanumanth BG05070150 had run away six times while Yogesh BG05080065 had run away nine times from
home.
41
 42

Habitual Runaways?
Are children found by Sathi in the habit of running away from home? On the contrary, the analysis done on 152 cases
reveals that most children have run away from home for the first time. The graph is shown after a couple of pages.

However, there were a few chronic runaways, and these cases are briefly outlined below:

1. Shani Kumar (case 203 of the 300 edited cases) told Sathi that he had left home because his father used to beat
him. He came with a man who promised him a job, but the man left him at Lucknow station. Shani was taken to a
shelter in Lucknow. He ran away from that shelter, because he used to be beaten. He told Sathi that he didn’t want
to go back home. Sathi staff promised that no one would beat him at this shelter and thus convinced him to come
to the shelter. At home, when he saw his father and his uncle (father’s elder brother), the smile from his face faded
away. He started sweating with fear. The body language of his uncle and his father was threatening him. Shani’s
uncle told the staff that Shani’s father is mentally upset after the death of his wife. He had suffered a lot in order to
get his child back. Shani has a long history of running away. He has run away seven times. Once, his father
received a call from Patna Child line. He went to police to get the proof, the police slapped him cruelly. Then, he did
not go to search for him again. Shani told Sathi that he doesn’t like staying at home. He has to eat bad food as his
father used to cook for them. Shani wanted to study and said that he will not run away again.
2. Sanjay (case 200 of the 300 edited cases) dropped out of school because he doesn’t like to study. He told staff
that he frequents Old Delhi Railway Station, just to roam about, while his parents go to work. The staff asked them
to go home, along with them, but Sanjay said that he didn’t want Sathi staff to come along, because if his parents
saw them, they would beat him and lock him inside the house forever. One of the staff members took him to his
place. When his mother was told how he was found and was brought from Old Delhi Railway Station, she was very
angry and asked how he could he go there. “I left him at home!” She was really furious and started beating him.
The staff asked her to calm down. She told them that Sanjay had dropped out of school because he doesn’t like to
study. He used to sit idle or go out, so she used to get worried that he should not develop wrong habits. She asked
him to stay at home and take care of his younger brother and sister, but he doesn’t even do that. The staff told her
that they should not keep the boy idle at home; rather, they should send him for some vocational courses and then,
he can start working. The mother was not sure if the boy would be sincere about any work, but she agreed to try.
They boy said that he always wanted to work but just did not get any chance. He said that he wants to start working
as soon as possible.
 43

3. Sushant Aryal (case 189 of 300 edited cases) told Sathi that he had failed in his examination and his friends used
to tease him, which was why he ran away. He didn’t want to go home. The boy’s grandparents came to get him.
They were not happy to see the child and were not even emotional. They scolded him for running away. They
scolded the boy because he runs away from home very frequently, for very petty issues. He runs away even when
he merely gets bored. They used to search for him when he was young but by now, gave up searching for him, as
he knows the way back. The latest episode had been his longest stay out of the house. His grandparents said
that they didn’t even remember the number of times he had run away. Sathi staff felt that he was serious when
he said he would never again run away, but seeing the boy’s history, he cannot be trusted not to run away again.
4. Devender Nath (case 183 of 300 edited cases) had come to Delhi to work, without informing his parents. He told
Sathi that he knows the way back to his place clearly, so it was decided that the staff would accompany him to the
village. Devender’s mother was the first person they met. The staff told her that they were coming from Delhi. She
was not happy to see her child. She got angry and told Sathi that her boy is in the habit of running away. She told
that them that her son has run away more than 10 times. Devender’s father was also not happy to see him. His
parents did not search for him. They told Sathi that he keeps running away, for every small reason, (and some
times, even without reason) so they do not bother looking for him when he leaves. The mother said that Devender
had told him that he was interested in working before he ran, but now, when the staff asked him, he said he wanted
to study. The reason for this transformation in his attitude was not known, but Sathi staff speculates that this could
be his courteous answer without any real feeling behind it.
5. Sadiq (case 123 of 300 edited cases) ran away from home numerous times. Although the child has parents, he
used to stay away from the family, because his mother was having an illegal relationship with a man named Siraj.
Siraj beat Sadiq many a times, for talking against him. Therefore, Sadiq ran away from home many times and
tried to live away from the family. Sadiq’s mother came to the shelter to meet him. Siraj also accompanied her.
After seeing Siraj, Sadiq was very frustrated and refused to go along home with his mother. His mother also
refused to accept Sadiq, as she felt he would run away from home yet again. As per the wish of both mother and
son, he was enrolled in Abyadama organization. Sathi took the mother and Sadiq to Abyadama organization and
admitted him there. His mother was instructed to visit her son once in a month. After 3 days, Sathi got a message
from Abyadama that Sadiq, along with 5 other children, had escaped from there.
6. Narayanswamy (case 52 of 300 edited cases) had run away from home 5 times, and kept trying to run away from
Sathi shelter and camp, which he finally succeeded in doing. It is difficult to draw any conclusion about such a
child: whether he gave an accurate address, why he was trying to run away from the camp so many times; whether
he committed any crime, etc.
 44

Does a runaway child follow the example of someone who had already run away from the family?

