Rehabilitate Commercial sexualy exploited children

SEHER’s Assessment revealed the prevalence of vulnerability of boys towards sexual abuse and exploitation in Quetta. It was also highlighted that mostly the incidences of child abuse take place in the vicinities of Cinemas, video gaming zones and small hotels. The boys who are forced to work by their parents usually become any easy target for the perpetrators to lure them into commercial sexual activities.

The darkest side of the picture is the ignorance of the society, which gives the perpetrators open hand to carry out this cruel and evil activities against children There are 39 spots where children are vulnerable to be target of sexual abuse and exploitation. A rough estimate indicates that a sizeable number of 4000 children in age bracket of 7 to 20 years are frequently visiting these spots. One of the ill known spots is Baldia plaza which is situated in the very heart of the city. According to some analysis daily 20000 to 250000 people visits this place however the heinous culture of silence has so strongly blindfolded the people that they refuse to see and speak against these inhuman and antisocial activities.

These children are the run away from schools, work place or home to hide themselves from the physical abuse of teacher, employers or parents.   

The issue on which all the mega actors including civil society organization, government departments and religious leaders had turned a deaf year; in such as situation SEHER stood alone to take the bull by the horn. In the year 2006 SEHER with the financial assistance and technical guidance of Group Development took a decisive step of taking an initiative against these inhuman and antisocial commercial activities.

 SEHER strategically dealt the situation multi-dimensionally. On one hand SEHER started rehabilitation of victimized children through variety of recreational activities and psychosocial counseling and on the other hand started sensitization of key stakeholders that include people belonging to different tiers of the society that directly or indirectly have a link with the life of the children vulnerable to sexual abuse.  The focused stakeholders include parents, primary care givers, mentors, community elders, Law Enforcing officials, school teachers and elected representatives.

SEHER initially faced tremendous critical pressure for having touched so sensitive an issue, as most of the people were reluctant to discuss about and it was considered a taboo. The gravity of situation charted another difficult however equally important path of breaking the culture of silence, which in a sense had provided a safe shelter to perpetrators. SEHER kept its consistent endeavors continue for several consecutive years and as a result succeeded in highlighting the issue in different provincial and national forums, in which the issue was comprehensively discussed.

 Result 1: SEHER has strengthened capacity of project team to effectively deal with child protection issues, develop internal monitoring system, maintaining data base of children, and networking with civil society organizations

1.1 capacity building of staff 

SEHER provided opportunity to the project staff for the capacity building and organized trainings for them to be an effective professional to respond to the child sexual abuse and exploitation and other child rights related issues. Group development also organized trainings and learning opportunity during the year to develop the capacity of the staff.

 1.2 Data management of the children beneficiaries    

IMTIZAJ team organized the data of the children registered at the CPC and CFS in Hard as well as soft to keep the record, individual files of each child was developed and his progress was kept in the file. MIS was also designed for the IMTIZAJ project by the MIS section of SEHER.

1.3 Networking with other relevant organizations  

Civil Society organization has initiated Child rights Movement Balochistan as this is a national Movement of 108 organization, SEHER being the active member was selected for the secretariat of Balochistan Chapter, SEHER has organized all the activities of the CRM and coordinated with the 26 members in the province, Annex 2 Minutes of Meeting of CRM      

1.4 internal controls

SEHER has its Internal control in place at the organizational level, the M&E officer has carried out monitoring visits for the identification of the gaps in the project activities and share the mitigating strategy with the manager and team, Daily, Monthly, Midterm and annual Reviews were conducted by SEHER to ensure flawless implementation of the project. 14 visits were made by Monitoring team to ensure the effective implimentation of the project. 

Result 2: Children, primary care givers and institutional stake holders are sensitized on child rights ensuring protection/ prevention of children from sexual abuse and exploitation

To sensitize and ensure the protection and prevention of child rights SEHER has formed and strengthen the community and parents groups, and conducted monthly meetings and sessions with the stake holders which includes Parents, community members, teachers, employers, police, health care givers etc. 

2.1  Meetings with Parents Community Committees (PCCs)

Team met the eight PCCs on monthly bases to plan their actions and review the previous plans. They were motivated to take actions and monitor the activities in their areas which are destructive for the children. 45 meetings were organized with paretns in which 180 paretns participated.  

2.2  Meeting with Child associations/ & In community

Meetings with members of child associations were met on monthly bases, during the meetings child protection and child rights were discussed with them.   The plans of educating other children about risk to be avoided and sensitize children about the protection were shared and reviewed with them. 20 meetings were organized for children groups and 111 children and youth participated in these meetings. 

2.3 Coordination with Police stations

during the Reported year coordination meetings were conducted with Police stations of the Quetta city to enhance the link and effective reporting of the spots for the closer, police officers and police personals were oriented about IMTIZAJ Project and information about the Parents and child groups were provided to them for the effective linkages.  48 visits of polic stations were made by project team to monitor children cases in police stations.  

