Nine-year-old Ishfaq* ran as fast as he could. He needed to catch the thief, to get back his money, to get back his glue. His feet flew over the loose stones of the Delhi rail yard. The boy ahead, the thief, darted across the tracks, weaving between them. Adrenaline surged through Ishfaq as he struggled to keep up. 

A train approached. Ishfaq stumbled and fell. The train chugged forward. At the last moment, a hand reached out and pulled him to safety. 

But Ishfaq barely noticed. 

“Despite being saved, all I could think about was how to get back the stolen money and glue tubes,” Ishfaq says. 

The thief, another child, had Ishfaq’s glue - the substance he sniffed to get high. The thief also had Ishfaq’s money, which Ishfaq had himself pickpocketed from strangers on the street. 

As he ran through the rail yard, Ishfaq tried to board a moving train but fell again. This time, no miraculous hand came to save him. Ishfaq’s left leg was caught under the train. He was dragged. Ishfaq says he can’t remember much more than that. He floated in and out of consciousness. 

Ultimately, Ishfaq ended up in a hospital, where his left leg was amputated. 

His mother, Fatima*, was called. Having lived on the streets for several years, Ishfaq had to move back home. “He was filled with rage because he was disabled now. He had to stay with me. He had no choice,” Fatima says. 

Addicted at seven 

Things went wrong when Ishfaq, his pregnant mother, and his brother moved to Delhi six years ago. Fatima’s husband had just died under mysterious circumstances, and she needed to leave her hometown. They arrived in Delhi without a place to stay, and finding a job proved harder than Fatima had imagined. “We wandered the streets,” she says. Fatima began begging for money, and her children didn’t attend school. Ishfaq’s brother quickly got swept into the street lifestyle. 

“Children get hooked on drugs by learning from their peers on the street or by watching their parents use drugs,” says Firoz, a World Vision India community development coordinator for the Delhi Child Restoration Project. 

Soon, at the age of seven, Ishfaq was introduced to huffing glue. 

“I was told that if I consumed it, my strength would increase. My body would become fit and muscular. If you have the drugs, you will feel good,” Ishfaq says. 

He remembers trying glue for the first time, vomiting but craving the sensation afterward. That was the beginning of Ishfaq’s journey into the dangerous world of addiction. 

“Our day started with a cup of tea and then went straight to drugs. We never felt the urge to eat; we were too engrossed in the drugs,” Ishfaq says. “From morning till evening, we did drugs. The high made us hallucinate. We just crashed on the pavement and watched the sky.” 

As Ishfaq roamed the streets with his friend, he eventually stopped huffing inhalants. Instead, he became hooked on other toxic substances like marijuana and heroin. To pay for the drugs, Ishfaq started pickpocketing. Equipped with a small, sharp blade, he would slit pockets and grab the wallets that fell out. 

And then the incident in the train yard happened. 

Road to recovery 

After losing his leg, everyday activities that were once taken for granted like going to the toilet or walking became a struggle. The grip of drugs on Ishfaq was so strong that he even started huffing glue in front of his mother. Fatima was exasperated. She didn’t know what to do. 

And then she heard about a new programme in her neighbourhood. 

World Vision India’s non-formal education centre offered assistance to children in difficult circumstances. An intervention programme was created to address the issue of children on drugs. 

Fatima pleaded with Firoz to assist. With Fatima’s consent, Ishfaq was put in a drug rehabilitation centre. 

At the centre, Ishfaq and three other children went through the excruciatingly process of being weaned off drugs. 

“Every bone in my body used to hurt. I had to endure so much pain to get off drugs,” Ishfaq says. “At times I wished I had a knife so that I could plunge it into my body and kill myself.” 

Currently, Ishfaq remains at the drug rehab centre working hard to overcome his drug addiction. 

“After consuming [drugs] for so long, five years, it has become an old habit. Old habits die hard. But I am trying,” Ishfaq says. “I was on the verge of death; had World Vision India staff not saved me, I would have died. I was weak, just bones. My face sunk in and my neck became thin. World Vision India staff saved me from dying and got me thinking about having a good life.” 

- Annila Harris 

*Name changed to protect child’s identity 

Labels: ChildLabour #childrestoration #Children #delhi #Disability #drugaddiction #drugs #featurestory #poverty #childrensubstanceabuse #WorldVisionIndia