A Better Childhood

[stingingnettle]

A Better Childhood

Happy or unhappy aside, it is hard to disagree with the assertion that every childhood is formative and unique. People reminisce and recall memories of childhood for different reasons but it remains evident to me that childhood matters to a vast majority of people. Pakistan has a burgeoning population of children and it begs the question what kind of childhood do they have or are likely to have. The answer to this question is rather complex and heart breaking but I want to express my opinion about one aspect of it only. Our children, like we were before them, are right to expect a happy and fulfilling childhood but standing in the way is our historic national paralysis on child labour and child abuse.

With the dawn of the digital age, the pressures our children face in Pakistan are a bit different from the generations before them. A lot more good and bad information is slushing around in cyber space. Also, rapid population growth has increased the supply of children vastly and consequently child labour has never been cheaper for those who want to employ children to work in their homes, factories and fields. It is utter fallacy to suggest that this is a class problem; every one who can, is at it. A vast number of people who cannot afford ‘domestic help’ happily employ children, essentially in bonded labour in their homes. The little hands that were meant to clutch dolls, kites, colour pencils and books are being made to cook, clean, build, fix and collect toxic rubbish – for little or no money. Even worse, many young children are working (impossibly long hours for a pittance) as childminders for those too lazy or too busy to look after their own children. Today Pakistan is living through the golden age of hypocrisy when it comes to child labour and child abuse.

It is not my wish to tell people about the definition of child abuse but depriving a child of his or her childhood most certainly is a form. We seem to suffer from a strange kind of blindness; we treat other people’s children in a manner that we never want our children to be treated. Children employed as servants in innumerable households in Pakistan tell us something rather unpalatable about us and our society; child labour is alright as long as it is not our own children. I cannot imagine a more repulsive instance of hypocrisy when your own child is in school and someone else’s child in wiping the floor of your house with a wet rag.

I see a clear link between child abuse and child labour; the fact that children are pushed into work environment without ANY consideration, except a monetary one, makes child abuse possible. Our media reports stories of abuse every day but that is just the tip of the iceberg. The real unbroken scandal in Pakistan is the systemic tolerance of abuse our children suffer, as a matter of routine, at the hands of cruel, sadistic, exploitative and sick adults who see them as easy prey. Unlike child labour, there is a deliberate taboo that surrounds the abuse of children and here lies our greatest failure – our unwillingness and unease to discuss what many sick adults are doing to children. There are many voiceless communities in Pakistan but none more than our suffering children whose silent screams should keep us mostly sleepless at night.

Reham Khan’s appointment as the KPK Ambassador for Street Children provoked a strange debate; was this a political appointment or not? There are a couple of very simple things to keep in mind; the job comes without any financial remunerations and it requires the incumbent to spend a lot of her time raising the profile of street children of KPK and hopefully Pakistan. The flak directed at Reham would have been justified had she been given a party position in PTI or a paid job in KPK Government – but as matters stand today, that is not the case. The vitriol directed at her seriously undermines the cause of street children and their daily suffering. She has a long way to go before she can become the true voice of organised of protest and resistance against child abuse but at least she has made a start by giving the our suffering street children a voice – a high profile voice that people are increasingly listening to albeit because of her relationship to Imran Khan.

I can blind you with statistics and heart rending stories of childhood lost and but I will not do that; today we have gone past that – many of us know the depth and gravity of the problem of child labour and child abuse in Pakistan. Recently Reham Khan responded to a tweet wishing her good luck in her new role (as Ambassador for Street Children) with;

“I don't need luck I need everyone to condemn child labour & to support the cause.”

A point made brilliantly; we are all in it together and without the support of every Pakistani, it is not possible to stop child abuse and child labour in our country. Rightly she points out that it is not about luck; unless of course we are talking about something brought about through intelligent, collective and consistent human endeavour. Our children deserve a better childhood – a childhood not dependent on fate or luck; we must begin this journey of a thousand miles by talking the first practical step.

