Sunday, March 9, 2008

STREET CHILDREN: HUMANITY'S FORGOTTEN SECTOR


...And he slept with empty stomach -on the sidewalk. Tears flow on his pale and dirty cheeks and traces of uncertainties crookedly lined on his forehead.... This is the common scene and the cruel world of the street children. How a child, separated from his family as a result of broken homes and poverty, is relegated to the rubbish of street urchins.

 This is the fate of an innocent kid; the lack of understanding to live, the destiny he did not chose, and the failed purpose he is not at fault. He will be forced to scour the garbage and other left-overs for food. He will beg, steal, and engage a miserable undertakings to subsist. He will do all forms of menial and dirty jobs. And if ever he survives, he will grow as scoundrel scourging the environment he had.

 In this underworld, a live and die competition are prevalent and unimaginable. Big guys prevailed while the small and weak perished. He will mature a menace or a villain that will create more ills than good. Other street children were driven from home by violence, war and disaster, parent lost, or other calamities that resulted from socio-economic breakdown. As a consequence, they are bound to suffer malnutrition, abuse, exploitation, drug addiction, sniffing industrial glue, detention, and other dehumanizing condition which become their daily subsistence. In some instances, street children are considered pest or a vermin that deserves to be exterminated. While in other cases, they are treated like a rabid dogs that fool killer shoot to cleanse the neighborhood ...ah, what a cruel world! And these are erased in the list as if they did not exist. No death record and buried in an unknown graves. How can society prevent or stop the inhuman existence of the street children.

 The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that there are l00 to 150 million street children roaming and sleeping on the street every night worldwide. And the number will increase to 800 million by the year 2020 giving headache to UNICEF on how this can be contained within the bounds of our society. Foster homes are short and temporary protection. Long term and lasting remedy should be applied. This is a universal problem that the United Nations needs to give immediate attention more than anything else.

 A valuable human being is at stake and being deprived of the right to exist. It is quite ironical that better treatment is accorded to pet dogs, cats, and other animals and are provided with "luxuries" and other excesses. How can we liberate these children from cruelty of life. How can we cleanse them from the dirt of inhumanities. They yearn for a hug from fathers and mothers and longing for their touch. They also want to experience a happy home, the feeling of being loved, and the society's embrace.


2 comments:

rodolfo salvador said...

I sympthasize with you on the situation of the worlds children but whose to blame for all of this desperate state of children? Its the adult and the system they are patronizing. Its the result of capitalist struggling for wealth and power. If you would try to think back on early stage of man, children had no problems the abundance of wealth is only around them and the just pick it up and developed it. But now where are wealth? Its for you to think it over..

Rmagin said...

Thanks Rod'aflip,

Either system we are in, it is disgusting to note the same attitude towards the street children -neglected. Humans, in some instances, are losing their sense of responsibilities to their offspring and co-equals. I hate to think that animals are better. It doesn't leave its youngs to the mercy of its surroundings until it can manage its own.
Of course, early days are abundant compared to all the calamities and harshful events livings things had encountered up to the present. It is just worthwhile to appeal for compassion to those who have to share their blessings.