Street children speak of their plight at convention

The country's street children are growing up with various bitter experiences, including drug addiction, said some victim children at a convention in the capital yesterday.
“I have taken different types of drugs with some other boys for the last three years. I did not go to school, rather I collected scrap papers and bottles from different streets to buy my foods,” said 10-years-old boy Md Ibrahim.
He came to attend the two-daylong national convention on the rights of the street children at BIAM auditorium.
With assistance from Plan Bangladesh, Population Services and Training Centre (PSTC) organised the convention under its project titled “Helping Children Working and Living on the Streets”.
Talking to The Daily Star, the boy narrated the sad story of his life.
Ibrahim said he left his parents four years ago. But he could not tell about the reason that led him to flee away from their residence at a slum in capital's Mirpur area.
He is now staying at Apongayo, a shelter house for the drug addicted street children, at Singair pazila in Manikganj.
Ibrahim is now studying at a school run by Apongayao, and also learning technical work there.
Like Ibrahim, Md Jihad is another 12-year-old boy who also came to attend the programme. Jihad said he is now being aware of his rights, including education.
PSTC Project Manager Shantironjon Sarker said around 1 million children are living on the streets in the country. Around 75 percent of them are living at 229 spots in the capital.