About five thousand children work and live in the streets of urban centre of Nepal. The street children of Kathmandu have developed the tendency of drug in-take. About 51% of the street children sniff glue and more than 17% children take alcohol, according to the data provided by CWIN (Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Centre).
The data shows that among 5000, 400-500 live in the Kathmandu Valley. The 2001 data shows that about 25-90% of the street children use the substances of one type or the other. Among them 51% glue sniffers live in Kathmandu out of which 19% have started this habit two years ago, 34.4% stared a year ago and 27.9% started few months back.
The reasons behind using this 'debut' drug were low self-esteem, an inferiority feeling complex and having enough pocket money to buy this substance. The street children consist of the children who ran away from their house because of their stepmother and some under the influence of their peers.
This drug results in hallucination, problematic behavior, self-destruction and fighting among the friends. It also affects the brain and the Nervous System. Among the users, 63.9% have reported one or the other kind of illness as long-term effects.
Glue sniffing can be termed as a "group activity" as 95.1% children use glue with their friends, 77% in the peer influence and 60.7% sniff glue on a daily basis.
The drug use is 20.6% and the alcohol use is 17.4% among the children of 10-17 age groups, with 21.8% boys and 11.2% girls.
More street children are exposed to intravenous drug use. Among them, about 10% are believed to be exposed to HIV infection.
However, the organizations working on the issues of HIV and drug abuse do not give priority to the issue of drug use and HIV among street children.
(CWIN)
After I got this data, I was sad for them. I couldn't believe it. But I saw a boy sniffing glue, I was shocked. It was a real shock to me. What about you?
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