An SOS for children

In the aftermath of the Nithari killings, the nation seems to be suddenly waking up to the plight of poor children, who comprise perhaps the most vulnerable section of society. Even if one were to set aside the ghoulish possibilities emerging in the Nithari case — such as an organ trade racket exploiting the bodies of children — as a shocking aberration, there is no looking away from the fact that lakhs of our younger fellow citizens spend their childhoods polishing shoes, cleaning cars or selling flowers at traffic signals, when they ought to be in schools.

According to a United Nations estimate, Mumbai alone has about 2.5 lakh street children. But worse, as reported in this newspaper yesterday, 4,000 children have gone missing in the city in the last five years and have still not been traced. This is the unreported scandal of our times. It is said that the measure of a civilised society is the way it treats its children and women. India, by that measure, should qualify as a nation of barbarians.

And what is most appalling is that we do have an impressive child development policy that is crying out for implementation. The lackadaisical approach of the Social Welfare Department has left even NGOs working in the child welfare sector wringing their hands. None of the noble recommendations of the policy — such as child crisis intervention centres, free legal aid for children who get into trouble with the law, special coaching centres for slow learners — have made much progress on the ground.

Government apathy, however, is only one aspect of the crisis of child development in our country. The root cause, more often than not, is poverty. The bulk of the kids who go missing are children from poor families, who have either run away from or been abandoned by parents unable to provide for them or worse, have been kidnapped.

Without safety nets for the poor that would enable them to access basic health and education facilities for their children, it would be well nigh impossible to save our children from the malaise of trafficking, abuse and child labour. Indeed, as our economy takes huge strides forward, we cannot forget the vulnerable need special attention. No amount of patting ourselves on the back for our vibrant economic growth can save us from the responsibility for the vast numbers of our country’s children being robbed of their childhoods.