Child Exploitation

Child Exploitation

 (By Rounakshi Dey ) 

Image By:- Darshika Singh

“Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul.” by Aldous Huxley. Children can be considered to be exploited whenever, someone makes a profit using their vulnerability and lack of power, whenever children are abused to fulfill some perverted desires and whenever they start working despite being too young or for long hours. Exploitation also occurs when children work in dangerous or unhealthy conditions, when they are underpaid or when they are coerced into forced labor, debt bondage, or slavery. Child Exploitation has a number of forms, an underage child working as domestic help or as a laborer or a child who is sexually exploited or a child who is used for criminal activities without the child’s knowledge. All the above activities, where a child is used for someone else’s profit, refers to incidents of child exploitation.

Child Labour:

In a poor country like India, child labor is a common sight in our day to day life. Often as we pass construction sights, we find small boys, maybe up to 10 or 11 years of age working as masons or helpers, they are carrying bricks, fetching water, etc. All these activities where the physical work done by the child is too strenuous for his age, refer to child labor. A child is supposed to go to school and study. But, unfortunately, our poverty levels are such that, the poor parents are forced to send their children to work, in order to support the family and earn some extra money. These children are generally bought from their parents, by rich factory owners, for one-time money. Then these children are held as bonded laborers. They are not allowed to visit their parents nor live on their own. Their life gets stuck in the factory. They are hardly fed well and are tortured. They are made to work for 12 or 13 hours in return of two half meals a day. Till they are adults, they keep on working there and their entire childhood gets spoiled. The conditions in which these children keep working are dangerous for their health. Sometimes, they catch industry borne diseases at a young age, they do not receive timely help. These children are too weak to protest against the owners, hence they suffer silently. These incidents of child labor are common throughout India. Sometimes, the police with the aid of different NGOs receive information about these illegal activities of child labor and rescue these children. But most of these cases go unnoticed. Even, domestic help working in houses in return for monthly wages is an example of child labor, if the maid is a minor. We should ask the child’s parents to stop her from working at such a young age.

Sexual Exploitation:

Often, young children are too naïve to understand, the sexual abuses they are met with. These perverted people, use this ignorance to their advantage. They pay the poor parents some money so that they keep their mouth shut and use these children for their perverted sexual gratification. Often poor children are sold off to red light areas. These children, grow up with emotional trauma, being molested and raped since young ages. They can never lead a normal life. Even if, by god’s grace, they escape the hell, their trauma stays with them throughout their life. Young children are often subjected to human trafficking. Rich men from foreign countries, pay dollars to use these children to meet their sexual desires. Most of these children spend their entire lives suffering in red light areas. Child pornography is banned in most countries as it is a serious criminal offense. But illegally these activities continue on a global scale. These vulnerable ignorant children have ripped off their childhood at such tender ages. Also, living in unhygienic red light areas, many children become prey to sexually transmitted diseases and die an ugly death in the absence of any medical facility.

Illegal Business Activities:

Dealers in illegal things use poor children to do work for them in return for money. Drugs, Illegal arms are often sent from one place to another using child. The police hardly get suspicious of children, and hence, the gangsters continue with their business. These children, when they start working, are hardly aware that they are a part of criminal activities. But later, as they grow up, they cannot get out of this cycle of criminals, eventually, they turn into criminals themselves. Their life gets spoiled. The ignorance of poor children becomes their greatest enemy eventually spoiling life for them. These illegal activities to are a part of child exploitation. 

All around us, we find different examples of child exploitation occurring on a daily basis. Poor children lose their beautiful childhood. Next time we find our maid asking her daughter to do work as her replacement, we should stop her immediately. Rather, we should take some of our time and teach our maid’s children. The poor parents can contact NGOs in order to get some help in raising their children. A lot of NGOs work for these ill-fated children. The least we can do is spread awareness. Whenever we find that parents are financially weak to support their children, instead of allowing their children to do some work, we should ask them to seek help from NGOs. The children will be saved and this bane of child exploitation will also get reduced to some extent. Remember, a child is God’s gift. We should protect these gifts. Childhood should be carefree playing in the sun…

 

Disclaimer:-

The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Light de Literacy and LDL does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.