Since motherhood dawned on me, suddenly I found myself intolerant towards all forms of exploitation against little children. However the sad part is that like each one of us, I too have done little to make the world a better place. While we human beings are steadily moving towards complete degradation of moral character (yes now I believe Kalyug is here!), small instances of efforts being made on the positive side gives me a sigh of relief. I always wonder of the kind of circumstances my little one will have to live through when he is my age and whether the majority of the world will be populated by animals (of course with a human face) who beat their own 3 months old daughter to death, abuse little children and so on....
Global warming is one aspect of environmental degradation, pesticides in our food is another but the biggest killer in the coming times is the changing face of us human beings who have no respect or thought for anyone else in the world but for him/herself.
A few days back an ex-colleague called me to inform about a less than 10 year old child being exploited by couple living in the heart of Ranchi city. Similar to the Dwarka case this little child was made to do all household chores, deprived of education and the best part was locked alone in the house for days and that too on the roof! Rescue team from Labour Department went to raid the premises and found that the "smart employers" had already sent off the child to his house and feigned ignorance over the allegations against them. According to them they were doing "charity" by keeping the child with them, giving him food and "educating him". God save all the children of the world from such charitable people!
On a positive note, we as mentors of some selected numbers of children rescued from their workplaces, joined hands with UNICEF and launched a campaign against child labour on the eve of National Anti- Child Labour Day (April 30, 2012). We visited houses of the Chief Minister, the state secretariat, and other high level dignitaries' houses and our caravan paved almost all the streets of Ranchi. While we mustered support and applaud from all corners the best thing about this campaign were the 20 children from National Child Labour Project special school of Hindpiri, Ranchi. About a year back these children (9-14 years) were put in to this non-formal education centre by motivating their parents to educate them. Many of them had never seen a school before. Today they read, write, say poems, SHOUT SLOGANS :) and freely talk to the CM and high level government officials. An instance- A peon at the state secretariat asked one of the campaigning children what was going on and why they had come there. One of the children replied, "You are so grown up and how come you dont know today is National Anti Child Labour day!!".
So still there is a ray of hope with these little efforts that we can make on our behalf and to "heal the world, to make it a better place, for you and for me and the entire human race........" as sung by MJ....
Global warming is one aspect of environmental degradation, pesticides in our food is another but the biggest killer in the coming times is the changing face of us human beings who have no respect or thought for anyone else in the world but for him/herself.
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| Children posing with the CM, Jharkhand at his residence |
A few days back an ex-colleague called me to inform about a less than 10 year old child being exploited by couple living in the heart of Ranchi city. Similar to the Dwarka case this little child was made to do all household chores, deprived of education and the best part was locked alone in the house for days and that too on the roof! Rescue team from Labour Department went to raid the premises and found that the "smart employers" had already sent off the child to his house and feigned ignorance over the allegations against them. According to them they were doing "charity" by keeping the child with them, giving him food and "educating him". God save all the children of the world from such charitable people!
On a positive note, we as mentors of some selected numbers of children rescued from their workplaces, joined hands with UNICEF and launched a campaign against child labour on the eve of National Anti- Child Labour Day (April 30, 2012). We visited houses of the Chief Minister, the state secretariat, and other high level dignitaries' houses and our caravan paved almost all the streets of Ranchi. While we mustered support and applaud from all corners the best thing about this campaign were the 20 children from National Child Labour Project special school of Hindpiri, Ranchi. About a year back these children (9-14 years) were put in to this non-formal education centre by motivating their parents to educate them. Many of them had never seen a school before. Today they read, write, say poems, SHOUT SLOGANS :) and freely talk to the CM and high level government officials. An instance- A peon at the state secretariat asked one of the campaigning children what was going on and why they had come there. One of the children replied, "You are so grown up and how come you dont know today is National Anti Child Labour day!!".
So still there is a ray of hope with these little efforts that we can make on our behalf and to "heal the world, to make it a better place, for you and for me and the entire human race........" as sung by MJ....
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