In order to investigate this, a graph was plotted of the number of runaway cases in the child’s family, (for a total of 164
cases) versus number of children. Clearly, there is no such trigger of precedent runaway cases.

In the few cases where there was a precedent, it does not appear that that was the trigger. For instance, Venkatesh ID
NO. BN05120072 comes from a troubled family. His alcoholic father-Ramu, used to harass his mother and when
questioned by the villagers, ran away deserting the family. The villagers took care of the boy. His mother Rani works as a
housemaid. The boy was wayward and forced the other children in his class to write his homework and tests. He had
fallen into bad company and influenced by it, was irregular to school. Hence, he was lagging behind in his studies. So his
mother wanted to send him to work in a nearby hotel, which was owned by a man who was an Ayyappa swamy devotee.
She told her son that working for the devout man would do him good. But Venkatesh didn’t like the idea and ran away.
The mother was very worried, upset and wasn’t eating properly. She kept weeping and searching for her lost son in
Bhadravathi. She couldn’t go further in search of him as she had another younger daughter to look after and had no other
support. Sathi staff wanted to send the child to the orientation camp to motivate him to lead a more meaningful life, but
couldn’t do so, because the mother came and took him back home.

Of the 164 cases analysed for this data field, 85% had no such precedent.
45
 46

Family Background
What kind of correlation exists between the kind of family a child comes from and the child’s tendency to run
away?

Based upon parameters like:

 Economic condition
 Father’s Occupation
 Mother’s Occupation
 Monthly Income
 Emotional Support provided by Family
 Family’s Reaction to child running away
 Efforts put in by family to trace missing child

the above question has been analysed for 153-164 cases.

The following graphs are an attempt to study this.

As can be seen, most runaway children hail from poor-to-middle-income families. A few are very poor.
 47

Economic Status of family

 48

Father’s Occupation
No. of
Father's occupation children
Agriculturalist/Farmer 22
Auto driver 2
Auto parts dealer 1
Bag maker 1
Bank employee 1
Barber/Salon
employee 2
Basket weaver 1
Beggar 2
Business 5
Canteen owner 1
Carpenter 3
Check post attendant 1
Civil contractor 1
Construction worker 4
Cook 1
Coolie 19
Deserted family 2
Dhobi 2
Driver 1
Expired 7
Ex-serviceman 1
Factory worker 3
Flower seller 2
Govt. employee
(Telephone) 1
 49

No. of
Father's occupation children
Hamali 2
Hotel worker and
Weaver 1
Iron monger 1
K.E.B employee 2
Kulume worker 1
Labourer 5
Lorry cleaner 1
Lorry driver 3
Masjid employee 1
Mason 2
Mechanic 1
Mutton seller 1
not mentioned 19
Painter 1
Petrol bunk attendant 1
Railway contractor 1
Rice mill employee 1
Rope vendor 1
Salesman 1
Saree weaving &
Driver 1
Shepherd 2
Stone cutter 3
Sweeper 1
Tailor 4
Tamarind seller 1
Teacher 1
 50

No. of
Father's occupation children
Unemployed (inc. sick
&remarried) 4
Vegetable seller 1
Watchman 3

As can be seen from the graph on the next page, most fathers were either coolies or farmers/agricultural workers.
Some had expired.
51
 52

Mother’s Occupation
No. of
Mother's Occupation children
not mentioned (inc.
'Sangeeta') 21
Agarbathi business 1
Agriculturalist/Farmer 8
Bank employee
(cleaner) 1
Basket weaver 1
Beedi roller 4
Beggar 2
Business 1
Canteen owner 2
Child minder (Shishu
Vihara) 1
Cook 2
Coolie 20
Dhobi 2
Domestic helper 7
Expired 1
Factory worker 3
Fruits seller 1
Hostel employee (Pvt) 1
Hotel employee 1
Housewife 59
Labourer 4
Stone cutter 1
Sweeper 2
 53

No. of
Mother's Occupation children
Tailor 5
Teacher (private) 2

Most mothers were housewives, while many were coolies.

 54

Type of Dwelling Most children come from families that live in tin sheds or huts, with only a few living in
concrete houses.
 55

How did families react to restoration of their runaway child?

Of the 160 families analysed for this data field,

1. Most families (76%) were happy or very happy.

2. In rare cases (13 %), they showed moderate reaction or were indifferent.

3. Still fewer ( 5%) were the disturbed or rejection cases, which are dealt with in greater detail after this section.

Note: The “Others” data field refers to cases where children were restored to Homes like Ashraya or CWC as families
could not be located.
56
 57

Did any families reject the child restored to them?

