It was a hot May afternoon. I was struggling to park my car near busy chickpet market area. There was a knock at the window. Knowing instinctively it was a beggar, or a beggar in hawker’s disguise, I turned with an annoyed expression and uttered, “Anna Dari bidu
It was a boy, about ten years old, selling mini-packs of tissue papers. Behind him was another boy, about five-years old. I corrected my facial expressions and drove on to park the car in a small parking space. As I got out of the car I saw the boys moving away; their eyes had started searching for someone else to sell their stuff to.
The little one was trailing behind the elder sibling and I noticed that he was wearing oversized slippers, hand-me-down ones, perhaps. I felt guilty for being rude to the little kids who were braving the heat just to earn a little money. They slowed down seeing me staring at them. I realized that the older boy was barefoot –– he had lent his slippers to his brother.
It was just too hot for anyone to be out in the sun, let alone barefoot. I felt so sorry for them that I wanted to cry, and they realized it from my expression. I called them, and they came rushing, feeling elated that some money was about to reach their hands. I gave the older boy some money and told him to buy slippers for himself. Deep down, I knew that there would perhaps be no new slippers for either of the two.
With probably more than half a dozen people at home, a mother who either begs or works as a maid and a father who perhaps smokes away all the family’s income, they will be putting this money to some other use. You would have to give such poor little kids a whole lot of money to take care of their many other needs before they could consider spending it on luxuries like slippers and clothes. If you are surviving on one meal or less a day, you are ready to sell even the clothes on you to fill your tummy.
Sights such as these are witnessed countless times everyday. These are children who should be playing and studying, sheltered in their homes, but they are either begging or working their childhood away. They are child laborers; too many to be counted. Their present is bleak and the future seems no better.
There are other less fortunate children whom we don’t get to see at work so often because they are toiling away in factories and in the fields. Their little hands carry burdens that may be twice their weight. Their work output in terms of hours is as much as that of an adult, but they are paid a pittance and sometimes not even that.
Child labor is a global issue but more so in the developing and underdeveloped countries. In analyzing it, many reasons and affecting factors can be traced but the basic underlying cause is poverty. The fight for survival forces families to send their children out to earn instead of schools to study. While no child is happy working they will be more distressed going hungry. Poverty has doomed them to a life of misery at a tender age.
It was a boy, about ten years old, selling mini-packs of tissue papers. Behind him was another boy, about five-years old. I corrected my facial expressions and drove on to park the car in a small parking space. As I got out of the car I saw the boys moving away; their eyes had started searching for someone else to sell their stuff to.
The little one was trailing behind the elder sibling and I noticed that he was wearing oversized slippers, hand-me-down ones, perhaps. I felt guilty for being rude to the little kids who were braving the heat just to earn a little money. They slowed down seeing me staring at them. I realized that the older boy was barefoot –– he had lent his slippers to his brother.
It was just too hot for anyone to be out in the sun, let alone barefoot. I felt so sorry for them that I wanted to cry, and they realized it from my expression. I called them, and they came rushing, feeling elated that some money was about to reach their hands. I gave the older boy some money and told him to buy slippers for himself. Deep down, I knew that there would perhaps be no new slippers for either of the two.
With probably more than half a dozen people at home, a mother who either begs or works as a maid and a father who perhaps smokes away all the family’s income, they will be putting this money to some other use. You would have to give such poor little kids a whole lot of money to take care of their many other needs before they could consider spending it on luxuries like slippers and clothes. If you are surviving on one meal or less a day, you are ready to sell even the clothes on you to fill your tummy.
Sights such as these are witnessed countless times everyday. These are children who should be playing and studying, sheltered in their homes, but they are either begging or working their childhood away. They are child laborers; too many to be counted. Their present is bleak and the future seems no better.
There are other less fortunate children whom we don’t get to see at work so often because they are toiling away in factories and in the fields. Their little hands carry burdens that may be twice their weight. Their work output in terms of hours is as much as that of an adult, but they are paid a pittance and sometimes not even that.
Child labor is a global issue but more so in the developing and underdeveloped countries. In analyzing it, many reasons and affecting factors can be traced but the basic underlying cause is poverty. The fight for survival forces families to send their children out to earn instead of schools to study. While no child is happy working they will be more distressed going hungry. Poverty has doomed them to a life of misery at a tender age.
The suggestion that children should be stopped from working altogether is not a practical solution of dealing with the issue of child labor. In many cases, such children’s contribution to the family income is vital for their own sustenance. Sometimes older children have to stay back home to handle the household chores and younger siblings while the parents are at work. As one of the most powerless groups in society, children have to bear the physical and emotional cost of poverty, the effects of which they carry into adulthood.
Going further contrary to the fact in Hotel industry at least they get basic food and Shelter and many of them have after studying in evening college has contributed To our society but this is not enough to justify the hard ships they go through
This problem is one of alarming proportions. According to a government study, the number of child labourers in India was 15 million in 1996; the Human Rights Commission of India put that figure at 45 million in 2005. There are now more NGOs working on this issue and the government, too, has been giving assurances that the menace of child labour is being seriously looked into. Yet, you see more children today begging in the street than before.
With another World Day Against Child Labor is few months away [ June 12] Nothing much has changed and it is time the government did more than just paying lip service. Meanwhile, each one of us, in our own little way, can contribute something to make life a little better for the less fortunate children who are out begging or working, mostly just to feed themselves.
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