Next time you visit a house where a child is employed; be sure to make your feelings known and please do not drink a hot or cold beverage that is brought to you by a child worker. People often cite the much used excuse; ‘oh, I am only helping out his/her parents financially by giving this child employment.’ NO, you are not! You are merely taking advantage a voiceless child’s poverty and compliance. You are not helping them or their parents; you are simply feeding your own greed and laziness. Harsh words? Yes, they are meant to be so; after all there is nothing nice about depriving a child of his or her childhood.

It is about time we resist the urge to politicise the serious issue of child abuse and child labour; be part of the solution and help give our children a better future by doing something real, practical and courageous; treat other people’s children the way you want your own children treated.

[Shimatoree]

Sting

it is the first Saturday after the long flight from KPK and I was hoping that I would get a respite from my depression , disappointments and my anger towards all the pretenders in the political arena in Pakistan. but your piece deprived me of that.
Vitriol and venom combined with BLACKEST of BILE is the GUSHER that has exploded in my tormented soul.

I shall start with a quote from your favorite Mrs. Imran Khan.

“ “I don't need luck I need everyone to condemn child labour & to support the cause.” end of quote.

Mirabeau-( French Revolution) said.......MEN-( for that matter WOMEN)- do not matter.....it is always the MAN-( WOMAN) that matters. So here the woman who has uttered the above must have some credibility and some capability………….my answer to those 2 questions is….ZILCH.

The statement made and quoted by you is prime reflection of an ignorant, pseudo- DO-GOODER in search of CHEAP publicity as an addiction.

Anyone who wishes to comment on Child Labour MUST know what they are talking about. They should have lived and walked the dark streets of the big cities of Pakistan’s urban and rural areas.
A former DISCO Dancer / GOLD DIGGER from UK covered up by barrels of make-up living on the hills of Bani Gala knows ZIP about the problem.
So on the scale of CREDIBILITY, this attempt is DEAD before it starts.

What is the problem of Child Labour ? For the last 10 years I have worked on this problem if you call it a problem in the first place which is FALSE.
The problem is OVER POPULATION where men and women are indulging in UN-CONTROLLED SEX without any regard as to what that activity produces.........KIDS. And all these men and women claim that GOD’s will is involved in producing all these kids........they are pronged on by the religious Mafia that they should continue the pleasure providing process to do God’s work.......produce more Muslims.
Now instead of taking the BREEDING BULL by the HORNS-( not her’s)- by talking about rampant RE-PRODUCTION-( which would alienate the Mullahs)- this individual has decided to talk about the WESTERN Mantra of Child Labour.

So why are the Kids working in bad places or for that matter good places? They are doing it to make a LIVING...to Eat, to have some sort of clothes, to help feed their parents and siblings.
The State has failed, the parents have failed, the community has failed, the religion has failed, the Mullahs have failed in providing YOUR Idealistic Childhood of DREAMS.
That only exists in the imagination of Soul-less CITY SLICKERS who live in the make-believe world of Islamabad with their eyes closed and their HEARTS covered by GRANITE. They cannot see the young boys and girls searching through Garbage DUMPS in thousands trying to find itsy bitsy things that they might sell so that their parents and siblings can eat.

Miss. Upity lives too far from those kids surrounded by high walls of security and so does the rest of Islamabad consisting of the powerful and those that want to join them.

Child labour exists because there are too many kids that need to eat and live.
Child labour exists because the kids do not have schools to go to and their parents who have created them never though that Kids need to eat, have clothes etc.
The man or woman who employes these children actually is doing a service which the parents and the state and the DO-GOODERS do not. They TRAIN these kids in professions so they can go and get a job. They train them in becoming a mechanic or a Mistry or a carpet weaver or some such thing.
Of course they pay them very little-( rules of capitalistic business) other than food or they pay their parents who can be accused of providing SLAVE Labour.

If anyone is SERIOUS about this issue of CHILD labour, start at the production factories-( Parents), provide an alternative course of action.

That is too difficult and has for obvious reasons escaped the publicity seeking Mrs. Khan.
Child Labour cannot be TOUCHED upon by making West-Pleasing statements on TWITTER...........it needs GROUND work to find what the main causes are..............and the main cause is OVER-Production of Kids.

