Workshop on “Protect the Child, Protect Future”

“Children need models and not critics”, said Babar Saeed President Renaissance Development Organization. “So we are supposed to build up a model society”. Respect and protect a child and thus you respect and protect your future. “I am staunch believer of the conviction which I coined that we do not inherit civilization and its values from our ancestors rather we borrow it from our children, whom if we treat like uncivilized, would grow them up in a beast. Thus we are turning the wheel of time backward denying them the right to be civilized. A child is like a seed. A seed which is sown in the soil and best soil determines the health of the plant so for a child, best social soil determines the worst of man to worsen the society and thus it is perpetual deterioration of society leading nowhere” he added during a workshop on Child Protection arranged by Renaissance Development Organization at Renaissance College.

“The thing that impresses me the most about any society is the way it protects and obeys its children. We are supposed to protect the child against myriads of evils. Every child is puny, fragile and exposed to physical, mental, environmental and social attacks.

I would lay emphasize on societal evils and institutional weaknesses which a child is not immune to, where his innocence is at stake. Clean mind and clean society do replicate in each other’s. Unprotected child epitomizes the unprotected society and cowardice of attacker” said Babar Saeed.

“In third world children are future denied creature whom for we should light a candle than to curse the darkness” he added.

“Every day, children across Pakistan are working in environments detrimental to their social and educational development, their health and even their lives” said Safina Babar who is a cosmetologist.

Bigger crime than killing is to waste youth and for children it is more detrimental than to expose them to physical and mental hazards, she added.

Forced labor in any form (though its child labor, prostitution, sexual abuse, begging or so on) is simply the most severe form of child exploitation and child abuse in the world today. In any society, working children, as a socio-economic group, happens to be the most disadvantaged of all since they are forced to work for a living, sacrificing their childhood as well as their future for bare survival of self and family. Today, as individual well being increasingly depends on literacy, numeracy and intellectual competence, a child-unprotected is in fact a future denied, said Nadia Fazal, head of the Vocational Training Department at Renaissance College.

“About 73 million children between the ages of 10 and 14 were working in 1995, representing 13.2 percent of all 10- to 14-year-olds around the world. There are an estimated 250 million child workers between the age of 5 and 14 in the world, without taking into account those who work with their families in mainly domestic activities.

The greatest numbers of child laborers are in Asia, 44.6 million; followed by Africa, 23.6 million; and Latin America, 5.1 million. Estimates by country showed the perecntage17.7 percent in Pakistan, 16.1 percent in Brazil, 14.4 percent in India, 11.6 percent in China, 11.2 percent in Egypt, 6.7 percent in Mexico, 4.5 percent in Argentina, 1.8 percent in Portugal and 0.4 percent in Italy” said Sobia Akram.

But this is only a tip of the iceberg. No reliable figures for workers under 10 are available, though their numbers are significant. In central and eastern Europe, the difficulties connected with the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy has led to a substantial increase in child labor. The same is true of Pakistan, where the growth of the service sector, the rapid increase in the supply of part-time jobs and the search for a more flexible work force have contributed to the expansion of the child labor market.

The largest group of working children is the unpaid family workers. A high proportion of the children give their wages to their parents or other relatives with whom they live. Rural children work more than urban children with agricultural work being the main type of rural work and informal sector activity the main urban occupation. Children's work is considered essential to maintain the economic level of the household, either in the form of work for wages, of help in household enterprises or of household chores that free adult household members for economic activity elsewhere.

In Pakistan along with many other countries children work in textile, clothing, carpet, footwear, glass industries, fireworks industries, diamond and other gem stone polishing, salt, limestone and mosaic chip-quarrying industries. Many of these occupations involve the children in hazardous work.

Many of these children have no opportunity to go to school. Many of their parents, who suffer from illiteracy and ignorance, do not understand the importance of education. Moreover, the high cost of education is another obstacle for these children. With the government shying away from the education sector to be replaced by the private sector many children have to work to pay for their school. But many schools serving the poor are of such abysmal quality that many children drop out of school in frustration. Recently a large number of municipal schools in Gujranwala were closed down due to the lack of students.

A majority of those children, who work, do so nine hours per day or longer, and many work six or seven days a week, including on public holidays, especially in the rural areas. In many instances girls work longer hours than boys.

