BY JAGPREET SANDHU : Looking at the vulnerable condition of children and their exploitation to extremes, most of us are happy that we don’t have to face that subjugation especially from within the families. Children are seen as additional hands to earn in most of households. One would find young children begging at traffic lights. We all talk about illiteracy and child labour being the major problem of children. But what are these to them when they need to struggle for basic survival. Many of them are sexually abused by their close ones and even within the families. Due to poverty many of them are sold of as servants and even sold off to brothels.
Problems faced by children are different in various section of society. In rural area, nobody has any real desire and aspirations regarding their children. They feel that their children cannot achieve anything through education. This is the reason for children not going to school and only helping their parents in household work. This is how the circle of poverty and illiteracy works in our country. But the question arise- is poverty the only cause of bad condition of children? The situation is even worst in well to do families. Children become victims of their parent’s frustration. Parents try to achieve their unfulfilled desires through their children. It looks like that parents are jockey and children are horse. They maintain them for the race and give punishment if not succeed. Too much expected from children in every field especially in education. They don’t get any emotional support and love they crave for.
We all are educated enough to know that child labour is punishable offence but we don’t care. We can find many small children working as domestic help in the houses of many reputed and people at high governmental positions and even in the houses of the people who make rules and laws against child labour. At every government office or outside it, we can see young kids working at a tea stall as a chai wala (tea carrier), that is also a kind of child labour.We never care when we get our clothes ironed by a young boy and we don’t bother about the children in our neighbourhood not going to school and doing all this stuff.
It is high time that government should take some strict measures to eradicate the evil of child labour. We, the common people should also try to make our fellow beings aware of this evil and its impact on our society. One should take initiative and try at least to stop himself from being a part of this curse. More than anyone, children need help of their parents to avoid psychological child labour.