Karachi
Faiza’s eyes are red and watery, and she still has not stopped weeping. Clutching her flimsy yellow dupatta, the seemingly twelve year old girl stares around her in a confused fashion, while pictures of her along with the seven other children (including her brothers and sisters) are taken by the press present there.

“I was told by ammi that I was to stay here and study,” says Faiza, who was not aware at all as to why she had been left at an unknown place with unknown people, by her parents. “Abboo had told her that we were to go. That is all I know about it.”

Faiza’s sister Rimsha, much younger of age but more controlled has already adjusted to the new place, and her ‘new parents’, Abdus Sattar Edhi and his wife Bilquis. But Faiza and Omar, who are the eldest of the lot, have not yet become accustomed to the situation.

According to Faiza, her father works in a small time bakery business. “Did I do something wrong? I don’t know why I am here. I miss my mother too much,” she says, tears forming in her eyes once again.

Rimsha told The News that their mother, who had been crying when she left her, told the siblings that they should stay in their ‘new home and study’, and that they ‘should not run away anywhere’.

Perhaps the psychological toll of being abandoned by their own parents will take on the children later. But there might be chances of it being overcome, once the children find others of their own age, and their caretakers much more supportive of them and their future.
Source: The News
Date:11/19/2008