Children’s Day Is Not For All

At pen- Rajeshwari Mandal

Children’s Day

Well, did you know that there are millions of children who don’t have access to education, or who have to labour all day, or have no food to eat. Probably, the children are celebrating children’s day & are busy unpacking the gifts that they received but those children, perhaps on children’s day too they are having to roam in the streets asking for food, money, etc. What about them??

According to the UNICEF and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 58 million children between the ages of six and 11 still don’t have any access to education. CAN YOU IMAGINE; 58 MILLION CHILDREN! THAT’S A HUGE NUMBER, ISN’T IT?? I KNOW THIS IS REALLY SHOCKING FOR YOU!

But unfortunately, that’s absolutely true!! You see, this is the harsh reality…

Moreover, 63 million adolescents are also out of school for a number of reasons like poverty, child labor, gender discrimination, inaccessibility of school in one’s area & so on.

Now, comes the big problem “CHILD LABOUR”. Well, let me tell you that this is a very big problem faced by various children (mainly poor) across the world. WHAT ABOUT THEM?? But not just now, child labor has been existing throughout history. If you move the pages of your history book, you would find that around the 19th and early 20th centuries, many children aged 5 to 14 from poorer families worked in the Western nations. You may have seen some children working in large or small factories. YES, YOU ARE RIGHT THEY ARE CALLED “CHILD LABOURS”. Well, I feel that the reason for child labors are: some owners of various factories think that children can be forced to listen to them unlike adults who could easily protest, children can be forced to work for long hours in return of a small amount of money but adults could claim the right amount of money for their hard work.

YOU & I ARE FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO HAVE RECEIVED PROPER EDUCATION, FOOD, TOYS, CLOTHES & THE OTHER STUFF WE ASK OUR PARENTS TO BUY FOR US. BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE CHILDREN?? WE OFTEN BUY STUFF WE DON’T NEED, EVEN WASTE FOOD WE RECEIVE?? BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE CHILDREN?? MAYBE, THEY THINK THE DAY AS A VERY LUCKY ONE IF THEY ONLY RECEIVE THE FOOD WE WASTE!!! ISN’T IT?? There are many children praying to be at school, to have rice or more than 1 chapatti in a day!! But they can’t!!

IMAGINE, HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF YOU DON’T GET YOUR FAVOURITE FOOD AND YOU ARE HAVING TO FOOD WHICH YOU HATE THE MOST FOR A DAY?? JUST IMAGINE WHAT YOUR REACTIONS WOULD BE… YEAH, THE SAME REACTIONS THEY ARE HAVING NOW… PROBABLY THEY ARE CRYING OR DYING JUST TO GET SOME RICE A DAY!! DON’T YOU FEEL BAD FOR THEM?? YEAH, YOU DO!! JUST IMAGINE IF YOU ARE MADE TO DO EVERY SINGLE CHORES OF THE HOUSE FOR A SINGLE DAY?? HOW WOULD YOU FEEL??IF WE ONLY GET BORED OR FEEL BAD BY DOING THE HOUSEHOLD CHORES THEN IMAGINE HOW WOULD THOSE POOR CHILDREN FEEL BY DOING ALL THE WORKS OF A HUGE FACTORY??

Now comes, another big problem & that is “POVERTY AMONG CHILDREN”. It’s said that around 600 million children across the world live in poverty. NOW THAT’S A HUGE AMOUNT AGAIN!! When people face poverty or to be precise don’t have enough money to fulfil their basic needs, they cannot help their children fulfil their basic needs too. As a result, the children get deprived of proper food, clothes & education. Even they can’t simply go to a doctor to see their children when they fall sill or get sick fearing for the doctor’s fees. And in this way, many of the children face death too because they are deprived of proper medical attention & they are treated using home remedies which sometimes don’t work out well. HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF THE TERM “MALNUTRITION”?? WELL, IT’S A VERY COMMON THING AMONG THESE CHILDREN. MALNUTRITION IS A DISEASE WHICH OCCURS IN POOR CHILDREN AS THEY DON’T GET TO EAT A BALANCED DIET AND ARE OFTEN DEPRIVED OF VALUABLE NUTRIENTS BECAUSE THEIR FAMILIES CAN’T AFFORD THEM!! NOW, IT NEVERS REALLY OCCURS AMONG US?? DOES IT?? THAT’S BECAUSE WE DON’T FACE THEE DIFFICULTIES IN OUR LIVES… SO I JUST WANTED TO TELL ALL OF YOU THAT, IT’S A HIGH-TIME WE GET TOGETHER TO HELP THESE CHILDREN BY MAYBE TAKING UP SMALL STEPS OR AT LEAST AS MUCH AS WE CAN!! THANK YOU

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