Young Souls Of India: Voice Against Child Abuse

By Medha Chowdhry:

Erstwhile PM, Jawaharlal Nehru believed that the children of this country are an asset and should be nurtured to ensure a better future for India. Yet, today we all witness uncivilized and barbaric torture that these young souls undergo at the hands of the uncouth populace.

India takes immense pride in its large young demography. Moreover, we, the ‘intellectual‘ class of this nation, boil with anger when we hear cases about physical violence against children. “A young girl was forced to lick her urine by a nurse to cure her bed-wetting” ; “A mother killed her own daughter to protect her from being raped by her father“. We hear about these cases, we discuss for long hours about the right and the wrong, about how ‘kalyug‘ has finally descended, we even like pages on Facebook thinking it is for a good cause. But is that it? Is that what these children deserve? Doesn’t it seem to add insult to the injury of these victims?

This rhetoric did aim at bringing out the issue. India has the maximum number of cases of physical violence against children, child labor and what not. Yet, there is a silver lining. there is always one, isn’t it? There are people, NGOs, Government and akin agencies doing their bit. There are a plethora of laws already written for improvement of the quality of lives of these children. Erudite professionals work everyday in plugging loopholes in their plans and laws.

Alas! the problem lies in the implementation. Making laws is just half the job done, it needs to be hitched to proper establishment of those laws at all levels. Let us ensure that the police officers are not the perpetrators of the crime, let us ensure that our chagrin gets converted into actions, let our reactions not be tacit (perhaps, like this one), let us go out and do good and let us not ourselves get corrupted in the process!