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| September (First) 2010 |
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| DELHI PRESS MAGAZINES : WOMAN'S ERA |
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WOMAN'S ERA / ARTICLES
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| CAUTION:CHILDREN AT WORK! |
An eye-opener about depriving unfortunate children, their birthright to a carefree life and education. |
By Kasturi Rangachari
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| The LTTE is suspected to
have used child soldiers in
its war against the Sri
Lankan army. In several
African countries too, young
boys are said to be
kidnapped and then trained
to fight in inter-tribal, civil and
other wars. When the world
reads about this, there is
disbelief and shock. Can anyone be
so inhuman and such a monster as to
put guns into the hands of young
children, teach them how to kill and
rob them of their innocence,
childhood and perhaps even their
lives, we wonder.
But many of us are as guilty as
those inhuman monsters because
children are not just robbed of their
juvenescence and innocence by
putting guns into their hands. They
are robbed of their childhood every
time one of us puts a broom into their
hands too. Or a man who deals in
recycling waste gives them a bag and
sends them to a trash dump. Or a
parent indentures them to work on
someone’s land or for the owner of a
small shop as security for or as
repayment of a loan. To sum up, we
are guilty when any of us, in any way,
makes it impossible for a child to be
carefree or to get an education. And
yet this is done all the time in our
country by many of us.
Some time ago, newspapers and
TV news channels were going all out
with news stories about the plight of
Rameshwari Yadav, a 10-year-old,
who was tortured by her employer, a
small-time TV actress called Urvashi
Dhanorkar, in Mumbai. Rameshwari’s
“crime”?
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She “stole” and ate some
shrikhand which was in the fridge.
For all of a week news channels,which constantly face the challenge
of grabbing eyeballs 24x7,
bombarded us with details of the
case and its developments. The
child’s name was on everyone’s lips
and we were all haunted by the
photographs printed in newspapers,
of little Rameshwari looking out at us
with confusion and accusation in her
red eyes with dark bruises under
them.
But…does anyone remember that
face now, a couple of months after
the incident? Do we know what has
happened to her, the woman who
tortured her or to the case? No,
because the story of Rameshwari
has been replaced in the news by
another sensational story.
For that matter, do we remember
other horror stories involving the illtreatment
of little children working as
domestic help, which shocked us
dumb when they took place? The
case, for instance, of the 12-year-old
child-maid who was kidnapped and
tortured by another actor, Huma
Khan? Or the case of little Sonu, the
nine-year-old maid who bled to death
when her employer, Roma Bhatia,
pushed an aluminium rod up her
anus as punishment for having tried
on a lipstick lying on the dressing
table?
No, we don’t remember because
public memory is notoriously short.
But that’s not the reason why we
have forgotten. We have forgotten
because there are so many of these
stomach-churning stories that we
cannot keep track of them!
CALLOUSED SPIRIT
Do you protest that no decent
individual would have perpetrated the
horrors on children that these women
have? That such behaviour’s
abhorrent and such individuals,
inhuman monsters? Fool yourself if
you want to, if you are reluctant to
face the truth. The truth is that we
are a nation which has become
totally insensitive to the misery
surrounding us. Our spirit has
become calloused and hardened—
perhaps that is the only way we can
protect our own sanity and survive!
As far as treatment of the children
we employ is concerned, the truth is
that there is a little bit of Urvashi
Dhanorkar, Huma Khan and Roma
Bhatia in all of us. Yes, all of us have
a latent streak of sadism and
violence in us which is being
exacerbated by the day because of
the brutality of modern life and the
philosophy of consumerism that has
us in its coils. When life is not as we
want it to be, we are filled with rage
against the world. We then often
release our inner demons, our angry
impotence and bitterness, on
someone who is even weaker and
more vulnerable than we are. And
child-servants fit the bill completely.
A little servant girl is thrice cursed
– her gender, age and poverty make
her the most miserably vulnerable
human being on the planet. And, all
too often, even basically decent
people give in to the temptation of
abusing and persecuting these
helpless creatures.
Do you feel revulsion and fury at
the insinuation that you may be in
some way similar to the monsters
who appear in the news for torturing
their domestic help? Actually, if you
employ a child in your home, you are
like them to some extent! After all, is
there much difference between
outright torture and back-breaking
domestic chores when the concerned
back isn’t even fully developed and
strong? Is there much difference
between blows, burns and sodomy
on the one hand and verbal abuse,
exploitation, lack of consideration and
the cruelty that comes from
indifference on the other?
All of us who employ children in
our homes are guilty of an inhuman
crime. And we don’t just stop at just
making children work for us. After
employing these children, we shout
at them and nag them when they
behave like children and daydream
or dawdle over their work or when
they don’t do as much work as an
adult. And we even ill-treat them
when we just feel sadistic or are
angry and bitter about anything. They
are so helpless that they make
excellent whipping boys!
Being past masters at fooling
ourselves, we often drape a cloak of
noble intentions over our selfish
callousness and convince ourselves
and tell others that we are
altruistically putting up with the
inconvenience of employing a child
so as to augment that child’s family’s
meagre income. But we know in our
heart of hearts that all this is just
balderdash. We employ children
because we can pay them less and
work them longer hours and because
they can’t talk back or demand their
rights.
The temptation to use child-maids
is great. We have such a sea of poor
people all around us, people who are
so overwhelmed by the task of
feeding themselves and their kids
and providing the family with a roof
over their heads and at least rags to
wear, that they would agree to
practically anything to free
themselves of the burden of feeding
one of their own children and keeping
her safe. So we can get a child to
work for us very cheap.
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