The Curse of Child Servitude

A girl not more than ten years of age trying to lift quite a healthy kid up, who I am sure was heavier than her, to a ride. She loses her balance in an effort to do so. This was a scene I got to see at a famous fast food restaurant play area. Yes! That little girl was a servant to a big happy family. The parents sit alone and dine in while the servants babysit the mischievous kids. Babysitting of course includes feeding them, taking full care of them that they don’t get lost and also bearing with all their stubbornness.

Getting help of a servant is not bad at all, it’s just you should at least consider the age of a person before you hire him/her. How can you expect a kid, who herself/himself is not able to carry her/his own burden, to help you in a task you yourself can’t do alone? Think about your own kids for a while; what if they are made to do stuff you expect the little servants to do. You of course dread seeing that.

If women are too insecure of their female servants that they will steal away their husbands, they should be equally uncomfortable with their men sexually harassing these little servants. You cannot deny the fact that this happens a lot. Men should also take care of the fact that the servant they hire should be old enough to carry the burden of the work load they assign them.

Another excuse people give for child labor is that the children’s parents themselves bring the kids to them for this purpose. You cannot just blame them about it. You are equally at fault when you hire them than their parents or maybe more. If you are kind enough to help them, be sensible in doing so. Spend some money on their kids’ education and give them a better future. Getting them enrolled to a not-so-expensive school won’t be a tough job. You just will have to cut down your dine out routines a bit to help them.

People hire these little children not just as their domestic servants but also to their workplaces. One of the main reasons is that you get it cheap. Tea-stalls, workshops or any other place you see the kids working; it’s always the job tougher than they can bear. Worse is when the same little angels are made to do harsher jobs like molding bricks or making glass bangles. We should make an effort to bring a relief to these kids in some way. Even a change in our attitude or just a kind word can make a difference at times.

 Just look at the kids who work at your houses or workplaces for a change and think about it; do they really deserve doing what they are? What if it was your kid instead of that poor soul? How do they feel, when they look at all those luxuries you provide your kids with, living at your house? I am sure you will feel bad. If you can’t do any good for them; stop doing bad. If you feel bad for them or their families; hiring them is not a solution. Walk in their shoes for a while and think of better ways to help them. Say no to child labor. It’s a crime, it’s a curse!

YOU CAN VIEW THE SIMILAR POST AT http://sarakhalili.blogspot.com

They Once Had It All

Living near a kachi abaadi (slums) these days makes me wonder at times. What are we? We have everything at one moment and we can be left with nothing at all the very next moment. I see the old, the young, the kids and the infants around in filthy clothes eating and drinking things which we can’t even look at. The quality of water we use in our washrooms or the type of diet we feed our pets with sure is better than the one they eat and drink. But the question is: do they have an option? They of course have none.

The people living in this kachi abaadi near our university have migrated from Afghanistan for the reasons we all know. They had to leave everything they had there and come here to save their lives. They might have dreamt of a better future before they left their country. But, unfortunately, the worst awaited them in Pakistan.

The most disturbing fact about these immigrants is our attitude towards them. The disgusted look we give them, the way we hold our breaths when we cross that area and the way we push their kids away when they accidently bump into us. We never thought about working for their rehabilitation. We never thought about educating their kids, never fed them proper food, never even thought about providing them even a portion of what we have. If we don’t do anything for them; we have no right to treat them the way we do.

The good thing I see in that area is the satisfaction. I smell some strange sort of cheerfulness in that area. They have no electricity, their kids either sleep hungry or beg for food and eat, they wear the filthiest of clothes, they live in those mud/tent houses or even worse in the worst of weather conditions, they don’t even have a hope for the better future; but I still see the contentment on their faces. They never are depressed like us. We have all but we are all depressed and they have almost nothing and they seem happy.

We (including me) not only need to help them monetarily and morally but also have to learn some great lessons from them. First thing, nothing to be proud of what we have; what we have today can be turned into dust in no time. Second, try being happy and content in what we have; that content feeling has more power than any material thing in this world. Just give it a try, I am sure, it will bring in a positive change in our lives.

THE ABOVE POST WAS ALSO PUBLISHED ON www.sarakhalili.blogspot.com

Watch your actions

Yesterday while watching a Sunny Deol starrer movie, a dialogue of his co-actor caught mine utmost attention. The dialogue emphasized on mastering one’s anger before it becomes dreadful. And, I truly believe in managing and regulating our anger. Anger if not controlled becomes our worst enemy. It’s a two-sided sword which injures its user more than the person unto which it was angled. Even the top-notch MNC’s recruit counselors to look after anger management of their employees. 

Having being monstrously taught about transducers I felt the need of using one’s anger efficiently for some useful purposes.

Fate or injustice?

This is a true story of a woman suffering from continuous abuse at the hands of her husband...

This is the story of a young woman - a sister, a daughter, a mother, but most of all a divorcee, dependent on her parents. Naeema (not her real name) underwent an arranged marriage two years ago. Feeling that everybody in the family blamed her for the break-up of an earlier engagement (her fiancé had called it off because she refused to have a sexual relationship with him before marriage), she agreed to the proposal despite her misgivings.

The wedding was a traditional one and everyone in her family was happy. And then the wedding ended and the marriage started. The first thing her new husband said to her was, “I need the money you received in salami (money given by relatives); I have to pay all the bills.” She quietly gave it all. The next day Raheel demanded her jewellery, but she gave it without any argument, wanting to make him happy.

Then came another shock.

Creativity- Gone Forever ???

“I was born intelligent, but education ruined me”

For years it was just another satirical quote on our public education system which I hardly notice and understood. But, believe me its shadow conceals something deep for which a person needs to uncover the layer of pseudo-intelligentsia from his eyes. 

I remember once my cousin brother made an inverted painting of ship when we were still in knickers. He explained that it’s just a normal ship only travelling inside the water. I guess that day he might had been engulfed by soul of innovators behind submarines.