Yes, a few such cases were observed. In rare cases, this does happen. In some of these cases, Sathi was successful in
turning around the mindset of the family:

1. Sai (case 117 of 300 edited cases) was not behaving properly with his adopted parents, so they beat him up one
day. He assaulted his adopted parents, threatening to lodge a complaint in the police station and take them to task
there. He even did it, and the police constable came home and scolded the parents. Sathi staff accompanied Sai to
Hyderabad, where his adopted parents live. The adopted parents acknowledged the truth in Sai’s narrative, and
also acknowledged that they were no longer interested in taking care of him. Sai was therefore admitted to Ashraya
Organization for his education. After a few days, Sathi telephoned to confirm Sai’s safety, when they were told that
he had escaped from there.
2. Samadhan (Case 83 of 300 edited cases) a boy of 12yrs, was always beaten by his uncle and aunt for small
reasons. Fed up with this, he left home one day. It was the 8 th time that he had left home. When his uncle came to
receive him, he was not ready to accept the child but after Sathi counseled him and made him understand the real
problem of child, he became ready to accept the child.
3. Deepak (Case 165 of 300 edited cases) an eight-year-old boy, lives with Mr. Mehender Singh and calls him
“father”. Deepak was left by his own family at Ludhiana Station. Mehender Singh, a staff of the railways, found
him and searched for his parents. He took him to various places where his parents could have been, but they could
not locate them. Then he accepted him as his child and started taking care of him. At school, he had had a fight
with his classmate and he broke his head unintentionally. He got scared that his father would beat him up, and also
that the boy’s parents would scold him. Deepak took the staff directly to his place from the railway station. His
father was pleased to see Deepak. He asked him where he went. His father had been to an astrologer to ask
Deepak’s whereabouts. The astrologer told him that he was somewhere very far from this place. Deepak was very
happy to see his father and his elder brothers and sister. No one in the family talked about the incident that had
happened in the school. His father told the staff about the background of the child. The father treated him like his
own son. He had great love and affection for Deepak. Staff believes that Deepak is very lucky to be part of an
affectionate family such as this.
4. Kunta Ravi’s (Case 109 of 300 edited cases) was an unusual case in that his parents rejected him and refused to
accept him during repatriation. They told Sathi staff that Ravi had been very naughty had already stolen money
 58

many times from home, so they didn’t want to put up with him anymore. Later, Sathi staff took the help of a few
neighbours and relatives to convince the parents to reunite the child back with the family.
5. Ramesh’s (Case 108 of 300 edited cases) mother maintained illegal contact with a neighbouring person and, also,
this man used to visit their house regularly. In the meantime, his mother also started harassing the child after his
father’s death. This was no longer tolerable to the child and all this prompted him to leave home. He even starved
for want of food, on the Vizag platform. He was totally depressed and told Sathi that he was no longer interested in
returning home. He also requested the staff to offer some job at the shelter and to kindly not force him to go back
home. He was very helpful to Sathi staff in bringing other children to the shelter, where he stayed for nearly 6
months. But after seeing the repatriation of other children, he felt the need to go back home. Sathi staff
accompanied him to his house on 1st April 2005, when his mother’s reaction was quite abnormal. At first, she
hugged the child and also wept. But immediately after this, her reaction changed. She scolded the child and also
rejected him. Later, Sathi staff and few neighbours motivated his mother and also asked her to look after the child
properly.
6. Again, S K Fatimunissa was a girl (case 234 out of 300 edited cases) who left home to carve out her own life. She
wanted to work and earn her own money. She was highly motivated to do something “big”, so to do things
according to her will, she wanted to live on her own. She did not even want to live with her parents, as she doesn’t
get along well with her father. Being of an independent nature, she thus refused to be reunited with her family, who
also saw her point and asked that she be given some sort of vocational training.
7. Koteshwar Rao (case 297 of 300 edited cases) could not be restored to his parents as they had got divorced by
the time he was found and taken back. He was therefore left with his uncle.
8. Six-year-old Rajesh Anil Shravandurga (case 273 of 300 edited cases) had to eventually be given up for
adoption, as it appeared that he was an orphan.
9. Reshma (case 76 of 300 edited cases) stole money and ran away from home for the fourth time. Her father was
not ready to accept her. They told Sathi that this was the 4 th time she had left home. After counseling, they were
ready to accept her.
10. Sadiq ID NO BG05070048 is 15 years old and ran away from home numerous times. He was picked up from the
Bangalore City railway station, where he used to steal the things of passengers. Although the child has parents, he
used to stay away from the family, because his mother was having an illegal relationship with a man named Siraj.
Sadiq was enrolled in the camp, after which his mother came to the shelter to meet him. His mother also refused
to accept Sadiq, as she felt he would run away from home yet again. As per the wish of both mother and son, he
 59

was enrolled in Abyadama organization. Sathi took the mother and Sadiq to Abyadama organization and admitted
him there on 24th of Aug 2005. His mother was instructed to visit her son once in a month. After 3 days, Sathi got a
message from Abyadama that Sadiq, along with 5 other children, had escaped from there.