Maybe Mrs. Khan should concern herself with the one thing she might know a little about...............Birth Control ...............and try to STEM the TIDE where it is coming from...the GENITAL TRACT of Pakistan’s women and the SEMINAL VESICLES of the Pakistan’s MEN.

I rest my case.

[Mirza Ghalib]

Well, well Shim, you really didn't mince your words there. Your old doctrine of overpopulation came to the fore once again. And you were quite right to suggest that someone preaching birth control would contribute more to child welfare than someone talking about child labour.

As regards the last-named, KPK recently legislated on the matter. Not for the first time either, though the PTI bill is probably better than what preceded it. Now all that remains to be done is implementation, which will prove no easy task. Now then, let's see what Reham Khan can contribute here. Although, truth to tell, this is more an administrative matter than a one-person show.

Last but not least, our growing population was a need of the times. It was required, so runs the argument, to ensure the safety of the country. Our neighbouring Iran did the opposite. Cut down on population growth, earned kudos from West sources like the UN, etc. and then the Iranians finally had to admit that they'd made a mistake there. Now we have Mr Modi in India beggling "Hindu" families to increase the number of children per family in order to ensure that a "Hindu" majority continues to exist in India, which is far from sure. And not to forget the Chinese have now done away with their one-child only law. Let's see how their population explodes in size and strength in the years to come.

So, all in all, we have here SN's longing for a better world in which children, all of them, would be given a fair deal, your own bitter lucidity about the consequences of overpopulation and my own political approach to the problem. Can we combine the three ways of looking at the fate of the underprivileged child? Let's hope so. And let's hope as well that Reham Khan will be able to make a difference to the street children of KPK. Not so much for her sake but for the sake of the children whose lives might take a turn for the better thanks to her efforts.

[Shimatoree]

Mg

You have missed the point.

Reham Khan knows nothing and since the objective reality seemed to have passed you by in spite of my BULL DOZING TECHNIQUE, I shall re-State it once again.

The problem of OVER PRODUCTION of Human Beings has led to and is leading to the problem of modern slavery in the South Asian land mass. You are wrong about what the West wants….they of course want YOUR cheap labour just like the capitalists in Pakistan. The lip service towards ending Child Labour is just that….LIP SERVICE with a Lot of LIP STICK!
If the leaders of the country want to spend their money on Jangal Buses and lining their own pockets, then child labour will be there no matter what anyone does or says on television.

The one great quality of Imran Khan is CREDIBILITY….in other words he is GENUINE. That is not the case with his second wife. So patching her up with anything makes that THING turn to shit. That is what I learned in KPK's streets in the last 4 weeks. It seems to me that you guys have swallowed HOOK , LINE and SINKER the attempt to RE-make the Disco-Dancer into something she is not and cannot be.
62 year old Imran Khan has to right to marry who so ever he wants but he would be well advised to refrain from doing this sort of Re-Inventing by patching spurious Do-gooder qualifications of questionable merit.

The best advice I can give to PTI is REMOVE Reham Khan from the public domain. After all what is her qualifications………..sharing the great leader's life in Bani Gala.

Get real and smell the coffee. Fix the problem………….don't just sing a song for 2 minutes.

[Shimatoree]

Mg

How can anyone who has never been burnt know the pain of someone who is burned ?

[stingingnettle]

Shimatoree sahib;

You are at your best when you exercise "Vitriol and venom combined with BLACKEST of BILE..." Thank you for you comments and here goes my response.

I acknowledged in my piece that there was a population problem we had by writing 'Also, rapid population growth has increased the supply of children vastly and consequently child labour has never been cheaper...' So as to the causes of the problem I am with you as far as over supply is only one of the problem we have. There is another more sinister problem we have; it is our attitude towards labour and paying a labourer. We always to extract most work from people without paying them the least and preferably nothing. Children are particularly prone in this environment because they do not have the life experience yet to so NO and argue their point from a position of weakness (if this is ever possible!). With apologies to everyone; a lot of people are just plain lazy, they exploit a child to save themselves of housework; this would not be a problem if they were paying an adult living wages to do the job but they DON'T do they?

