Abandoned lives

By John Cheeran
Just like many other things, child labour too is banned in India but it flourishes in many forms not just because it is forbidden.
An AFP report from New Delhi says that a new law will ban children from working as servants or in the catering trade.
The Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act 1986 prohibits employing children under 14 in hazardous jobs such as those in glass factories and slaughterhouses.
About 12 million children among a population of 1.1 billion people are employed in India, according census figures quoted by AFP.
This figure is likely to be only bigger, if one is to listen to NGOs.
The new law, if applied forcefully, may reduce the instances where child labour is employed. The philosophy behind the new law is to give children back their childhood.
It’s a noble idea, giving children their childhood.
And it puzzles me that when the crowd of couples without kids are increasing day-by-day, on the other end, there are children abandoned by their parents. Apparently children do not sprout on tree branches, I suppose.
The new law, which is being implemented from this week on, only points to the failure of the nation, and a failure of Indian society. We have not been honest enough to cut down on population explosion. And somehow we have resigned to the belief that children are God’s and God will take care of them. What men and women have got to do with it?
It is only men and women who have got that everything to do with abandoned children.
We should able to realize the value of not only dollars and rupees but even kids too.
The callous, or to put it in much more refined way, the stoic attitude of those poor parents who are forced to leave the God’s gifts to Lord’s own care should be tackled by the government.
An unwanted child is a potential criminal and threat to society as researchers have pointed out in the United States. Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point talks about how crime rates dipped in New York. The root cause was that abortion was made legal in the US and there were a drastic reduction in unwanted births…
So bottom line is, think before you plan a baby. If you are not able to take care of your children, don’t bring them on. Irrespective of whether you are rich or poor.
Let not push our children through Dickensian alleys.