Learning to fall

Child Labor worldwide always meant children suffering and not being able to live as innocently as possible. A few days ago I got a call from a close friend, we started talking about the news and what is going on around the world when I decided to tell her about my blog. This is how our conversation went: 

Me: So Im working on a blog to raise awareness about Child Labor Worldwide, but Im focusing more on India. 

Her: What exactly are you raising awareness about?

Me: How people are not paying attention to how the innocent children are being treated and how people should start joining organizations in which they can help fund the families of children who are in need. 

Her: When you say "people" who are you referring to? Do not you think people are already aware of what is going on within their community? Also how would you feel if an outsider tried to tell you about the problems that are happening in your country and from their country decided to tell you how you should live your life? I think you should put yourself in their shoes and then address this serious issue. 

-End of conversation-

The conversation I had with my close friend made me realize that as an outsider I cannot ask the people of India to live a certain way, I cannot ask them to work in a certain place and I cannot ask them to change their lives. According to the World Bank, which defines poverty as living on less than 1.25 a day, 456 million Indians are poverty-stricken. When I first addressed the issue of Child Labor I approached the issue with a closed-mind, I thought that India had no problems to take care of other than child labor. For days, I was mad at the Indian people for allowing children to work in factories. It all makes sense now. The lower class in India is suffering from a wide range of problems, from poverty to major environmental problems. India has had a large population increase over the past couple of years, this is not the only problem. With population increase, less resources are available for the public which means that more people are likely to suffer from poverty and malnutrition. When we compare the issue of child labor to poverty most people would chose to save a life than improve a life for the time being. Imagine having a child suffering from malnutrition and another child working for twelve hours a day, who would you chose to save and why? I would save the child who is about to die, even though both cases are life threatening and depressing to hear about. A child who is working to support his/her family can work for another couple of years until the economy can get better and is able to fund and support local and middle to lower class families. The child suffering from malnutrition is more likely to be saved because he/she is dying and it does not take years to die, it only takes a couple of seconds.