{"id":257,"date":"2014-11-28T16:57:53","date_gmt":"2014-11-28T16:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/?p=257"},"modified":"2014-11-28T17:03:17","modified_gmt":"2014-11-28T17:03:17","slug":"35-little-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/?p=257","title":{"rendered":"35 Little Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"

35 little girls moved to Sindh govt shelter<\/strong><\/p>\n

By: Shazia Hasan<\/em><\/p>\n

KARACHI: As they were given the boxes of chicken biryani and mango juice, the little girls seated on revolving chairs around a big conference table turned down their gaze and bringing little hands together recited the prayer they had been taught to say before a meal to thank the Almighty.
\nAt the Darul Banaat child protection unit in Shanti Nagar, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, on Thursday, all seemed far less overwhelmed than they had been a day ago at the SSP Central office in Gulberg where many men claiming to be their guardians or relatives had shown up to take them home.
\n\u201cGetting them out of that environment did them a lot of good,\u201d said Nuzhat Fatima, director at the social welfare department of Sindh. \u201cThe special assistant to chief minister on social welfare, Ziaul Hasan Lanjar, was directed by the chief minister to take good care of the children until it is decided between the Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments what to do about them and where to send them,\u201d she added.
\nMost of the girls hail from the tribal agency of Bajaur.
\nTheir number increased from 26 initially to 36 by late Wednesday evening as police raided different places on information collected from the woman who had been found with the 26 girls at an abandoned two-room house in C-1 Area of Liaquatabad. After questioning the woman, Gul Khanum, the police raided a place in Fatima Jinnah Colony where they recovered seven girls.
\n\u201cThen three more girls were recovered by the police in Korangi. The woman is still being questioned by the police. Soon after bringing the children here in the early hours of Thursday, we got them measured and cleaned up after which we helped them dress in new clothes, which they love,\u201d said Ms Fatima.
\nOnly one girl, who was not from Bajaur, had been reunited with her family in Karachi early on Thursday, she said. \u201cNow we have 35 girls,\u201d said Ms Fatima, as two little girls holding their new Barbie Dolls, which they had covered with their old pink hijabs, walked past the others sitting around the table.
\nMeanwhile, Fayyaz Sherpao, a political agent, arrived from Bajaur Agency to take the children back home.
\nKarachi Commissioner Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui said it was better to send the children back home with the political agent. \u201cThey have their own culture and norms. We cannot take chances where children are involved. The sooner this matter is resolved the better,\u201d he said.
\nRasheed Khan, who accompanied the political agent and was there taking attendance of the 35 girls and noting down their names on a list, said the girls looked better as they knew they would be going home soon. \u201cWe have asked the Sindh government to hand over the girls to us so that we can take them back home. As yet we don\u2019t know of their parents but once we reach Bajaur they can contact us and take the children from us,\u201d he said.
\nHowever, assistant director (child welfare) at Darul Banaat Seema Nazli said: \u201cIt would be better to first trace their real families.
\n\u201cThe process will obviously take time but the girls are safe with us here. We are all here to take good care of them. So many of us haven\u2019t even slept a wink since last night when the children were brought here. It should be everyone\u2019s aim to get them to their real homes.\u201d
\nSuddenly, a little girl started coughing profusely. \u201cGet her some water please,\u201d her friend, Kainat, asked the woman made in charge of taking care of them by the welfare office. \u201cShe is my friend, Asiya, and she has been vomiting since yesterday. She also has fever,\u201d said Kainat, while speaking to Dawn in Pushto.
\n\u201cI have another friend, Sana, who also is not well. But she has been like that since I have known her. She is fine one moment and then she starts shaking and vomiting, too,\u201d the little girl described her friend\u2019s condition that sounded like the child was suffering from epileptic seizures.
\nConfusion over girls\u2019 whereabouts
\nEarlier, the atmosphere outside the SSP Central office at Gulberg was found very different from Wednesday\u2019s. \u201cNo one is permitted inside. The girls are not with us,\u201d said a constable posted outside.
\nOn inquiry about their whereabouts, it was said they were handed over to the Ansar Burney Trust but a call to Ms Shagufta Burney revealed that the children were not with them. \u201cAnsar Burney sahib has been trying to help ever since he found out about the poor children. But they are not with us,\u201d she said.
\nAnother call to Edhi Foundation also couldn\u2019t achieve any positive results. \u201cThe children are not with us,\u201d said spokesman Anwar Kazmi. \u201cMaybe you should check with the Darul Aman Panah,\u201d he suggested this reporter.
\nAt Panah, the guard at the gate quickly shook his head. \u201cWe have been approached by numerous people since this morning asking about the little madressah girls. They are not with us,\u201d he announced.
\nAs efforts were continued to trace the girl, it later emerged that they had been shifted to Darul Binnat child protection unit and were under Sindh government protection.
\nIt was decided that the girls would be handed to their parents only after the completion of judicial process.<\/p>\n

DAWN<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

35 little girls moved to Sindh govt shelter By: Shazia Hasan KARACHI: As they were given the boxes of chicken biryani and mango juice, the little girls seated on revolving chairs around a big conference table turned down their gaze and bringing little hands together recited the prayer they had been taught to say before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-women","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}