These moving new pictures show the desperate plight of India’s most vulnerable
These moving new pictures show the desperate plight of India’s most vulnerable young children, left to fend for themselves on the streets of the New Delhi.
January was a bitterly cold month, with children withstanding the coldest day in the capital for 44 years.
In New Delhi there are 100,000 homeless children and 33 per cent of them are only six to ten-years-old, according to UNICEF.
Rather than looking after them, heavy-handed police officials treat them like any other petty criminals.
One homeless project manager even says that they are often beaten for being on the street.
Among the children struggling to keep going is Sanjay Kumar, 13, who sells car phone chargers at a busy traffic junction.
He came from Bihar, one of India’s most impoverished states, and now survives by earning up to 300 rupees (£3.50) on a ‘good day’.
Sanjay explained: ‘I ran away from my home six years ago because my father used to beat me up.’
‘One day I ended up on a train and when I woke up I was here. Sometimes I want to go back but I don’t know how.’
Across town from Sanjay, six-year-old Anita has made her home under a flyover overlooked by one of India’s largest IT business districts.