Children born amidst havoc: This Children’s Day we celebrate!

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A child’s innocence, that’s what we cherish the most. However, what happens when that innocence gets lost amidst the real world. With the approaching Children’s Day, Social Chumbak Team thought of coming up with an article that lays bare the crumbling innocence.

As a child, I remember watching Tom and Jerry and fighting with my brother over remote control. Even sneaking out to play outdoors was fun. But today, when as a grown up I experience and grow up in the world, reality sends a chill down the spine.

Recent ruthless happenings in Syria

Syria warfare and mass erosion involved innumerable kids as well. While on one hand, we saw two brothers crying over the loss of everything. Other shows a 4-year old boy covered in dust simply taken aback by everything. But the most heart wrenching was when people heard the last words of a 3-year old. He said, “I am going to tell God everything”. The innocence prevailed but the war snatched everything. This even left many journalists and audience in tears.

Children born amidst havoc
Image Source: twitter.com

Peshawar School Terrorist Attack (2014)

Peshawar massacre might be a thing of past for certain people. But for the parents who lost their kids and the children who saw bloodshed right in front of their eyes, December 2014 terrorist attack was massive. The memories of that heinous act would be imprinted on those innocents’ mind with red hot burning iron nail, leaving scars for a lifetime.

Children born amidst havoc
Image Source:nation.com.pk

Child Trafficking

An advertisement like “A girl on sale: Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old” is enough to paralyze someone with the horrors of the world. There is a never ceasing surge in the rate of the child trafficking in Manipur, Nepal, and innumerable places. The childhood and youth of these children is snatched away when forced in prostitution, labor, and begging. Read Patricia McCormick’s Sold to realize and live the repelling reality.

Children amidst the havoc
Image Source: india.com

If you thought child trafficking is the end, then what about child abuse.

Child sexual abuse

Can you imagine what a child goes through when someone rapes him/her? Any sexual abuse done on children is abuse, irrespective of the sex. Imagine the plight when a child goes through it but cannot say. Reason being the fear of the person perpetrating it and parents’ disbelief in child. Instead of that carefree attitude, a fear lurks around..

Children amidst the havoc
Image Source:psychologytoday.com

Child marriage

You might be wondering this can happen only in “third world”. But that part of world is also inhabited by human beings and those children are also like every other child in the world. For the world, teenage sex and parenthood is a taboo. But when same thing is done under the garb of marriage, then? Africa, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Middle-East, Latin America, many parts of US and UK, everywhere. At an age when the kids are expected to play, learn and enjoy, they are handling the household responsibilities. Moreover, girls lose their lives owing to this and childbirth involved.

Children born amidst havoc
Image Source:guardian.com

You must be thinking these are global issues. How and where are we contributing? We are not culprits. Then it’s time to burst your bubble.

Divorce

The fights that your kids witness when a couple fights leave lifelong scars. Those screams, hurling abuses, and the tension simply devastates their dream of happy home. You might be right on your part regarding the issues, but those heated arguments behind the closed doors haunts them. For them, marriage, love and home all become superfluous words.

Children amidst the havoc
Image Source:focusonthefamily.com

Money over love

When you start replacing your presence with materialistic possesions in their lives, that the time your children lose self. You must be earning for them, but a child need tender care and love, your quality time. Money can get them anything, but not quality time of their parents they long for.

Children amidst the havoc
Image Source: yahoo.com

Irving Howe truly said, “The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable”. We might want our child to grow up soon, but not in such an inhabitable world.