36 percent of detained Yangon street children reunited with parents

Children by the Yangon River.
Children by the Yangon River.

In the first seven months of 2018, Yangon Region authorities detained 427 street children, according to regional minister for social affairs Naing Ngan Lin. Only around 36 percent of these children have been returned to their parents.

The minister said on Monday that between January 1 and July 3, regional authorities detained 312 boys and 115 girls who were found living or begging on Yangon streets. Only 137 boys and 22 girls were then returned to their parents. The rest were sent to childcare centers, vocational training centers, or police stations.

Furthermore, the minister said that regional authorities do not keep records of the street children they process.

Last year, the regional Social Welfare Department detained 1,006 street children and sent some home while processing others to training schools.

Yangon City Development Committee employs a six-member Street People Conservation Team that conducts daily patrols to keep beggars, people with skin diseases, and people with mental disabilities off the city’s streets.

In August, the team carried out two sweeps in which 60 people, including 29 children, were rounded up after being accused of harassing people for money under the Hledan flyover in Yangon’s Kamayut Township. Three ringleaders were arrested and charged under section 66(c) of the Child Law, which forbids people from “employing a child to beg for his personal benefit”.

City authorities reported that some of the children were collected by their parents but would not specify how many.

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