Child Labour

"Awake, arise and stop not till the goal is reached". This was a clarion call given by Swami Vivekananda. I have struggled to have a purpose in life which will never make me question the meaning of life. Have been lucky most of the time. Family, selfishness and delusional beliefs have sustained me. Health and education are very close to my heart and am working towards making difference in health and education.

 Conscience gets stirred many a times but hardly acts. Actions are all that count and am making a blueprint for actions.

 Old age, illness, disability, the not so privileged brethrens who starve and bear extreme climates-all are seen by the eyes, felt by the heart but are not registered deeply enough in the brain to act.
I fail daily to live upto my expectation. Today i have been stirred by an article in New York Times. Children Toil in India’s Mines, Despite Legal Ban, I daily see child labour and do not take any action to eliminate it. I have thought about it for more then a decade  and i am still thinking. I will make a difference.
For those of you who read the comments in the NYT article try to keep emotions aside and imbibe the facts. Laws, regulations are just facilitators, we all individually have to act in our own capacity to free the children. This is directly related to the health, wealth and culture of a community. I used to think and still ponder that the test for a society is how it takes care of the elderly, fragile, deprived and weak. We are failing at both ends. We are neither tending to the seeds or to the trees which have born fruits. We have a long way to go.

Facts:

1. India is sadly the home to the largest number of child labourers in the world. The census found an increase in the number of child labourers from 11.28 million in 1991 to 12.59 million in 2001.

2. According to the statistics given by Indian government there are 20 million child laborers in the country, while other agencies claim that it is 50 million.

3. At least 100,000 children go missing from their homes in India every year – 274 each day – and only 10% are registered as officially missing.

4. Between 2008 and 2012 a total of 452,679 child labour and trafficking cases were reported. The records show that out of those 25,006 prosecutions, only 3,394 employers or traffickers were convicted.

References:
1. http://www.childlineindia.org.in/child-labour-india.htm
2. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/it-was-the-sweet-smell-of-freedom-for-them/article4446960.ece
3. http://www.childlabor.in/tag/child-labour-in-india
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/feb/23/india-law-child-labour
5. http://ncpcr.gov.in/Reports/Magnitude_of_Child_Labour_in_India_An_Analysis_of_Official_Sources_of_Data_Draft.pdf