Hi bloggers,
Is child labour really being tackled in our country…is there a concious effort to eradicate that scourge from this land…i doubt it…let me narrate my experiences….
I am currently staying in a paying guest accomodation just opposite to Electronic City phase 2. There is a popular hotel in the main road(i don’t wish to name this hotel…ppl from blore must have at least seen it, if not gone into it) which employs child labour in the form of cleaners. I was appalled at this sight and one of my friends even asked the boy how old he was and the reply was a big big lie….”i am 18“….we only could laught it away…but that incident lingered in my mind long enough for me to write about it today…
One of my friend justified the boy working there saying that if he didnt work there, probably he would die of hunger…then what about schooling i asked and as u would have guessed all i got was giggles…the boy was too poor to go to school or even if he could afford it there were some other compelling domestic reasons to abandon school and start working at this rather tender age.
This is not the only place where i have witnessed child labour…and i am sure there have been other places you would have bore witness to the same…why is it that even after 6 decades of independence, we are not able to put our kids into schools….why is that we tend to turn a blind eye to work places that employ children…why is our noon meal scheme not working…what happened to the free textbooks schemes, free uniform and the list goes on and on….
I am sure as an individual i cant make much of a change…may be i could stop frequenting that hotel…and if a number of us decide to do the same then the boy will probably get fired as a result of the hotel closing[bcos the place is surviving bcos of ppl like me…:(]…a perfect catch 22 situation….
5 comments:
hmmm... good post!
i have seen children employed in almost ALL the restaurants i visit... either the kids' family or the owner of the hotel should be "educated" to stop this practise. In a country like India, ppl find this a very trivial issue!
the only solution i can see is... earn money, become rich enough so that you can pull the boy out of the hotel, give him decent accomodation & sponsor his education!!
@goodearth...that will take time and by then an entire generation would be wasted...what do u propose in the mean time...
and its not possible for every individual to sponsor a child's accomodation...so?
When it comes to choosing between protesting against CL and one's survival, we know what to expect from the victim... a shrewd one will make a life for himself and will try to ensure that his kids (limited) get educated... i have seen cases... they will find the helping hands... our duty perhaps is to have the helping hands...
you can't fix it overnight... it's a slow process... not a quintessential catch 22...
or try something like The Boss :-)
A very thought provoking post, buddy... Tell u what, Sid has discussed this issue (Child Labour) on Jagruti. Do chk his post there.
How are u doing, btw..? Been a while since I heard from you.
Peace.
Post a Comment