The future of tomorrow

Ritam Banati

US President Herbert Hoover once stated, “Children are our most valuable natural resource”. This is a time-tested phrase. It is an obvious fact that the children of today are the future of tomorrow. And this holds true as much for India as for any other country of the world. So it becomes crucial to tap this natural resource to its fullest potential. But various obstacles on the path prevent the same from materialising. The foremost of them being the unavoidable problems which children have to face in the form of abuse, malnutrition and child labour. These coupled with other such gory issues become stumbling blocks in working towards their welfare.

Children throughout the globe confront all sorts of problems. With reference to South Asian nations like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, many deprived kids here face seemingly insurmountable troubles. This is primarily because these economies are still in the developing stage and the children feel the maximum impact of the uneven distribution of income.

The most vulnerable section of any society is the children. Exploring the plight of children within the confines of a single country like India is in itself a stupendous task. Trying to resolve the dilemma wouldn’t be less daunting, undoubtedly. The architect of modern India and its first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was immensely fond of children. So much so that his birthday is celebrated as Children’s Day throughout the country. Chacha Nehru as he is lovingly called by Indian children, once wrote in a letter, “I like being with children and talking to them and, even more, playing with them. For the moment I forget that I am terribly old and it is very long ago since I was a child”.

It is perfectly natural to equate childhood with innocence and gaiety as Nehru’s letter depicts. But there is another childhood beyond the life of the “privileged” child. And Children’s Day must concentrate on the life of these hapless progeny of India. Much thought must have lied behind the simple utterance of American children’s activist Marian Wright Edelman, who aptly remarked, “If we don`t stand up for children, then we don`t stand for much”. The sorry plight of the deprived Indian children was overtly displayed once again when a study found that many clothes that found their way to palatial showrooms of the West like GAP were actually the products of tiny, nimble fingers. This led the showrooms to refuse to keep such clothes with them. Consequentially in the raids conducted in the capital, over 70 children were freed from the bondage of labour.

But this freedom is only temporary. This is because abject poverty pushes these children into the throes of labour again, and the vicious cycle continues. The Indian government has so far failed to chalk a proper rehabilitation strategy to cope with this menace.

Child Labour is just the tip of the iceberg. This is the precursor of other forms of gruesome evils, the worst among them all being sexual abuse. Child abuse has proved so monstrous that it has even hit the affluent section of the society. One can well imagine that if the so-called safety walls around a well-off child has not spared some from this atrocity, then what to talk of the teeming millions? A case in point is that of West Bengal which has attained the dubious distinction of becoming a hub for child maids due to its close proximity to Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa. It also shares porous frontiers with Nepal and Bangladesh. These children are often subjected to sexual abuse as part of their domestic servitude. It is a well-known fact that child prostitution flourishes in states bordering Nepal. And that many young Nepalese girls too find themselves trapped in the tight tentacles of flesh trade in India.

Even marriage does not save some underprivileged children. Many of the poor girls get married off by their parents to men much older than them like to old Sheikhs residing in the Middle-East. This is just the beginning of an arduous journey for them. A few less unfortunate ones are saved in police raids but this is a small proportion when compared to the gravity of the problem. Child marriage is rampant in states like Rajasthan where age-old customs still carry social sanction. Babies too are traded in poverty-afflicted states like some pockets of Andhra Pradesh.

It is pointless to even mention the Anti-Child Labour Act that came into force on October 10 last year. It has so far been unable to contain the huge problem.

The amplification of terrorism has made matters worse with children being its worst victims. The best example can be quoted from the hotbed of militancy, Kashmir. Here the children live in perpetual fear resulting in varied problems like not wanting to attend school. Violence has also resulted in children feeling isolated, becoming aggressive and indulging in drugs. Lately there have also been reports of militants giving money to young Kashmiri boys to hurl grenades randomly at places. In an environment that is surrounded by fear, it becomes a left-hand tactic to exploit the most vulnerable strata of the society.

These innocents cannot be blamed for being more than willing to be lured into doing anything for money. Apart from financially dismal conditions, lack of moral discipline amidst insecurity also encourages them to work at the behest of the misguided elements of society and get shaped into one of those elements themselves.

Malnutrition is one such reason. And this is not limited to the valley alone. As per a UNICEF report, South Asia comprises 46% of the world’s underweight children. Apart from this nearly half of the globe’s malnourished kids are Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis.

This causes several tiny tots to suffer from anaemia. It is indeed futile to talk of education or discipline with such tender minds that are functionless in the face of starved bellies.

So it becomes difficult to believe ministers who claim that government’s work in this direction has borne fruit. It makes one ponder over the statistics which was quoted by one of our ministers in the Fourth International Conference of Asia Education Foundation (AEF) wherein it was mentioned that the number of out of school children had dropped from 39 million to 10 million in November 2005 largely owing to government’s efforts.

The root of all evils, it can be reasonably concluded, is primarily financial scarcity. If poverty is checked then these evils that are more or less the offshoots of poverty can be checked to a very large extent. However, there is no dearth of laws and policies in our country. And this holds true for everything including children. It is also futile to once again emphasise that the gist of the solution revolves around the way these programmes are implemented. Maybe, the time is ripe to evolve an innovative strategy and explore new dimensions of an old problem. Maybe it is still not that late to strive with whole-hearted meticulousness for the preservation of the epitome of innocence.

Hopefully another blow is not needed for the eyes wide shut to be wide open now.