Could it be that the family is an indifferent or uncaring one?

V Not Total
Kind of fmly ran away from Caring Caring Caring No Entry Neglect
No: of cases 123 21 7 8 5

Contrary to expectation, it can be seen that most are caring families, while some are even ‘very caring’.

Examples of single-parent, broken families and orphaned children:

 Aman Kumar, (case 191 out of 300 edited cases) a 12-year-old boy, is a single parent child. His father died 5
years ago, and he was found roaming at platform of Old Delhi Railway Station. He seemed worried. He told staff
that he had come to Delhi with his mausi (Mother’s sister) and stayed with her. When he said that he wanted to go
to home, his mausi dropped him at the station. He told staff that his father works in the army and his mother Vinita
is a housewife. As the boy did not have money, staff got him to the shelter. At the shelter, he gave his address but
did not have any contact number. Staff contacted the local police station of that area and gave the address to
locate his parents, but there was no response. Finally, staff went for his repatriation. He was calm & composed
during his stay at shelter. Sometimes, he used to come and ask the staff to take him to this family. On the way child
was happy. He told that his father had died due to T.B. 5 years back and told that mother’s name is Rekha. He
knew the way and guided the staff. The neighbors asked if they were coming from Delhi. When mother saw her
child, she was happy and started crying. She hugged him.
 Raju- ID NO BN06010136 came to the shelter as he was promised food by the Sathi staff. He had come away
unintentionally. He lost his way, when he was going around with his friend (who stayed near his home) and
eventually found himself on the platform. Raju lives with his mother, who was thrown out by his father for being an
 60

alcoholic and drug addict. His father is remarried. Raju was studying in 4 th standard at Cauveramma School,
Davangere. He was forced to leave school in order to accompany his mother to Bangalore, when she came in
search of work 4 months ago. Unable to find work, she took to begging. She left Raju behind in a rented house as
she didn’t want him to know that she was begging. When she was drunk, she used to lie on the streets. Raju used
to slap her to bring her back to senses. The boy and the mother are very close to each other. When the mother
came to take him from the shelter, they just kept looking at each other out of joy. Sathi staff got the address from
the child, as he was a resident of Bangalore and the staff visited his home and informed the mother. The staff feels
that the boy should have been placed in some institution for further studies, as he might take to begging if he goes
back with his mother. But both mother and son refused to be parted from each other. Sathi’s intervention has
brought together again a mother and her lost son who care for each other.
 Devaraj ID NO BN06010120 was found by Sathi staff begging on the railway platform. When asked whether he
had had food, the boy answered in the negative. He accompanied the staff to the shelter, when he was promised
food and stay. Devaraj comes from a broken family- his father has deserted them and the mother works in a hotel
at Bangalore. She seems to have fallen into bad ways and neglects the children. Apparently, he has an elder sister.
Earlier, his father & mother were working in the hotel owned by Dhanapal at Bangalore. His father had taken some
money as advance from Dhanapal and later both the parents had run away, without repaying Dhanapal. Devaraj,
who was sent by his parents to work in a hotel at Gowribidanur, was unaware of these incidents. Devaraj had
come to Bangalore to meet his parents at Dhanapal’s hotel and came to know about these events. The staff, along
with Devaraj, visited Dhanapal’s hotel and gathered information about where the mother was working now. Unable
to meet the mother, they left Sathi’s contact number and brought the child back to the shelter. Later, his mother
contacted Sathi and came to the shelter. She was very happy to see her son and hugged him. She has promised to
mend her ways, on the advice of the staff and police, whose help Sathi had sought, and to educate Devaraj. The
staff has assured her that they will provide text books, uniform and school fees for the boy. Though the boy has
gone back with the mother, the staff is not happy with the turn of events. They feel that the child should have been
placed with CWC.
 R Nagaraj – ID NO. BN05120074 was found by Sathi staff doing coolie work on Bangalore City railway platform.
Being an orphan, he was raised by his maternal uncle, Narayanaswamy. It was a very caring, middle-class family
who lived in a rented concrete house. Apart from being asked to go to school, Nagaraj had no other problem in his
uncle’s house. In fact, when he ran away, his aunt could not eat properly as the “son” had run away. They had
spent Rs.15,000/- in searching for him in Kolar, Malur, advertising in the media and filing a complaint with the police
station. As the uncle had filed a complaint with the police, Sathi got the uncle’s contact number through the police
 61

and informed him. His uncle came to the shelter and when he saw his nephew he wept out of joy. Nagaraj, too,
reciprocated in the same way. The staff discussed Nagaraj’s problem with the uncle. He seemed afraid of his aunt’s
scolding. Sathi staff requested the uncle to advise his wife to show restraint in scolding and to be a little more
explicit in showing affection, as this would help Nagaraj get interested in studies. The uncle was so happy with
Sathi that he donated Rs.1000/- to the organization.

