Street Children Survive On Porn, Not Food

Nikhil Raheja, a psychiatrist at the National Institute of Psychiatry, said addiction to pornography and video games among adolescents is highly dangerous.

"Porn clips and video games fixate their brain, drive them to a compulsion to watch and play more of them. Many video games have violent elements and would increase the sense of violence.

"Watching porn movies is likely to force kids to engage in risky behaviour and have sex at a younger age," Raheja said.

Social activists allege police fail to take action against porn video hubs that are abundant in east Delhi (Nand Nagri and Sundar Nagri) and south Delhi (Sarai Kale Khan and Hazrat Nizamuddin).

"Counselling children, most of the time, doesn't serve the purpose. Children get back to the habit. There are nearly 20,000 illegal video and porn movie parlours in Delhi, which take at least 60 a day from each kid. The police are inactive. A crackdown on such illegal parlours is the need of the hour," CHETNA director Sanjay Gupta said.

A senior police officer, however, brushed aside the charges.

"We have cracked down on such parlours. In fact, we have filed cases against four mobile phone shop owners near Uttam Nagar for selling porn video clips in 2GB pen drives to children. They charged 80-100 for clips. We take action whenever we get information," the officer said on condition of anonymity.

Gupta said many of the adolescent children display abnormal behaviour when volunteers interact with them.

"It is difficult to reason with these children. By the time we are able to make any inroads, they either fall seriously ill as they don't eat proper food or meet a violent end. It's a sad life. We feel helpless," Gupta added.

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