Restoration of children

I am happy to share my unforgettable experience that reunited three siblings with their biological family at Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh.

Three siblings-elder sister aged 8, and two younger brothers aged 5 and 6years were admitted in the Reception unit of Bala Mandir without any back papers and no information about their background.

At first, when the child comes to Bala Mandir we do an intake and gather a first information report from the children about their family and background. Since the children spoke Telugu I tried to talk to them to gather any information that they would give to locate their parents. The Andhra Pradesh Child line was contacted for help. All information we had including photos were shared with them and the DCPO unit. They in turn shared it with the police. They also suggested that the children could be from other places in Andhra and if we could get the exact village or district, it would help trace the parents.

SATHI Childline, Bangalore works in different States and is involved in restoring lost children rescued by the Railway Child Line back into their families. So we sought the help of SATHI Bangalore. Two of their staff came directly and interacted with the children. They named different places in Andhra to see if the elder girl was familiar with any of them. They even told them that if they did not open up, maybe the children will lose their family permanently. Despite their efforts the girl did not open up.

Later that week, Andhra Childline requested for more information on the case. They asked us to use district and village names from Andhra and maybe even use a map to see if the child would respond to any name.  I spoke to the elder girl and stressed the need for information in order to reintegrate them back into their families.  With the help of the map and names, she was able to respond that she was from Gudivada. Based on this information, we requested for the contact number of the Chairperson CWC, Vijayawada, from Social Defence, and after obtaining the same, contacted him and explained the matter to him. He immediately responded asking for all the photos of the children and also informed the police. The police in turn contacted the child but she gave misleading information. Meantime, the CWC Vijayawada said that since the children were speaking Telugu and mentioned Gudivada, that we produce the children there and that they would make efforts to trace the parents.

Naresh (Social Worker), and I, escorted all three children to Vijayawada as per the instructions given by the Vijayawada CWC. We booked the train tickets and reached Vijayawada. Railway Childline received us and guided us to the Child Welfare Committee. On meeting with the CWC we were asked to wait for all the members to come.

As we were waiting two more children came with the Local Child Line. One of the boys who came and the elder girl were signalling to each other. As both were doing this, I intervened and spoke to the boy asking him what he was trying to communicate with the girl. He told me that the girl was asking him not to talk. This case was becoming more complicated. So I continued to question the boy and came to know that the girl was his elder sister and the others were his siblings. I was so thrilled and spoke with that boy in Telugu and gathered information about his parents and address and the phone number.

Immediately, I informed the Chairperson of CWC who asked the local Childline to go and investigate and bring the parents to CWC. Their parents came and the entire story came out. They belong to Guduru Village near Bandhuru. When the children were found missing the parents had registered a police complaint. The elder daughter had run away from home with the rest of the children due to her mother scolding her. Being elder she took all her siblings with her but missed the boy in the Andhra station while the rest boarded the train to Chennai. She had no idea where she was going except that she wanted to be away from home and her mother who had scolded her. CWC spoke to the girl and explained to her about the problems she could have faced for her actions and also highlighted all the probable consequences. The girl repented and wanted to go back to her parents.

A lot of cooperation on the part of the Bala Mandir, Railway Childline, DCPO and CWC Andhra helped to resolve the case. In order to let the public know about the restoration, the Press was also called and the children were rehabilitated with the parents. This was published in the local news as a successful restoration of the rescued children back to their family. The parents were asked to attend counseling and the DCPO was asked to follow up until the children settled back. This was a very satisfying experience for me and my role, as I knew Telugu which helped in the whole process. In all my years at Bala Mandir this incident was like a miracle and gave me a happy feeling knowing that  I was instrumental in the  children going back to their families