Kollam: Passers-by grew suspicious when they found one-year-old baby girl lying asleep for hours on the lap of her mother, a beggar, on the footpath at Chinnakkada in Kollam a few months back.
Some of them contacted Child Line under the Department of Social Justice and discovered that the mother had fed the child with tobacco and kept her under sedation.
“Apart from drugging the babies with tobacco, some beggars afflict burns and wounds on them to draw sympathy, and money,” K.K. Subair, Kollam district child protection officer, told this newspaper.
Kollam has become a favourite spot for the beggars as Ochira in the district, which hosts three major religious festivals, has proved to be a fertile land for them. The one-year-old baby girl and her mother, from Bihar, are now rehabilitated with the Mahila Mandiram in Kollam, he said.
“We have saved more than 20 children since we launched the Oachira child beggary eradication programme in September last year,” he said.
“Some of the children were also found to be sexually exploited.”
Mr Subair said Child Line volunteers found 4-year-old boy with burn marks on his hand with a 65-year-old woman who claimed to be his mother about three months back.
“We shifted them to Mahila Mandiram in Kollam, and the mother left saying she is from a village in Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh and would return with documents to prove she was his mother and take him home,” he said.
“She has not yet come back. The child is now under the foster care of a family in Pathanapuram in the district.
The Social Justice department’s ‘foster care’ project ensures that children rescued from beggars are given to a willing family to foster them and to make them familiar with family atmosphere.
The family can adopt the child after five years if its biological mother does not lay her claim.
“We try to verify the details of the children with the database available with a national website to track missing children,www.trackthemissingchild.gov.in” Mr Subai said.
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