Anubha S Nair (Cl IX)
1st Prize
Holy Cross School
“A child is not a vase to be filled but a fire to be lit”. With this saying, I, Anubha S Nair of Class IX from Holy cross School present myself to you; But of course, a very belated good morning to you all, honorable judges and respected teachers. My dear brothers and sisters, today the purpose of me to stand in front of you is to speak about the role of a student in eliminating Child Labour.
Child Labour or child slavery relates to the hardship that a child has to go through to fill his stomach. The country is now at crossroads, the values we have stood for, the beliefs we have cherished and the ideas we have held so dear are crumbling fast. But nothing new edifice seems to come up in their place.
People will not know about the sufferings of a child who has to work everyday for a square for a square meal. Do you know (that) the percentage of child labour in India, below the age of 14 is over 60%. And in places like Bihar, Delhi, and Mumbai it has gone over 70%. We should be thankful to God that child labour has no such devastating effects on Nagaland, as it has on other states. But as the saying goes, “A stitch in time saves nine”, efficient efforts needs to be carried out to save from falling into the clutches of child labour. But do you know, outside India, in countries like Zambia, Namibia, Kenya etc, child labour is spreading rapidly. More than 90% of their children are victims of child labour. It is not only hard work that a child labour has to go through, but also many disease like, a child working in aluminum factory could have aluminosis, while a child working in silicon factory could have silicosis and who knows what more dangerous diseases they might possess?
There are children crying out of hunger everyday. They are not worried whether they have a roof over their head or not. They are not even bothered to learn to read or write. Most of you might know about the Act – Right of a Child – introduced by the UN in 1951 and also the human rights foundation. Once, while conducting a survey, they found enormous number of children working below the age of 10 in a cement factory. They brought them back and admitted into govt. schools and even provided food for them to eat. But still they found many eloped from the protection centre. When a leading news channel asked them the reason the answer was their mother was ill or their brother and sisters were dying out of hunger.
The children living under these circumstances are not worried about how the world moves. If they have work, they can earn for their meal and if not, curse their fate. How many years will it take to remove such evils of the society is only a matter of conjecture. There is countless number of children working in industries, in mines, and even in our houses, who have a wish to study or learn or know! But what can they do but mourn. The main evil leading to child labour is poverty. As is said, the greatest sin in this world is to be poor. We are living in an era of corruption and only if one stands to oppose child labour, he will be put down. His cries will not be heard and he himself will end up in slavery, as an incident which took place in a village of Andhra Pradesh, an 18 year old boy studying in a govt. school after seeing some of his friends being beaten to death by the owner of the factory only because he did not want to pay them for their work. The child stood up for his friends but the village authorities, instead of finding a solution to the issue, proclaimed him as mentally not sound. So we the students need to speak about our own brothers and sisters’ working day and night in unsafe places, risking their lives everyday to give protection to their families. What we need to do is bring out this topic into the school; from there it will keep on spreading, then there will be a whole nation opposing child labour.
Just think about the situation when a child is made to work to suffer. People have no right to beat them up like dogs and donkeys. Try to visualize the sparkling pearl drops that roll down from his eyes through the cheeks in his helplessness. My dear friends, if you have hearts, feel for them, if you have tears, prepare to shed them now, for now is the time to wake up and join our hands together and do something. What can we do? Can we go and kill them all? NO!
What we need to do is form an organization and not a mere namesake one, but a very capable one with the help of elders to guide us towards the right direction. Child Labour is a social evil and must be eradicated. The poisonous gas that this dragon exhales pollutes the atmosphere of our country. This dragon needs to be killed and we should be the first ones to stab through its heart. To usher a new tomorrow, to bring sunshine and not merely help a few children but to save them from the clutches of child labour for ever, so that this country will rise and shine and become the greatest nation of the world.
