Hard facts

Yesterday there were some facts that came to my mind which I was unable to digest, For it questioned how far away we are from fulfilling our duty as the member of human kind. While in India, I think I never cared for factors like this since I thought it was facts of nature. I used to see them everyday and I used to think they are the way they are and I'm the way I am. I used to feel sorry for them, Even then I should agree that sometimes the way they behaved led me to think, why their parents are bringing more of them into nature. I remember an incident when in B'lore brigade road, while I was having an icecream, a boy came and snatched it from me. I wasnt shocked because I was thinking that their parents have taught them to do it that way. I'm talking about the Street children that we see almost everyday in each and every corner of any city in India. These children are beaten up, emotionally traumatised, made up for crimes and most importantly they are made to look up at the world far different than the way we are made to look up. If they are girls they are subjected to rape, sex trafficing etc, forcing them to give birth to more of their kind by the age they reach to understand what is going on with them. Some of them are picked up by police and beaten up so badly leaving them to wonder about their mere existence. Some of them work in the hazardous condition in firework, leather factories etc where they are subjected to health hazards. Despite the law prohibiting child labour, how many of them can attend the school. Now think of them growing up? What would be their attitude? What do they know about the world? Their thought process is more or less like animals where they get their basic necessities through what we call immoral means. We never care for them and we think of them as filth in the society.

Now let us move on to other dimensions where the children are mostly effected. It comes with armed conflicts, political instability etc. What we do we think when we see on Television the picture of a 7 year old kid carrying a rifle with him. Where does it hit when we see kids being mutilated by bombs, bullets etc? What does a new born kid in Iraq has got to do with his life and US's national security? What about Afghanistan, Sudan, Chechnya, Somalia etc where the kids suffer from Malnutrition and there is no choice but to die? What kind of choice is this.

Do we have the right to say that we are members of human family, when we do not understand the right of life of a human being? As is said in the UN convention on the right of children, "Human rights are not something a richer person gives to a poorer person; nor are they owned by a select few and given to others as a mere favour or gift. They belong to each and every one of us equally."

Now let us forget religion, nationality, caste, color, belief etc because all these differentiation comes only after we come into existence. It is obligatory on our part to respect the right of a human, for the mere fact that we are members of that family. Hence, It becomes obligatory for us to work on implementing the rights of children most importantly if we should have the hope for humanity. Thus we can lay our vision for the generation to come to be relieved from the cruel clutches of our ignorance and narrow mindedness. Read the Convention on the Rights of the child here.