A picture so shameful, appalling and atrocious has surfaced on the Pakistani social forums – it will make your guts shrink, twist and turn – till you starting wondering, how did we ever end up here? A little girl, who seems to be a child maid, is locked in the trunk of a car with a canine dog, traveling somewhere in Lahore. The little girl is holding the trunk with one hand and looking out and possibly holding the dog’s leash with the other.
Source: Facebook.com
The number plate of the car suggests it is from Lahore. Followed by something so shocking, it would only take a monster to not feel for where our society is heading. The car seems to be of an Advocate, as the plate suggests. Persistent to add here that this car potentially belongs to a lawyer – the guy that should be able to differentiate between right and wrong – a professional, who has studied, practiced and potentially taught laws regarding the constitution of Pakistan and the ‘civil’ rights of its residents.
One can only imagine the monstrous and sinister nature of the owner, who would put a little girl in a trunk with a dog. Yes, it is applicable that the car might not have any space inside – but if you can’t give them equality, you best not degrade the children you have forced into labor.
Like every other child, these kids too hope for a positive life. To be able to play with dolls and toys, to enjoy the freedoms of childhood – the reason this girl seems to be in the trunk is probably because her parents could not afford her education. However, if education makes you an Advocate, a lawyer, and makes you commit an act of such heinous nature like the one you can see above – then we think this little girl is better off uneducated.
Child labor is one of the biggest evils of our society, a hugely neglected one. Every middle-class and above house has a servant or a maid who is not entirely an adult.
I, as a resident of Pakistan, am no different. We have a 15-year-old boy who works at our place because his parents could not afford his education. But I’ll be glad to share that the sort of education our Advocate from Lahore has been part of was particularly different to ours – as we try to keep our Brahvi servant as equal as it would be generically possible, where he wears the sort of clothes we do and definitely eats everything our family does, while I try to take out an hour at least, to teach him the basics of English language – yes, we’re doing our ABCs these days.
Even though this isn’t the first act of bondage-slavery-cum-child-labor – this was one particularly hits you harder on the chest.
Several months back, a video had surfaced on the social forums where a little maid girl was forced to look away from the dining table at a restaurant, holding a little baby, as the rest of the family ate. If you can’t afford their food, you best not take them to places where you murder every inch of happiness and hope they have ever wanted.
These monsters of our society are growing at a rate which we won’t be able to keep up with. It seems every new day, humanity dies a little more – while we claim to be pseudo-intellectuals and educated. With the Women Protection Bill in swing and 7 more legislature bills to be passed soon – one wonders, will there every be a bill for protection of our children’s future, one that foresees the damages child labor causes? All we can do is wonder…
