Opinions and Concerns

Home

Index

Topic

Guestbook

Team

The Underages' struggle to survive

A working child

Child employment is banned throughout India, but still there are a whole lot of children working to survive. Education in Kerala for children up to the age of fifteen is practically free. Even the poorest of the families could afford to send them to school. In a state where there are a lot of unemployed educated people it is difficult to survive without proper education. The education provided by the government cannot even be compared to the professional education provided by the private schools. But the private schools are so expensive that it is very difficult for economically backward students to bear. It is very difficult for the under privileged students to come good in their studies because of their background. With only the education the government provides it is difficult even for the bright students to come up in their life.

With such a situation most of the parents of really poor families prefer to send their children to work rather than school because they could use the extra money. Young children who run away from home due to a violent background or an abusive family end up working at a tender age to survive. The age during which character and personality have to be developed is spent among people of different characters abusing them in most possible ways. Since they are cheap labour it is not difficult for them to get a job. Bus boys in hotels, helpers in a tyre shop, housemaids, garbage pickers, you will find them everywhere.

Experiences like this put a lot of pressure on the child and influence the character of the children. Many look at them and sympathize. Others don’t even notice them. Some even abuse them. Nobody does anything for them. They are left alone in their own dark world. The materialistic world has blinded us so much that we fail to notice what happens around us.

Hey !..I am still smiling !

Today’s children are tomorrow’s leaders. Leaders in what?

How can we judge a person from such a background, even if he has committed the worst of the crimes ? Who is to bear responsibility ? The parents who led them to work ? The employee who hired them ? The government who allows these things to happened ? Or the entire system which made them born poor ?
Everybody can wash his/her hands free from guilt - blaming 'circumstances' and claiming "that's the way life is". Nothing can be done against it.

Still...we have fun...

Is anybody trying? If everybody led his/her life according to circumstances, it would have been an entirely different world. Every individual is responsible for the other. You and me are responsible for the fate of the ill-fated one. If we were not too busy following our selfish motives to earn money and fame, we could have done a little from our side which is all what it takes to create an impact on ones mind.

Next time we see a child working hard to survive don't just let us spare a thought, do something !

Abraham Chandy

Back