Child laborer in hazardous and other industrial work lead lives of degradation and hardship, and are deprived of their rights as children. The majority is involved in farming and is routinely exposed to harsh climate, sharpened tools, heavy loads and increasingly to toxic chemicals and motorized equipment. Because they are not mature mentally, they are less aware, even completely unaware, of the potential risks involved in their specific occupations or at the workplace itself.

A very high proportion of the children is physically injured or falls ill while working. Injuries included punctures, broken or complete loss of body parts, burns and skin disease, eye and hearing impairment, respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses, fever, headaches from excessive heat in the fields or in factories.

Agriculture employs more than two-thirds (70 percent) of the total-working children and as a result a high proportion (70 percent) of the ill or injured children are from that sector. Children are being used in commercial agriculture throughout the world and as a result are exposed to a variety of risks.

About 13 percent of the ill or injured children work in the wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels. Female children receive 25 percent of the injuries from working in this sector.

Girls working as domestic servants away from their homes, sometimes in various Middle Eastern countries, are frequent victims of physical, mental and sexual abuses, which can have devastating consequences on their health. ILO reports on child labor (December 2003) detailed conditions of “forced prostitution” to which female children are subjected. "The AIDS epidemic is a contributing factor to this trend, as adults see the use of children for sexual purposes as the best means of preventing infection. The full extent of the problem is unknown, but in Thailand an estimated 250,000 to 800,000 underage children are working in the sex-trade. The laissez-faire attitude of the authorities in charge of national and international tourism is also largely responsible for the current situation."

Social costs of child labor are enormous but cannot be quantified.

I often muse on the general subject of giving. I came to the conclusion that all individual give with the expectation of some reward, even if it is only the pleasure of a smile from the recipient. Wouldn't it be a wonderful if everyone in the world were a smiling face? Everyone would go around doing nice things for everyone else, just to get high on their smiles. Could that be what drives the people described in this article the feel-good factor?

Maybe, but I suspect it goes much deeper than that. The people, charities and organizations are driven by a passion to make the world a little bit better. There is so much terrible suffering in the world that it is easy to get overwhelmed and to shut down our empathy in self-defense. While we can't fix the world all at once, we can fix it a little bit at a time. Right here in our communities the needs may be different from those in other countries, but they are no less painful and disempowering.

It is said that the measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. One would be hard pressed to overstate the importance of their contribution to our society. They form the sea wall against a tide of rage and despair that would surely engulf our communities. They create channels to redirect the course of lives into productive streams that otherwise would likely wash up as derelict hulks and flotsam at the margins of our towns. They embody the real spirit of giving from the heart, one smile at a time.

The profiles that follow are only a symbolic tribute to the vast and growing numbers of people heeding the same call to help their fellow beings. They exemplify the highest principles of all spiritual traditions, compassion and service. Some are involved in relieving distress, others in helping young people achieve their potential, and others in creating a society governed by values and equity rather than fear and greed.

"It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness”. Property may be destroyed and money may lose its purchasing power; but character, health, knowledge and good judgment will always be in demand under all conditions.

Humanity is a painting on an earthy canvas splashed with Divine paint. Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale. The English word 'miracle' comes from the Latin words, which translate 'a wonderful thing.' While we associate miracles with occasional, supernatural events beyond our ability to comprehend, perhaps we would be better to see a miracle as the daily gifts of God, waking to a new morning, a warm breeze, a newborn baby's face, a rosy sunrise or peach-colored sunset, the glisten of dew or frost on a grassy field and a sparrow singing while it's raining --- all of the daily wonderful things God gives to each of us and that require no great insight to comprehend. Caring of ailing child is one way of compensating the Divine.

“The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.” (George Bernard Shaw).  Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed. You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

Some of the creatures of existence can live solitary and alone. A tree, for instance, may live without the assistance and cooperation of other trees. Some animals are isolated and lead a separate existence away from their kind. But this is impossible for man. In his life and being cooperation and association are essential. Through association and meeting we find happiness and development, individual and collective.

For instance, when there is intercourse and cooperation between two villages, the advancement of each will be assured. Likewise, if intercommunication is established between two cities, both will benefit and progress. And if a reciprocal basis of agreement be reached between two countries, their individual and mutual interests will find great development. Therefore, in the unity of this radiant assemblage I behold the link between Orient and Occident.

Good societies weave the fabric of humanity for essential goodness, alleviation and rehabilitation of the restitutes. And this is the real humanitarian task.

“By all accounts this is the most successful workshop which circumscribes all the aspects of Child Protections and Child Rights”, all the participants unanimously said.