Incapable of judging right from wrong, street children are getting increasingly victimised by the easy availability of illegal and quasi-legal drugs that can be found almost around every other corner of the city.
Of the drugs and substances popular with them, there are dandy (made from shoe glue), chakki (sleeping pill), noctin (another kind of pill), ganja and gul powder (smokeless tobacco) and other narcotics.
Sniffing dandy has turned out to be a favourite pastime for many of these children, some addicted simultaneously to two or more drugs. But why dandy of all drugs? Because it’s easier to get, affordable with whatever money they have and is not legally prohibited. A can of dandy sells at TK80-90.
“Dandy, being an adhesive, is not categorised as drug and there is no legal guideline or restriction about its use. As such, law enforcers cannot take any step in this regard,” Ali Aslam Hossain, a deputy director of Drug Control Department (Dhaka Division) in Drug Administration, told the Dhaka Tribune.
“Adhesive is a useful product in our daily life. But given that it is now also being used as a drug, we are considering the option to include it in the list of various categories of drugs,” he added.
Purana Paltan, Kamalapur Railway Station, Ramna park, Suhrawardi park, Nilkhet, Ajimpur, Sadarghat, Sayedabad bus terminal, Gabtali bus terminal and Bahadur Shah park are some of the common places where children taking drugs are seen. Usually they do it after sundown when it is safer to use.
Visiting these places recently, this correspondent found children who were aged between 5 and 13 years and sniffing dandy from polythene bags. Their lips were blackish, fingers dirty and grey, and eyes almost crimson-coloured. Some of them were quarrelling with each other, others dozing off.
Shahjadi, a girl of eleven who lives in Purana Paltan, spoke with a kind of maturity well beyond her age. She said she took dandy because it helped her escape from the bitter realities in her life. “Local mastans (goons) and pimps harassed me several times. Dandy helps me forget hunger and torture and whatever comes with our living condition,” she said, taking a pinch of snuff.
“I don’t care anything anymore. I do what I think right for me, for this moment.”
Raihan, 10, said he collects garbage and has a daily income of around TK100-150. He once attended a charity school.
“There was an open-air weekend school for us where some sisters used to come and teach us. They gave us food. Then one day they stopped coming and we were confused and upset. I started taking dandy,” he said.
“If a policeman comes to beat us, we offer him TK10-20 and he leaves. And then we are safe,” he added.
Abdul Jalil, officer-in-charge of Shahbag Police Station, denied charges against police taking money and allowing children to take drugs. “Whenever police find children with drugs, they catch and send them to rehab centres. But what more can we do? And how many children can those shelters accommodate?”
There are several organisations that work closely with the street children. They have special projects for this purpose. But those are mostly run on ad-hoc basis and depend on funds from outside, meaning if there is no fund, there is no project.
These organisations have projects on malnutrition, schooling and manners – especially designed for street children. Some also have anti-drug projects. But their impacts are hardly felt because of lack of coordination, consistency and state-level initiatives.
Wahida Banu, executive director of Aparajeyo Bangladesh, said, “We need a policy specific to the interests of street children. Such a policy would be comprehensive and implemented in a participatory way engaging all the stakeholders, including the ministry of social welfare.”