Stop Child Trafficking & Child Abuse

I feel so powerless, hopeless and shameful when I hear terrible news like #Hasini, a 7-year-old Chennai girl who was molested and murdered by her neighbor. What kind of society we are living in? How can an educated youth commit such a brutal act?

Hasini is not the only victim, we keep hearing child trafficking and abuse cases almost everyday. The child crime rates and statistics are rocketing now more than ever, almost one in every two kid India is going thru' some sort of abuse.

WHY? Why do these horrible abuse and hurt continue? There’s not a single reason to cut-it down right away, there are many factors: the abuser's bad childhood, lack of (sex) education, loneliness, poverty, family issues, ...in some cases poor parenting and parent themselves.

Children in India are often very dependent on their parents and elders; they continue to have submissive and obedient roles towards all the elders, which makes them an easy prey. In most of the cases, the abuser is always a trusted neighbour, relative or even the parent., and that’s the reason for most these crimes go unreported too.

The message I’m trying to convey here is: Let’s do something about these non-senses. Let’s create awareness and try to educate at-least one parent by telling them the importance of their role and about the frightening issues our kids facing everyday (not to scare, but to inform them!)

Children are innocent, hence they become the most vulnerable part of our society. Their innocence needs to be protected. We, as a Society, have a bigger duty of protecting our future generation, make and lead them to a better society to live-in.

Our Children are the future. If their lives are at risk, then such a society will not be able to suffice longer. #Childabuse  , #notochildabuse #childkidnapping#childtrafficking#childsafety #india

Meet "Balaknama" - The World's First Newspaper run by Street Children

I just came to know about “Balaknama” - A Newspaper run by the Delhi Street Children, which focuses on the lives and struggles of street kids.

The name says it all - Balaknama translates to “Voice of Children”; it’s an effort from a bunch of street children sharing great passion to write and reach the crowd. It’s my shame that I didn’t know about this newspaper so far, which has been in circulation since 2003. Happy that I came to know at least by now and I thought I should share it with you all.

Delhi's slum kids are one of the most abandoned people of India. Child marriage, Forced Child labor, begging, drug, sexual abuse, police violence are some of the bad tribulations these street children battle everyday L. Thanks to the efforts of CHETNA ( NGO), now these kids have turned into amateur journalists and reporters who write articles about the struggles of being slum kids and feature them in their newspaper.

Balaknama has a team of 60 reporters, most of them are based in the slums of Delhi and near-by states of Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. These young writers gets some basic training on story telling and composing articles from Chetna. Most of these children are working on odd jobs during the day to earn for their food, and later in the evening they spend their time to write for the newspaper.

This is a truly inspiring, these children are striving hard to bring their pressing issues into limelight, while empowering themselves through this newspaper. Good efforts like these should definitely be appreciated and supported.  #balaknama #delhi #streetkids #chetna

Please see the video to know more:

Value your Meal - Child Malnutrition

“Lose Weight” has been one of the top New Year's resolutions all over the world every year. Isn’t it?. How many of us have been struggling to cut-down our food intake and lose a few extra kilograms ? For people like us, It’s difficult to even understand the issues of malnutrition and to realize on what a blessing it is to have a full healthy meal every day.

It was shocking to know the tragedies and impacts of “malnourished children”; and to know that one third of them are in the world lives in India. Everyone wants India to become a “Super Power”, but the hunger and undernourishment data on Indian citizens especially among children comes as big shock. The Rapid Survey on Children (RSoC) was conducted by the ministry of women and child development with  technical support from UNICEF. It found:- 

• Underweight (low in weight for their age)  = 29.4 % (aged < 3 yr.)
• Wasted (low weight for their height)           = 15 %
• Stunted (low in height for age)                    = 38.7%

The latest NFHS (National Family Health Survey -2015) shows the malnutrition numbers are reducing; but in par with our population and GDP, the numbers are still scary and worrisome😢 .

Reason behind such poor malnourishment  figures are numerous factors, however primary among them are  – poor pre & post-natal care of women leading to anemic women giving birth to under weight babies, lack of public healthcare infrastructure to give proper healthcare services to our citizens. Still most of the people in rural villages are less aware of the importance and implications of proper nutrition.

Because so much development occurs in the first few years of life, nutrient deficiencies can have major short-term implications in young children. Malnourishment can greatly compromise a child’s immune system, making them more susceptible to infectious diseases. Additionally, a deficiency in one nutrient may lead to a deficiency in another nutrient and as a result the overall growth gets distorted.

As these kids grow, they face a multifold of growth and cognitive issues : such as Attention deficit disorder, Impaired school performance, Decreased IQ, Memory deficiency, Learning disabilities, Reduced social skills..etc. Don’t we still see many unaware parents still yelling at their kids for their poor performance in schools, without checking their health & nutrition 👀.

I am not qualified to give a suggestion; but I strongly believe that any comprehensive strategy for resolving the problem of child malnutrition must include actions to address both its underlying and basic causes. Creating a lot of awareness  and focus more on the Women health will have a greater improvement.