It is clear from the above examples that there is no clear thumb rule about the kind of care a child receives from the
family and the structure (single parent/broken, etc.) Raju’s is clearly a case of unbounded closeness in the most
trying circumstances.

On the next page is a graphical representation of the kind of emotional climate in the family versus the number of
such families:
62
 63

Family’s reaction to the child running away

How did most families react to their child’s running away? A total of 163 cases were anlaysed for this data field and these
are the findings:

Not Very
Fmly Reaction after runaway Disturbed Disturbed No Data Disturbed
No: of cases 68 62 28 5

Contrary to expectation, while most were disturbed, there was an almost equal distribution between disturbed and
not disturbed families, probably because they expected their child to turn up sooner or later.

A few were indifferent.

Examples of different reactions:

Manish (aka Sanjay) [case no: 188 out of 300 edited cases] was found roaming carefree at the railway station. He told
Sathi that he has been staying at the platform for almost a year now. The staff asked him to come to the shelter to lead a
more stable life. He agreed and came along.

 Manish, (case 188 out of 300 edited cases) known as Sanjay at the platform, gave his name as Sanjay to the staff
and at the shelter. Manish’s family was very disturbed when they lost him in a thick crowd near a Mandir. They used
to go to that Mandir quite often, with a hope to find their boy. They even searched for him at a relative’s place and
took the help of local magicians. Manish told them that when he got separated from his parents, he took a bus
which took him to the railway station. Sathi restored him to his family on 17 th February 2006.
 Mohammed Noor Shaikh [case 238 out of 300 edited cases] is a 11 year old boy. There was no specific problem
that he was facing at home, but he fell into some bad company in his colony, and they persuaded him to join them
to leave home and go to Delhi to see the place. When Noor was being taken back home, he was frightened,
thinking that his parents would scold him for leaving home like this. When they reached the house, his parents
were anxious to see the staff with Noor. They thought that their son had done something wrong, for which he had
 64

been caught. While interacting with them, they revealed that they had tried searching for Noor in and around their
village. They were very disturbed to have lost their eldest son.
 Vikas Kumar (case 253 out of 300 edited cases), had run away from home after a fight with his mother when she
had beaten him. As a result, he left home without telling anyone. Back at home, his family was very disturbed by
his disappearance. They searched for him in the nearby regions, but in vain. They also made phone calls to their
relatives in Delhi. But they, too, had not heard from Vikas. Meanwhile, during counseling, Vikas gave his father’s
phone number, on which the father was contacted. The latter was very happy to know that his son was in safe
hands. He also gave his nephew’s mobile number, on which he was asked to come and collect Vikas from the
Prayas booth. After some time, Vikas’s cousin brother reached the booth. Both were very happy to see each other.
 When Kunta Ravi (ID NO VC05050288 ) was taken home, his parents were quite indifferent. This was because the
boy had already stolen money many times from home, so they didn’t want to put up with him anymore. Later, Sathi
staff took the help of a few neighbours and relatives to convince the parents to reunite the child back with the
family. Sathi requested his parents to give him a chance to live along with them for a week, and if he repeated this
again, they could send him out. After 15 days, when Sathi staff visited their house for the second time, his mother
fell at the feet of the staff to express her gratitude. She said that the orientation camp had brought a lot of reforms
in her son’s behaviour, which they could not themselves effect. The whole family was very thankful to Sathi for their
efforts which had wrought such a tremendous change in Ravi’s behaviour.
 Nagesh (case no: 162 out of 300 edited cases) had been beaten up by his father for not studying properly and so
ran away. When SATHI staff found him, it had now been a day on the Railway station and he had not found himself
any work yet. When SATHI got his parents to the shelter, the child was a little scared to see them. The parents, on
the other hand, were indifferent. They were perhaps used to this kind of action on the part of the child, because he
had run away from home twice before. The father said that he beat up the child, because he was not interested in
his studies. They had put him in a hostel but Nagesh kept coming home very often and he got poor marks in his
last test. In fact, he failed miserably in three subjects in this test. Sathi told them not to pressurize the child too
much. Happily, son and father went back to Tumkur to enable the boy to rejoin his hostel.
65
 66

What kinds of efforts were put in by the families to find their child?
No: of
Efforts to trace children
OK 76
Not Traced 35
Lot 19
Data not collected 13
Very High 5
Sent to Ashray 2
Self HP 2
Searched in nearby
villages 1

Number of families analysed for this data field: 153

Examples of efforts put in by families to trace their children:

