If you thought the workforce of India will not have children, defined as those under-14, following a ban by the Union Government, you are a dud.
Take a bet: You will definitely see kids serving you in hotels, innocence in the form of domestic helps and of course beggars, which is a multi-crore profession in Mumbai, India’s supposedly richest metro. Beggars earn Rs 180-crore annually in Mumbai, in case you didn't know.
And you may ask why child labour will flourish despite a joke of a ban.
Because there are over 40 million kids who have never seen a school or just couldn’t waste time to mull over elementary education.
Because even dreaming about food, shelter and clothing is a waste of time for them.
Unlike there fortunate peers, these 40 million kids have to earn a living from the streets to feed their families. They are just thrown out to the cruel struggle which some people call life.
A huge majority of these 40 million work in hazardous industries, which is a recipe for disaster considering their lifestyle as well as inhuman labour conditions .
And the people who run this nation of billion people are notorious for the way they handle rehabilitation programmes.
Will the penalty for flouting the law, which is Rs10,000-Rs 20,000 and a 2-3 year jail term be a deterrent? No.
There are rigorous penalties for various acts of omission and commission which are rarely enforced unless there is a political vendetta behind it in our democratic set up.
The hapless kid is not eligible to vote since he is four years younger than what a our lawmakers think would make them a major. Or mature enough to swallow the whims and fancies of our political masters who run the roadshow called democracy.
Democracy in India means politics; rather politicking. Politicking means power. And in this scheme of things, children of poor parents are just pawns who are in the game by default.
They are doomed. At least till they grow up to be in their own worlds, however murky that may be.
1 comment:
nice thoughts
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