Ignoring hunger and malnutrition will have significant costs to any country’s development. Government must step-forward to allocate more funds in efficient channels to curb this dangerous issue.  Every rupee invested on curbing malnutrition will definitely give a greater return to the growth of the country in future.

Let’s take a resolution to contribute for curbing hunger & child malnutrition – be it through your money (donation), time (volunteering), or mere thinking and spreading the word,… every effort will help the country.

#malnutrition  #hunger #unicef #MakeEachMealCount #BeAHungerHero #FI #cry #wfp

Concern for Street Children

I felt so shamed and depraved too see a NGO hoarding in the Amsterdam Central Station - featuring Child beggar of India. It was a fund raising poster from a NGO to support the cause for street children.

I was also the one who yelled against Danny Boyle’s portrayal of India in Slumdog Millionaire; but over the years…after living in 2-3 metro cities of India, now I realize that environments of street children in India is not as bad as Boyle showed it - In fact they are even more worse😢.

Among the many impossible tasks, the counting of exact number of street children is also a mere impossible. Some estimate from UNICEF says, there could be approx..10 to 40 million in India alone, whereas the percentage of YoY increase is alarmingly so high !.

Street Children is a challenging issue for most of underdeveloped and heavily populated countries such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and several other countries of the world but unfortunately, there hasn’t been any motivated effort ever made to widely discuss the matter of “street children” anywhere around the world. There is no well-managed, well-coordinated, detailed research and study ever conducted or existing on this issue of prime importance.

Who are they? How do they become street children?

Children can be found in railway stations, near temples/Churches/Masks, in markets, under bridges, near bus depots and stops, etc. According to UNICEF street children fall under two categories: “On the street” and “Of the street”.

"Children of the street" are homeless children who live and sleep on the streets in urban areas. They are on their own and do not have any parental supervision or care though some do live with other homeless adults.

"Children on the street" earn a livelihood from street such as street urchins and beggars. They return home at night and have contact with their families.

The distinction is an important one because children of the street lack emotional and psychological support of a family and the impact they’d create in the society when they grow is also very critical!.

How should we solve this problem?

Solving the issue is not an easy job; It’s expensive, tough and really a long term mission. Government of India began the Integrated Programme for Street Children. And there are many NGOs’ working together to help these children through steps like extending extra health facilities, establishing nutrition programs, providing vocational training, protecting children from abuse, distributing dry-food poly packs, providing night shelters, providing ration cards, and creating bathing and toilet facilities...etc.

We, as a common man, whatever effort, be it spreading awareness, making donation or whatever small things we do would reward in long-term. Nothing could be more satisfying than witnessing a child who was pulled off the street, graduating from university and making his way in the world. #streetchildren #EveryLastChild #slumdog

The Great Indian Education System

Why most of the Indians in abroad, send their kids to International school, never wish for the local government schools?

Agree with the reason, most of us are uncertain about our stay in the foreign country and have a fear about kids’ education when we go back to India.  So it’s perfect to go for an English speaking school. But I get a different reason, keep hearing from fellow Indians:

“Man, what are they teaching here? Our 1st-grade kid studying in India will know more than a 4th grade student here (Europe, US)”

Is it true? Are they still thinking that India is an education powerhouse — based largely on the reputation of a few islands of academic excellence such as the #IITs and some big Indian names in big companies like #Google, #Microsoft,..etc, or based on their own successful life?

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Just read a news that India has refused to participate in the OECD’s PISA survey this year too, when the other Asian countries outperform rest of the world.

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a survey, conducted annually to evaluate education systems worldwide by the #OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The survey is based on two-hour tests that half a million students are put through, three categories – Mathematics, Science and Reading Comprehension.

India did participate in the tests in 2012, our students from all over India participated in the screening tests and students from only two states - Himachal Pradesh and Tamilnadu were able to score more nationally and make it to the global tests. Rest is the history!

In math, what we always considered as India's strong point, our kids finished second and third to the last position, beating only Kyrgyzstan. No wonder in science either, we again secured the 73rd and 74th position.

The sad part is: India refused to send our kids for the OECD’s PISA from 2013, quoting #PISA evaluation is not in-line with Indian Education SystemJ.  Well, we are always good at blaming others for our weakness!

There is a fundamental flaw in our education system which encourages only memorizing something and reproducing the same on answer sheets including punctuation marks.

The average 15-year-old Indian kid is over 200 points behind the global topper. Comparing the scores, will you still say that an Indian 1st grader is at the level of a 4th grader in Europe? Let’s accept the reality, stop arguing for some false prides!

Let's get rid of the illusion that Indian education system is highly intelligent. Completely to the contrary, we are taught and trained to be "smart", even cunning, to get ahead, because of competition and corruption. Our schools never teach to learn the knowledge; they just aim to get you more marks or to secure a job. This is why India ranks 119 on the Human Development Index, while achieving a growth rate over 8%, which is  unhealthy !