Siblings Alam and Nadia are ‘floating’ children. We caught up with them beside a slum colony. They travel together from colony to colony gathering together scraps of food so that they can survive. They normally sleep beside a quiet pavement and often run into trouble from local mastans. They have never been to school and cannot read or write.
Fatima is a girl who ensures her appearance is similar to a young boy so she can escape the hands of physical abuse by locals ‘mastans’ (pimps). We met her in Kamalapur Station, Dhaka. She was hungry and tired. She had left home because of her abusive father and learnt how the streets became her refuge. Sleeping on the platforms of Kamalapur station was taking its toil and Fatima sighed and told us she had had enough. She wanted to move on, to somewhere safer. But she did not know where.