K Ela
Looking back to the one-day State level consultation meeting on Rights-based anti-trafficking Programming in Nagaland, I am filled with concern for the need of a deeper understanding of the situation in our own land. Looking at the posters of children in cages displayed, I said to myself, ‘We don’t do that to our children here’. True, we don’t see children physically confined in cages or in chains. But then, there are children out there whose minds, spirits, and emotions all wrapped up in chains. They have no space of their own, no choice of their own. Sold and bought like an object to another person. I feel this is no better than physical confinement. There is an urgent need for us to wake up to this monstrous reality existing in our society.
Look around carefully with an open mind and an open heart; you will be surprised that this situation is prevailing in our land. Ignorance is not an excuse nor indifference expected of a responsible citizen. Many of us may say, human trafficking is still something that has not marred the Naga society. Alcohol, Drugs and HIV/AIDS has been the talk of the day. Why? Because we have failed to respond to this problem at the right time. We procrastinated and chose to close our eyes for quite some precious time. While we waited for the drugs and the Virus to invade our home and society, it grew into a giant monster and took away many precious lives for we were too illprepared. Can we afford to let history repeat? A growing and developing society cannot avoid the issues that come along with modernity and advancement. How well the society responds to the challenges and how well prepared the people are, that is what matters. Come what may, if the society is prepared so much of damage can be prevented.
Believe me, there are many victims of trafficking struggling to come to terms with their situation and to come out of it. Having a close contact with children living on the edge of the society, we see the harsh reality of the society which, from a distance and from the surface, appear to be moving on smoothly – no child trafficking, no child labor….. Don’t be fooled. Only if we care to look deep into the eyes of the children whose childhood has been robbed away rudely. Children who ought to be in schools, under the loving guidance and support of teachers are out there on the streets, collecting rags and learning to sniff dendrites and chase brown sugar! Exposed to pornography, cheating and stealing, violence and crime. Can we expect them to grow up into respectable man and woman? So many hardened criminals in the making, whom do we hold responsible? Can we blame the children? Are they born to become criminals? Put in a situation of “ survival of the fittest”, as evening turn into dark night they have to fight for a sleeping space. Sometimes they even have to pay to the guardians of law for a space to sleep! They steal and fight if necessary, to fill their hungry stomachs!
While these boys and girls ought to be happily marching off to schools, they are lost in the garbage bins; searching for something to eat, seeking for something to collect and sell! While the small shoulder is meant to carry school bags, it is burdened with sacks full of rags and waste of the town! Poor child! I wonder how many of us feel a pinch of pain on seeing a child robbed/deprived of childhood, a child starved of love and care! Many of us, we proudly say, we have no practice of child labor in our land. Look around the streets and markets of Dimapur and elsewhere, we shall hangs our heads in shame, for a child is still a child – whether a Naga or a Non-naga; its worth is no less than any other child. If we let this practice to go on in our land, whether a Naga or a non-Naga child, we are a party to the crime being committed in broad daylight in our own land and state. Who can guarantee that a trafficker will differentiate between a Naga and a Non-naga child? To a trafficker, a child is just a toy, an object to make money, to satisfy its greed and lust. Don’t be fooled that your child is safe. If you ensure the security of other children, you are ensuring the security of your own children. Do something to better the lot of these unfortunate children for a better today and tomorrow.
The price of almost every family keeping ‘minis’ and kanchas’ has been high. We have sold away ‘dignity’ of labor and got back “laziness” and “parasitic existence” in return! . Work culture is almost a thing of the past. Naga children learn to beat up another child because that other child is just a servant, an illiterate child from a village, a lesser being? Used to seeing their mothers mercilessly beating up or starving their servant/helper, they have no qualms in beating them up or exploiting them. Their parents made the mini do everything for them. Most of the Naga children are simply made to sit and eat and boss around. Are they not intelligent enough? Are they not strong and healthy enough? Are they so useless? Are they so helpless that they have to be waited on hand and foot? What can we expect when these children grow up? Parents, you have taught this to our children, don’t expect them to grow up into somebody independent and hardworking, understanding and compassionate. When we ill-treat a maidservant, a girl child and made her run away from home and end up on the streets, many may not know what happens after that. Many sex workers roaming the streets of Dimapur, at one point of time or the other have been abused and harassed. Forced by a family’s cruelty into a crueler world. How many of us have pushed a girl child into prostitution? How many families have pushed a boy servant into becoming a drug addict? A criminal?
And look at it this way; when you take in small children (boy/girl) as domestic servants, make sure you are not another fool in the hands of a child trafficker. You could be a promoter/helper of a child trafficker by taking in a child without doing proper investigation. Many Naga families are guilty of promoting child labor; we are worst masters of bonded slavery of modern times. Many of us are guilty of robbing them of their childhood and also in the process spoil our child rotten. We are teaching our children to exploit and abuse another child who has every right to education, information and basic health care, love, care, and freedom from abuse and harassment, and bonded labor.
Are we violating the rights of children? Are we not guilty of crime against children? For most of us, most times, we live in a world of “Ignorance is bliss”. Can we afford to go on living in ignorance and indifference? Ignorance and indifference is going to kill us; already killed too many. Not long ago, our ignorance and indifference to Drugs and HIV/AIDS cost us much and we still continue to pay!
Nagaland has become a hub for many traffickers because we provide a good market for human trafficking and a safe haven for traffickers! Do we have the adequate and trained personnel and legal systems in place to protect the children and to prosecute the offenders? Ignorance of our own rights and even more ignorant of children’s rights has made us fools in the hands of anti-social elements! We need to wake up before it is too late.
Let us all make our land, a safe and healthy place for our children; where their childhood is not lost in abuse and harassment, drinks, drugs, sex and HIV/AIDS. Let us make Nagaland a place where the rights of a child is not violated, where a child is not made an object of greed and lust; a place where a child is not exploited but protected. Can we do something to give them back their lost childhood? Can we give them back the smiles that were long snatched away from them? Can we begin to say, “Little child, forgive us……”.
(The writer is Assistant Director Prodigals Home)