 Mehaboob ID NO BN06010127 had spent the money (Rs.200 /-) given by his parents to pay the school fees.
Fearing his parents’ anger, he ran away. The family was very disturbed at his disappearance. The mother could not
eat and kept weeping. The family had taken all possible steps to trace him. They had filed a complaint with K G
Halli police station and had advertised in the papers. In all, they spent around Rs.5000/-. The father was contacted
on the phone, when the boy gave the number. He came to the shelter to take the boy back home.
 Khaja ID NO BN06010137 was found on the railway platform by the Sathi staff. As he could not cope with his daily
homework, he had taken some money from home and come away to Bangalore. Both his parents, who sell
agarbathis, were grief stricken and spent a lot of money trying to trace their only son, in neighbouring places and
even in Karnataka. It was near midnight when SATHI staff reached home with the boy. On hearing the son’s voice,
the parents were overjoyed. The mother called out to the son, hugged him and wept uncontrollably for 15 minutes.
He is a much-loved son.
 67

 As S K Fatimunnisa (case 234 out of 300 edited cases) was frequently running away from home and was of a
highly independent bent of mind, no efforts were made by her family to trace her when she ran away yet again on
19th November 2005. She was escorted to Childline (Vijaywada) on 21st December 2005 where she met with her
mother. Recognizing her need to be independent, the family suggested that the staff put her in some girl’s home,
where she could get some vocational training. S K Fatimunissa is presently getting vocational training at a home.
 Sadiq Basha ID NO. BN05120069comes from a poor, caring family. When his grandparents had to visit Mysore for
a short while, they left him at home with some money to manage till their return. Sadiq came away to Bangalore.
He had no problems at home. He decided to come away on the spur of the moment, as there were no elders to
stop him. He was unaware of the consequences of his action. The family was very worried and contacted relatives
to trace him. Based on the information given by the child, Sathi staff took him home to Bhadravathi. He was as
happy as his family was, to be back together again.
 Ravi Teja ID NO BN06010132 is a fatherless twelve-year-old boy, whose mother earns a meagre sum of Rs.800 /-
per month. Ravi ran away from home as his mother was forcing him to study. She had sold household articles to
finance the search for him in Vijayawada, Hyderabad and other places. It had cost her Rs 2,000/-. She had also
lodged a complaint with the police. Her elder son wept every day, for he missed his younger brother very much.
The mother, Elizabeth, was contacted through the Pastor, whose telephone number Teja had given. When she
came to the center, both the mother and son hugged each other and were very happy.
 Raju - ID NO BN06010131 comes from a caring family of four. His father is a farmer and mother, a housewife.
Raju had developed the habit of taking money from others, which irked his mother. She had been repeatedly
asking him not to do so. He had come away from home, hurt by his mother’s severe scolding. Since Raju had gone
off to play straight from school, and returned home late, his anxious mother had taken him to task. Unable to
understand that her scolding stemmed from her worry, the boy ran away. The family was disturbed at his
disappearance and searched for him in many places. They also registered a complaint with the police. A lot of
money had been spent on this. His parents were contacted with the help of the police. His parents came along with
his uncle to the shelter. It was a happy reunion. The staff counseled both the boy and the parents.
 Venkatesh ID NO. BN05120072 comes from a troubled family. His alcoholic father-Ramu, used to harass his
mother and when questioned by the villagers, ran away deserting the family. The villagers took care of the boy. His
mother Rani works as a housemaid. The boy was wayward and forced the other children in his class to write his
homework and tests. He had fallen into bad company and influenced by it, was irregular to school. Hence, he was
lagging behind in his studies. So his mother wanted to send him to work in a nearby hotel, which was owned by a
 68

man who was an Ayyappa swamy devotee. She told her son that working for the devout man would do him good.
But Venkatesh didn’t like the idea and ran away. The mother was very worried, upset and wasn’t eating properly.
She kept weeping and searching for her lost son in Bhadravathi. She couldn’t go further in search of him as she
had another younger daughter to look after and had no other support. Sathi staff wanted to send the child to the
orientation camp to motivate him to lead a more meaningful life, but couldn’t do so, because the mother came and
took him back home.
 R Nagaraj – ID NO. BN05120074 was an orphan, and was raised by his maternal uncle, Narayanaswamy, in a
very caring, middle-class family who lived in a rented concrete house. Apart from being asked to go to school,
Nagaraj had no other problem in his uncle’s house. In fact, when he ran away, his aunt could not eat properly as
the “son” had run away. They had spent Rs.15,000/- in searching for him in Kolar, Malur, advertising in the media
and filing a complaint with the police station. As the uncle had filed a complaint with the police, Sathi got the uncle’s
contact number through the police and informed him. His uncle came to the shelter and when he saw his nephew
he wept out of joy. Nagaraj, too, reciprocated in the same way.

From the graph on the next page, it can be seen that most (65%) of the 153 families analysed put in moderate to a lot
of effort in tracing their missing children.

