MESS IN A MESS

‘Do you have any other work other than writing against girls in your articles?’ This was the comment fired by one of my juniors ,Ms X. Undoubtedly it was a cardio-toxic comment for a sensitive guy like me, because this comment was pointing finger (middle one) towards my versatility in writing. Well, now my grey matters are accepting this comment with alacrity with the hope that it’ll inspire me to write something beyond my comfort zone (girls, romance, affairs etc.).So thanks to Ms X (no hard feelings for you dear).But what should I do Ms X??You’ll find the tag of error in each & every organism of this universe. Thank u for exposing my errors. So being a part of the psychiatric defence mechanism DISPLACEMENT I m going to expose one of the serious errors in the society.

I can’t understand what the govt of India is doing?? Why it can’t be prevented??Is poverty the only force which drags them into this profession??Some of the concerned officials frequently raid some low-profile hotels, Bars & other commercial establishments, which prevents their activity for a negligible period & the sad saga continues!!! Can you guess what I am talking about? Hey, dirty minds!!! I am not talking about PROSTITUTION. I am focusing on CHILD LABOR. Well, in some way these two are similar because of life-ruining properties of these deadly professions. The major difference is that, in the former, freshers are treated as angels. So  my first wish(1) there should be no child labourer in our society (2) if 1^st wish doesn’t  get fulfilled,  they should be treated as angels as their counterparts in prostitution. OK, now give some stress to your optic nerve & have a look at the following data.

	Children of Age Group (5-14 years)
Activities	Number of Children (%)			Number of Children (in 100's)
	Boys	Girls	Total	Boys	Girls	Total
Children engaged in "economic activities"	4.18	3.86	4.02	52967	45618	98392
Attended domestic duties only	0.30	3.15	1.67	3770	37208	40788
Attended domestic duties plus free collection of goods, tailoring, weaving for HH only	0.25	1.92	1.06	3178	22693	25897
Children at Work	4.73	8.93	6.75	59915	105519	165077
Attending schools	72.98	61.45	67.44	925350	725964	1651186
Children neither at work nor at school	17.26	20.42	18.80	218889	241255	460205

So, only 67.44% of the children within the age group 5-14 years attend the schools!! But according to the govt. of India formal education is compulsory & free of cost!! So what the hell is going on??There was a dialogue in the movie JANNAT -‘jab garibi darwaje se andar ati hai to pyaar khidki se bahar chala jata hai’’. Now you can replace the word ‘pyaar’ by EDUCATION-‘ Jab garibi darwaje se andar ati hai to EDUCATION khidki se bahar jata hai.’ According to me, poverty is a major factor that germinates child labour.

According to the Indian census of 1991, there are 11.28 million working children under the age of fourteen years in India.

o    Over 85% of this child labour is in the country's rural areas, working in agricultural activities such as fanning, livestock rearing, forestry and fisheries

o    The world’s highest number of working children is in India. ILO estimates that 218 million children were involved in child labour in 2004, of which 126 million were engaged in hazardous work.

o    Estimates from 2000 study suggest that 5.7 million were in forced or bonded labour, 1.8 million in prostitution and pornography and 1.2 million were victims of trafficking. In India, 1104 lakh children are working as labourers.

o    The Hindi belt, including Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, account for 1.27 crore working children in the country, engaged in both hazardous and non-hazardous occupations and processes.

o    Over 19 lakh child labourers in the 5-14 age group are in Uttar Pradesh. Rajasthan accounts for over 12.6 lakh workers followed by Bihar with over 11 lakh and Madhya Pradesh with 10.6 lakh.

o    However, according to the 2001 census, in state-wise distribution of working children in the 5-14 age group, Andhra Pradesh with 13.6 lakh child labour stands second in the national list after UP.

Dipuna, Jitu, Siba, Jeevan,kalia etc!!!!!???  These are some of the familiar names in my hostel. They are neither gold medallists nor extremely bad students!!!! Then who are they???All of them are aged below 14 years, all of them are illiterate & all of them don’t enjoy any dream in their REM sleep. They are simple workers in our hostel mess who wash the used utensils & the dining tables. We really don’t care for them during lunch/dinner. We just shout at them to clean the tables, serve the food etc as if they were born only to serve us. Giving them 20-30 rupees during diwali/dussera never puts a full-stop to our job. I admit that, sometimes the quality of food in hostel is so irritating (rakhi sawant standard) that we forget to offer them a smile. They are doing so much for us from such small ages. Have you ever tried to read their brain?? Sometimes I feel that somewhere in their heart they must be thinking to be students like us! , to have better life-style like that of students....but...when the ridiculous foods make me their victim I develop mild amnesia.

They don’t expect anything from us, because they know that we are useless in the field of social service. That is the bitter truth as we write articles about them during our free hours & do nothing after that. Even they don’t that the govt. has banned the use of children under14 years of age in any work. I know that we are not in a stage to help them...but we can definitely give them 1 thing that is ‘Good behaviour  & a sweet smile’.....these hostel workers are just like bricks in a large wall....so I request all my friends to behave sweetly with these unfortunates, so that they can blossom some smiles on their tired looking face...............

LAWS OF CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA

·         The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986 prohibits employment of children below the age of 14 years in any factory or any hazardous employment

·         Any person who employs child he is liable for punishment with imprisonment for 3 month which can be extended to 1 year or 20,000Rs fine

·         It Provides free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years

·         Many beggar childrens and other similar forms of forced labour are prohibited and violation of this provision shall be

an offence punishable in accordance with law.

LET’S EXPOSE THE BASTERDS WHO ARE USING CHILDREN UNDER 14....WE HAVE THE LAW,WE JUST NEED TO USE IT.