Something that I would like to Change

By Adreesh Roy

“Cough, Cough!” He was just a little boy, Kemal, working at the age of 6 to pay off the debt accrued by his parents. “Work faster harder! What? Can’t take a little cough? Weave the carpet!” Kemal would always cry when he thought of his dreams to become a doctor.

"One out of every six children in the world is involved in child labor." If I could change anything in the world, I would like to make it possible for every child to have a fighting chance to realize their dreams.
As required reading in my Language Arts class, we read the book Iqbal. The novel showed the life of children forced to work at a school-going age. After some research, I came to know that 244 million children around the world share the same fate. These statistics have grounded me about a lot of things I take for granted in life. At the same time it strengthens my resolve that I as the more privileged people in the world we need to take the first step to eradicate child labor and its evils.
Let’s admit that life is not fair for adults and children, however making a child work stands out because you are stifling his options to lead a life of his choice. For example, a child stuck working in a factory for eighteen hours a day can never hope to hold a job even as commonplace as a teacher. He only has one road to take and one skill to leverage upon.

Research has shown that growing children need at least nine hours of sleep to reach their physical and mental potential. Child laborers in the absence of adequate food and rest will grow up with a host of bodily disabilities, both physical and psychological. This further limits their options to improve their condition as adults.
What can be done to stop this? Governments all around the world have to get creative. Parents put their own kids to work because they are in need of money. Unless we make it economically attractive to them they will continue create money-making machines of these little hands. I propose that if poor families are to keep their children in school, governments will have to provide them with monetary incentive like cash rewards, housing, meals etc. This will break the vicious cycle of parents in poverty raising poor and unlawful future adults. Keeping school-going children away from paid labor and in school is the only way to realize society’s dream of healthy and productive individuals.