Note: The data point Self HP means that the child was home placed by himself, i.e. he was deemed old enough to go
home on his own, and was therefore sent home unaccompanied.
 69

EFFORTS MADE BY 153 FAMILIES TO TRACE CHILDREN

80

70

60

50

40

No: of children
30

20

10

0
OK Not Traced Lot Data not Very High Sent to Ashray Self HP Searched in
collected nearby villages
Description of Efforts
70
 71

It can be seen from the above graph that many parents contacted the police and media, and even spent money they
could ill afford, in tracing their lost child.

Parents’ Assistance
Did parents assist Sathi/Prayas/SF in placing their child back home? (153 cases were analysed here.)

Indeed, most cases represented above were restored to their homes only with the assistance of the parents.
 72

Geographical distribution of 153 cases

The above graph shows a maximum in the place of residence of Sathi, quite naturally. Further, as most of the cases
studied here are from Karnataka (few are from Mumbai and Delhi), the graph, too, reflects that. No further significant
conclusion can be drawn from the above data. For further clarity, a district-wise graph follows.
73
 74

Children who could not be reunited with their families

Of the 300 cases edited, only nine children could not be reunited with their parents (the list below excludes
children who ran away even after they were restored to an OH):
1. Abhishek (ID No: PN06030317) was a complicated child who felt unloved by his father because, according to him,
he was born under an inauspicious star. Although he had run away with his brother, Rohit, and the latter could be
reunited with the family, SATHI is still not able to understand why Abhishek refused to go back. Sathi enrolled him
in an observation home in Pune, on 10/10/05.
2. Munawar (ID No: BC06020027) could not be restored to his family as the child could not tell his address and the
family could not be traced, despite all efforts on the part of the police as well as Sathi staff. The child was admitted
in CWC on 6th March 2006.
3. Narayanswamy (ID No. BN05100018) ran away unsuccessfully from camp several times, and finally with success.
So he could not be restored to his family. Narayan was contacted on 15-10-2005 and was brought to shelter from
the City Railway Station. He stayed for 4 days, and on all of these 4 days he tried to run away from shelter. Lastly
he was able to run away from shelter.
4. Ramu (ID NO BG05070139) was a difficult case in that the child could not speak and did not show any emotions at
all. He could not be restored to his family as no one could decipher who his family was. Ramu has been admitted in
an organization called Ashraya 30th Sept 2005. They are running a residential bridge course.
5. Sagar (ID NO. PN05110260) could not be restored to his family as Sathi could not trace them, despite best efforts.
Sathi decided not to allow Sagar to revert to platform life. So Sathi referred him to Pune Children’s home for
schooling, from where Sathi is constantly following up on Sagar’s developments in education.
6. S K Fatimunnisa (case no: 234 in the 300 edited cases) was not interested in going back home, and her mother
recognizing this, allowed her to be admitted to a Children’s Home.
7. Rajesh Anil Shravandurga (case no: 273 in the 300 edited cases) could not be restored to his family as they
were not to be found. He was given up for adoption.
8. Md Hussain (case no: 296 in the 300 edited cases) began working as a peer educator at the shelter as his father
agreed that his son should be given a job elsewhere and did not take him back.
9. Koteshwar Rao’s parents (case no: 297 in the 300 edited cases) had got divorced by the time he was taken back
to them, so he could not be reunited with his family. Instead, he was reunited with his uncle.
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Children who were deeply impacted by the camp

When the rescued child shows reluctance to being reunited to the family, Sathi sends such a child to a one-month
reintegration camp. For children with addiction habits, the camp also addresses these concerns, but largely, children are
exposed to value-based classes and story telling sessions that help them see the place of family and parents in their lives.
While the camp was very effective in 90% cases, in that reluctant children would undergo a change in mindset after
attending it and would express a wish to go back home, the following are two very dramatic examples:

Kunta Ravi (VC 05050288) and Jashid Akhtar.

To quote the edited case studies:

