Stolen Childhood 06

Stand Up, Fight for Your Child

What would you have done, had your child being forced to sell his innocence for “Rs. 1 kilo of foam”? You can hardly even think of it right? But that is a gruesome fact, which many a child in India is gripped by? The claws of child labour are gnawing deeper, despite the fact that Indian Government is framing rules every year to fight this menacing cause. 1st August’ 2007, a bright Wednesday morning had been a shocking day for the Haryana administrative officers, when a random raid was conducted in a foam factory. Nearly 14 children were rescued from this factory in Kamal, where they had been working as daily labourers. See the satire, they were getting Rs. 1 per kilogram of foam, which will buy them hardly a candy. When asked, the factory owners said that they were not aware of the fact that these children are all minors. However, going ahead with the rules, the Labour Department has issued challans against the factory and has left a warning for future purposes. The entire story came to light because of the courage of these innocent children’s, when they somehow managed to send a letter to a local Hindi daily and highlighted the trauma they had been facing. An NGO called Shakti Vahini Sanstha, known for their dedicated service for the novel cause of child and women welfare helped in lifting the dark clouds and rescuing these children. As said by the working members of the NGO, all of these

children where barely in the age group of 8 t0 13 years and had no one to back them in their struggle. Having freed at last, all the children wants to go back to their respective villages. However, it seems that even the parents were aware of the fact and it is really sad to know that neither did they do anything to make their child’s life better. Upfront, the only thing that can be done to do away with such incidents in future is to not only frame rigid laws with massive fines imposed on such parents and the employers of child labourer, but also to execute the plans rather than just printing the laws on paper.