Combating Child Abuse

Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi is rightly concerned about the abnormal increase of child abuse (including sexual violence against children) in the country. Speaking to jourlists recently, the Satyarthi said that while the number of child workers in the country had fallen considerably, incidents of sexual violence against children had gone up. There is not much to be surprised at the significant reduction in the number of child workers in the country since the use of child labour in industries was made illegal. [Unfortutely, the fact remains that many industries still employ children. All that they do is to show them as adults in their records, and show the payment of adult wages while paying them exploitatively low wages. The process also helps in the creation of a great deal of black money.] Satyarthi claims that the number of child workers in India had fallen from 12.5 million in 2001 to 10 million in 2011 and further to 4.2 million now. However, he is not very sure of the data. “I cannot verify the accuracy of this data, but I can say there is improvement (in the situation),” he said. But he added that there was a steep hike in incidents of child abuse and rape both in India and beyond. He blamed pornography as one of the causes of this perverse global situation. Unfortutely, total dependence on governments to solve the problem will take us nowhere. This is a problem that collective action by citizens must address.