Exploited Children in Legal and Social Sector

Exploited Children in Legal and Social Sector

Published in Alochana Magazine from Deoghar,

October 1985.

Lakshimdra Kumar Sarkar

Before the city life gets busy early in the morning, the street children wakes up first.  These children sleep live in the railway station areas, at the tea stalls and  those who work as domestic help.  They start the day at work without any food in their stomach.  They do a lot of work around the day.  On the other hand, the kids of the rich class wake up with sweets in their mouth.  When the rich class kids wake up, they are given a class of Horlicks, milk or fruit juice as soon as they rise up.  This picture is always there in a society.  But in modern times, the problem that comes under discussion is the problem with children.  Everybody knows that child labor is a social problem.  It is often heard that the child is one of the member of the society and we have the responsibility of helping them grow up as a responsible citizen of the country.  As time goes by, this concept is changing and we find new debates and discussions on child problems. 

In our country, on the way to the development of the child, there are many hurdles and difficulties which surround it like an octopus.  This is dangerous in reality.  The poor families are the victim of it.  India is an unlucky country where the children dying of malnutrition are increasing day by day.  In the same way, the children and young girls and boys are used in bad trade.  The children are put into jail for petty reasons or for no reasons at all.

The children’s life is in danger for diseases or pollution.  Many children are losing their lives due to infection and becoming handicapped.  Neither they are getting the required food and environmental comfort like games, education, dress system.  They are growing up in really poor health rules.  The child death is rising in our country.

The UNICEF gives us a clear horrible picture of the present and   future and they have presented another horrible picture that most of the children do not have malnutrition.  Even UNICEF thinks the mother of those malnutrition children do not know how much malnutrition is there in the children which is eroding their power to live. 

The malnutrition of the children goes on more than the age of their adulthood.  The World Bank has seen from a survey in Indonesia that those farmers who suffer from deficiency in blood or anemia, their productivity is one-fifth or 20%.  It has been found that the children do not get the energy to play also.  It has been observed that the child who suffers from malnutrition cannot work for the society in the future. 

In the developing countries, 15 lakh children dies due to “ham” disease, 10 lakh children dies due to dhanushtankar, 6 lakh die due to whooping cough.  50 lakh children in total dies from these diseases every year.  But there are vaccines.  If 6 vaccine injections are given to the children, then the expense per child is $5.  Every year the big countries of the world manufacture and does research work on the weapons.  Then how much is the expense for killing an individual?

According to World Health Organization (WHO), the impurity in water and unhealthy environment is responsible for 80% of the diseases.  50 lakh children die due to the two reasons.  If there was pure water and environment, then we could help them live.  As a result of this, upto the year 1989-1990, the time period could be effectively considered for International Decade of Water Supply and Health.