2.4   Meeting with Medico legal units:

There are two Medico Legal Units in Quetta City,  team organize meeting with both of them to develop linkages and coordination with the unit to ensure that if any case of CSA or CSEC is referred to Medico legal the Unit deal him with sensitivity.  MoU signed with madicolegal unit for one year 18  visits were done to medico legal units to monitor the cases of child abuse. 

Result 3: 150 children victim of sexual abuse and commercial exploitation are rehabilitated through educational and psycho-social services and skill development

3.1 Mobilization of children

The field team constantly visited the demarcated areas and had a close surveillance on the activities of the focused CSEC children. The field team monitors the frequency of their visit into their particular working areas and intensity of their involvement in commercial sex. 143 follow up visits, 258 visits to spots were made and 19 new cases were registered of child commercial sexual expolitation. 

3.2  Prevention thorough Education

Education was found as an effective tool to prevent and protect children from Exploitation. The children in CPC were from different background some of them have covered few levels at school, while rests of the children are illiterate. And team developed implementation plan for the children according to their needs. 

1. A.    Mainstreaming Children in the formal Schooling:

Mainstream child are those child which spend the time within the center learn the different activities providing by the CPC. Now these Childs show their willingness to be admitted in the school by the help of the social organizer and the social organizer will take the followup of day to day. 8 children were mainstreamed and admitted in to the formal schools. 

1. B.     Literacy Classes:

Due to lack of resources and interest in studies, street children have not as such good educational background. Either they have never gone to the school or left in early stages. That’s why literacy course were initiated for these children. In early stages the children were unable to read the alphabets of Urdu and English. The pattern of literacy course has been adopted from ESRA literacy module. SEHER has amply provided all necessary required stationary material, books and notebooks. The teachers skilfully teach the students through variety of recreational activities that has to a very great extent enhanced the interest of the children.  Literacy sessions are taken on regular basis at CPC in the morning and evening. All illiterate SCs are giving test on monthly basis. 55 children were taking part in literacy class. 

E.      LSBE  sessions:

Life skills base education (LSBE) makes the children able to deal the problem in effective and efficient way in everyday life. Team has master trainers in Life skill based education and trained the new staff to conduct sessions on LSBE.

Which is aimed to equipping them with decisions making, solving problems, thinking critically and creatively, effective communication, build healthy relationships, empathize on the coping with emotions and stress to manage their lives in a healthy and productive manner. Throughout the reporting period project teams have conducted several sessions of Life Skill Based Education in which all enrolled children participated. 117 children participated in LSBE sessions. 

3.3  Recovery and Rehabilitation  

Recovery and rehabilitation were organized for Street children victims of CSEC, CSA and the children at risk of being abuse. The intensity and frequency of rehabilitation process for all three groups was different.    

1. A.    Psychosocial counseling

Individual and group sessions were conducted for the children, with the new registered children Assessment sessions and history taking was conducted. Psychologist conducted these sessions in a private and confidential way and kept the information secret to build a trust relation with them.  24 children were provided with psychosocial counseling. 

 B.     Physical Health 

Every child at CPC was assessed physically and record of his problems was kept. Medical treatment for the minor problems children having was provided at CPC and for the intense treatment they were referred to the Sandymon provincial hospital where the Members of Doctor Panel treat them. The prescribed medicines were provided from SEHER as the governmental hospitals lack medicines and parents of these children cannot afford. 

Health and hygiene awareness and services were provided in CPC, children were reinforced through token System. Education about different diseases like HIV, TB, Hepatitis and Malaria was provided to them. Medical counselor arranged the immunization for such disease which can be preventive through vaccination. 

1. C.    Nutrition supplement 

The Nutritional needs of these children are neglected by their parents and during their working hours they cannot afford to buy food for them. They are exploited for the provision of food so SEHER arrange lunch at CPC for them and provide them food. They are provided lunch according to Menu decided for the week and tea with Biscuits twice a day.  

1. D.    Recreational Activities

Recreational activities were most important component of the CPC activities. These activities were in door and out door. Indoor activities included Lodo, carom, puzzles, etc and outdoor included football and cricket. During this year CPC was provided with a Board Game Malamaal designed especially for children by SANJOG-UJAGER it was played with children and children shared that the game is a real learning with fun.    

1. Skill Development

Children become victim of CSEC due to their needs and lackskills to earn livelihood. When the working children could not earn enough money during the day which is required from them they exploit easily and the abuser trap them due to their tribulations. At CPC calligraphy and tailoring classes were organized to develop their skills and enable them to earn alternative ways of earning. 94 children were provided with skill development 

1. F.      Job replacement

It was observed that skills need to be Job replacement by the recognized and come to the stage of earning money to good way and established. 14 youth after learning skills were placed on jobs. 

1. G.    Bank of creative ideas, Aflatoon, Bhaid and Malamaal

The tools specially designed by GD were conducted in the CPC during the year, these brought a positive change in the behavior of children and provided them knowledge,