I have been following with some NGOs on social media and then exploring the major challenges with the future of our country - The Kids. During this journey I found Child Labour to be one of the most prevailing issue and the root cause of all the woes of our society.
A country's future depends on how it nurtures its kids who will become the future of the nation tomorrow. If majority of children are not getting the required education for growth, a nation is bound to go into deep trenches of failure after a decade or so. Now the question is why do the kids do not study, one of the main cause is because the poor kids or kids without any economically stable guardians are left on their own to survive in the society. And with this, survival for life becomes the first priority than going to school and waiting for one and a half decade to get into a job. Now for survival they get into odd jobs or units which employs kids for small works and pay them something or provide them some food for their day to day survival.
Kids in their age would not understand the importance of education for future and they would anyway tend towards something which is helping them in their immediate survival howsoever short term it might be, and grow in the same way for another decade. With millions of poor kids going the same way, it criples the workforce of a country and pushes them to the shackles of underdeveloped economy.
Thus the need for the hour is to enable the children to study, Here are some instances I found which can help in this. Many are already implemented in many countries including India, but do need widespread adoption so that we do not find any single Child Labour in our society.
- Providing tasty and nutritious Breakfast & Lunch Meals in schools so that kids happily come to school. Even if they come for the sake of food, it doesn't matter. Atleast they would study something than nothing in case they roam outside.
- Homeless, abandoned or poor kids without proper guardian should get support to stay in Children Care Homes where they get shelter and food.
- Rehabilitation of Kids working in unorganized activites like Begging in Railway Station, Roaming vendors in City Road traffic signals, trains and bus stands, etc. This should be one of the critical focus since many a times, poor kids get to meet a few anti social elements or a group of already spoiled kids (who were introduced by someone else) to work on certain Illegal doings in the society. Kids at their age would not understand on the ethical context behind the work they do and would do whatever is taught to them at that age. With time, these kids slowly progress to become goons or get involved in many organized or unorganized, criminal and illegal activities. Hence rehabilitation should be a key priority for a Local Municipal corporation or district administration.
I would like to share some chilling pictures which I found across various sources in the internet, see if it triggers something within you.
Child Labour Instances in our society:
