God has given human beings the boon of wisdom and discretion to think upon the signs of the universe and to draw conclusions. That is the reason why they disclose the hidden facts of it and its structure and have made remarkable progress in many walks of life. Children are the flowers of heaven. They are the most beautiful and purest creation of God. They are innocent both inwardly and outwardly. No doubt, they are the beauty of this world. Early in the morning when the children put on different kinds of clothes and begin to go to schools for the sake of knowledge, we feel a specific kind of joy through their innocence.The way they learn all the things around, grasp knowledge from a very tender age only to give it back to the world in a better form at a later stage in life.
But, there are also other children, those who cannot go to schools due to financial problems, they only watch others go to schools and can merely wish to seek knowledge.It is due to many hindrances and difficulties; desperate conditions that they face in life. Having been forced to kill their aspirations, dreams and other wishes, they are pressed to earn a living for themselves and for their families. It is also a fact that there are many children who play a key role in sustaining the economically life of their family without which, their families would not be able to make ends meet. These are also part of our society who have forgotten the pleasures of their childhood.
When a child in addition to getting education, earns his livelihood, this act of earning a livelihood is called as child Labor. One can easily imagine in the plight of how the nation’s future namely children are deprived of pleasures of life, ignorance has reduced their abilities of thinking right or differentiating between right and wrong, as well as their life-chances, to their non-access to education.
First, its a bad economic practice and second as an overt social evil. In the first it is involvement of a child labor in profitable activities to augment the family income. The second context, namely child labor a social evil – is more complex in nature and extent. In order to assess the nature of the evil, and gauge the extent of damage it becomes necessary to understand the character of the job in which the child is engaged, the dangers to which they are exposed and the development opportunities they are denied.
Technically the term ‘child labor is used for children occupied in profitable activities, whether industrial or non industrial. It is especially applicable for activities which are detrimental to their physical, psychological, emotional, social and moral development needs. It has been researched and proved that the brain of a child develops till the age of ten, muscles till the age of seventeen and his lungs till the age of fourteen. To be more specific, any activity which acts as a hazard for the natural growth and enhancement of these vital organs, can be considered harmful for natural human growth and development and termed – ‘child labor’. Many appalling realities like poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, low wages, ignorance, social prejudices, regressive traditions, poor standard y Director in the Ministry of labor has been quoted as saying that the children are required to seek employment either to augment the income of their families or to have a gainful occupation in the absence of availability of school going facilities at various places.
Also prevalent around us is bonded child labor. This differs slightly from child labor with the fact that child labor is something which is done by the consent of the individual whereas bonded child labor isn't so. The child is forced into any form of labor in exchange to sometimes let him live his life too. The children who are sold as bonded labor only get a handful of coarse grain to keep them alive in return for their labor. Sometimes their period of thrall extends for a life time, and they have to simply toil hard and depend on the mercy of their owners, without any hope of release or redemption. The impoverished parents of the bonded child is usually a poor, uneducated landless laborer and the mortgagee is traditionally some big landlord, money lender or a big business man who thrives on their vulnerability to such exploitation.The practice of bonded child labor is prevalent in many parts of rural India, but is very conspicuously in the Vellore district of Tamil Nadu. Here the bonded child is allowed to reside with his parents, if he presents himself for work at 8 a.m. every day. The practice of child bonded labor persists like a scourge to humanity in spite of many laws against it. These laws although stringent and providing for imprisonment and imposition of huge fines on those who are found guilty are literally non- functional in terms of implementation.
Some facts:
• Globally, 218 million children are child labourers
• 126 million of these children are engaged in hazardous work
• 73 million working children are less than 10 years old
• Every year, 22,000 children die in work-related accidents
• The largest number of working children-122 million-are in the Asia-Pacific region
• The highest proportion of working children is in sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly one third of the children aged 14 and under (48 million children) are in the labor force
• 8.4 million children are trapped in slavery, trafficking, debt bondage, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities
The number of children involved in armed conflicts has increased to about 300,000 over the past decade.
Between 40 and 50 per cent of all forced laborers are chidren
• 1.2 million of these children have been trafficked (bought and/or sold)
Where do children work?
• Nearly 70% are in agriculture (rural children, especially girls, usually start working in this industry when they are very young, often between 5 and 7 years of age)
• 22% are in services, including wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels, transport, personal services, etc
• 9% are in industry, including mining and quarrying, manufacturing and construction
Lets face the truth. Let me get it as simple, whosoever is reading this right now, has life in them. And they know this very well that life is a gift, a gift of God that comes around only once, let me repeat, only once. Its one life and the tasks to be done are plenty, plenty of them. So as everything starts with a tender stage, childhood is one such stage of life which is important. So important that half of the world's factor depend on it. Let me tell you how, if a child has a happy childhood, he bound to learn things around him well and understand what life is and what's meant to be done to it and give it back the way it should be done.. When I say I happy childhood, I don't mean give him all the luxuries of life and let him enjoy them but, give him enough education, right nourishment and space so that he learns what life actually is. Balance, in life, is very important. At every step, in every part and event of life, balance is important. Excess of love and luxury in childhood is what makes a child grow up into that arrogant brat kind of an individual and at the same time, getting a child deprived of basic necessities like food and education can make him experience all those negative emotions like frustration, jealousy and the like. These kind of children grow up to be irresponsible and immature, Both ways, the country is what gets affected as its these children who are the future of a country, of the world. The future of this planet lies in their hands. Get them the right amount of balance in life and see them do wonders. It can be kept as simple as that. in order to do so, there's nothing much you have to do. Just look around, you'll find plenty of hands waiting to be held, plenty of mouths to be fed, and plenty of lives which you can lead and make a difference. Get a child educated, it isn't such a big deal. Choose a child or more if possible, go find an institution, get him educated. Adopt a child if you can. Contribute to the extent you can. If bonded, free him from the clutches, nothing is greater than giving an individual his freedom back. Get a child some books, any kind of study material, food, toys, everything that he needs to live a normal childhood.
Don't find a reason to do so. Or let me say, a person might be happy or sad depending on the moment. If you're happy, then go do it, because life's all about spreading happiness. Do that once when you're happy and see how none can snatch that happiness from you. If sad, then you must do it immediately because nothing can make you feel as better as getting a smile on a needy child. Their innocent smiles, what we call the child like glee are one of the most treasured sights of life. And what can be more amazing if you are truly the reason behind one? :)
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain
Life's all about spreading Happiness and Smiles because, you can be truly happy only when the people around you are.
Don't believe?! Do it for once and, I promise it'll become a Habit! :)
The first event under Infinite dreams happened at Holy Angels Anglo-Indian Higher Secondary School, Chennai where students of the primary school were allowed to participate in a drawing and elocution competition. A very enthusiastic pack of 75 students came all excited to express all that was in their mind.