1. 17-year-old Kunta Ravi had left home after his parents abused him for stealing money from a neighbour’s house,
and also for not obeying their instructions. Sathi staff saw him sitting idle, at the Vizag Platform, on 2 nd April 2005.
Sathi staff asked him to come to the shelter, where he abused the staff and refused to come. He was very naughty
but later, a few vendors helped Sathi in convincing him and bringing him to the shelter. During counseling, he said
that both his parents were dead and he was an orphan child. Ravi was no longer interested in returning home,
even after proper motivation. So Sathi staff decided to refer him to a one-month orientation camp, with the hope a
positive outcome regarding his repatriation. At the camp, he was taught the importance of parents in a child’s life,
blood relationship, told a few moral stories, etc. During this period, he also went through meditation classes. The
impact of these activities at the camp was so high that, slowly his behaviour and attitude towards his parents totally
changed. Surprisingly, he agreed to go back home, and so Sathi staff accompanied him to his house on 18 th May
2005. Here, his parents’ response was quite indifferent. Instead of accepting their child back, they refused to take
him and even asked Sathi staff to take back the child. They told Sathi staff that Ravi had been very naughty had
already stolen money many times from home, so they didn’t want to put up with him anymore. Later, Sathi staff
took the help of a few neighbours and relatives to convince the parents to reunite the child back with the family.
Sathi requested his parents to give him a chance to live along with them for a week, and if he repeated this again,
they could send him out. After 15 days, when Sathi staff visited their house for the second time, his mother fell at
the feet of the staff to express her gratitude. She said that the orientation camp had brought a lot of
reforms in her son’s behaviour, which they could not themselves effect. The whole family was very thankful to
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Sathi for their efforts which had wrought such a tremendous change in Ravi’s behaviour. Kunta Ravi promised Sathi
that he would work along with his father in the future.
2. Jashid Akhthar was a 6th class school drop out, who later joined his father’s business. He was on the platform for
2 months. After counseling him, Sathi decided to enroll him in the de-addiction and re-integration camp, as he was
not interested in going back home. In the first week, he did not adjust himself in the camp. He also dared the camp
facilitator, saying he is going to escape from the camp place, which he did the very next day. But Sathi staff
succeeded in getting him back. After this incident, the camp facilitator had an individual counseling session with the
child. The counseling had a great effect on him and Sathi observed a positive change in his behavior. By the end of
the second week, he adjusted himself with the staff and other children. He was very good at story telling and
monitoring other children. By the fourth week, he realized that he was wrong in running away from home and
agreed to go back home, by giving his father’s mobile number and home address.

After home placement, did any child run away again?

It was not possible to follow up with each and every one of the 300 cases cited in the edited report. Of those which
were followed up, a few children did run away again.

To name a few:
1. Mohin (case no: 291 of the 300 edited cases) who could not be reunited with his family for lack of adequate
information, ran away from the Home he was placed in.
2. Sadiq (case no: 123 of the 300 edited cases) who was enrolled in Abyadama organization, ran away from there as
well.
3. Vajra (case no: 118 of the 300 edited cases) (ID No: BG 05090137) who was enrolled in Abyadama organization,
ran away from there as well.
4. Sai (case no: 117 of the 300 edited cases) (ID No: BG05070138) who was enrolled in Ashraya organization, ran
away from there as well.
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What kind of follow up was done to find out if the child was being treated well?
In less than 30% cases, follow up was done by way of a telephone call to enquire if the child was still safe and happy. In
almost all cases where follow up was done, it was found that the child was indeed safe and sound. More follow up needs
to be done to ensure that the child, once reunited with his family, did not run away.

For the cases where data is available, the following is a tabulation of the future plans of 153 children:

No. of
Future Plan of Child Children
Continue Education 64
Data not collected 2
Education & Work 1
Marriage 1
not mentioned 29
Stay at home 2
Tailor 1
Work (any job) 39
Work (at home) 3
Work (barber) 2
Work (domestic helper) 5
Work (farmer) 2
Work (helping father) 1
Work (welder) 1

A graphical representation of this data follows on the next page. As can be seen, most children wished to continue
their education, while wanting to take up any job was the second most popular option.
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Response from Police

Out of 300 cases, the part played by the police has been specifically mentioned in 46 cases , where responses were
distributed as shown below:

Helped
Police trace Repatriated Gave child No Cruel Unco- Helped child
Assistance Family child to Sathi response to child operative come with Sathi
No: of
cases 22 11 3 3 1 1 5

Contrary to popular belief, the police were by and large helpful.

Unusual cases
To cite a few unusual cases:
 The police helped SATHI a lot in case 277, viz. Biju Khalim, and in case 56 viz. Munawar, of the 300 edited cases.
SATHI gratefully acknowledged the critical role played by the police in these cases.
 Equally, the lack of cooperation from the police in case 124, viz Ramu, surprised SATHI very much indeed.
 Lilima, case 248, sought the help of the police to right an injustice and she received help not only for herself but for
others in her home who were also being exploited.
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CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, it can only be said that this entire study has shaken many pre-conceived notions and long held beliefs.

While most are outlined in the SUMMARY at the beginning of this report, a few more are added below:

1. While it is true that mostly boys run away from home, there are also girls who run away and some even in
search of adventure. (See the case of Prasanna Patel.)
2. Searching for employment is not always an independent choice: it is felt even by ten-to-twelve year olds as the
only way to lead a better life.
3. Most families are very disturbed at the running away of their child, and, no matter how poor, spend substantial
money and effort in trying to trace their missing child.
4. Hardly any child is rejected by the family when repatriated: most families are happy/very happy to get back their
child.
5. Police offer substantial assistance to NGOS like SATHI in repatriation.
6. It is not true that economically deprived families, single parent families or broken families are necessarily
wanting in love and affection.