You didn't mince your words as to the causes of over population and you were right to do so. Yesterday I had a rare opportunity to watch some TV and I watch a programme on ARY called 'Aam Aadmi' which looked at the live of a family earning Rs 10 000 per month. They paid Rs 4000 as rent and I believe Rs 1000 for school fee of two of their children but here is the problem, they had four children. Sadly two of the younger one suffered from an unspecific condition which required regular transfusion of blood and by now you get the idea. It does not take rocket science or even an education to understand the age old notion of 'do not spread your feet beyond you sheet' but thanks to our Mullah industry we continue to procreate like there is no tomorrow. You amongst all people have seen first hand the deprivation and suffering in KPK. Like you, I have have seen sifting through rubbish not too far from the hideous Centauraus Towers in Islamabad.

I agree with you that Reham has no experience or history of helping street children; she has landed an honorary position as Ambassador of Street children and there I see a possibility of some good coming out merely because of her high profile. Angelina Jolie has acted in some very interesting films but that has not stopped her from doing some great work as a UN Ambassador. I have no interest in Reham's past or personal life; all I care about is the work she is going to do for street children. I did not suggest that she understands the plight of these children first hand but merely that lets give her a chance to prove herself.

If Reham is given a political role within PTI, I will be the first one to write against it; so far she has resisted this urge. Of course she may choose to support IK's political work by attending events but that is not a problem. She must never be elevated just because of who she is married to.

I will be back with more later.

[Shimatoree]

Sting

ZERO SUM GAME !

The reason why rich people , not so rich people are able to use children as labour is simple……….the parents who are the PRODUCTION Factory are unable to provide for their food, their education etc.

So someone else does that.

That someone else maybe good human beings who take a child, teach them various things like cooking or driving or being a mechanic or an electrician or a plumber by making them a HELPER.
The Mullah might make them into a CLONE of themselves and some might make them into a suicide bomber.
The Religious political parties might " EDUCATE" them in their Saudi -Financed Madrassahs.

But all of that takes place because the parents cannot take care of the kids that they produce. Or they do not want to since they believe that God has CREATED him or her and God is supposed to provide for him or her. If you have any questions……..KEEP in MIND the parents are the ones who REFUSE to immunize against POLIO…..resulting in paralysis of the their kids! And of course the Mullah says that the Polio drops are being pushed for by the USA and the JEWS to reduce the fertility of the Muslims of Pakistan….in other words a biological castration…………….WELL ? Maybe Mrs. Reham Khan ought to EDUCATE the people about THAT. And we still remember her very well publicized effort for FUNDS for the IDPs of FATA. Whatever happened to that and how much money has been collected and given ?

As to why that is….is very simple. The rich and powerful have a monopoly of resources and the poor do not have access to that.

So saying that one is going to suddenly appear on the horizon and solve this problem by CONDEMNING it is NUTS……..Impossible………..which brings to mind as to why this move advertised in the news media by what you describe as CELEBRITY-( for he wrong reasons)-

A friend of mine ran a mechanics shop for 25 years and had lots of kids working for him. He took in kids whose parents brought them to him so he would teach them how to be a mechanic. Of course he did not pay them what he paid a full mechanic…but in 25 years he MADE a lot of mechanics who run their own shops now. He was taken to task and brought to court in Peshawar for Child labour. In front of the judge he said……." YOU want me to throw them out on the street so that they have nothing to do since YOU are not providing for their education and their food…and you are doing it just so that the West is complaining" end of quote.

Idealism is a great thought but talking in thin air on the BOOB TUBE-(TV)- is just hot air. Reham Khan and her supposed selection as ambassador for these kids ……of all places in KPK…….now why does that STINK.

It stinks because in KPK her husband's party rules and those guys are singing HIS MASTER'S VOICE……like Khattak went and spend all his time at the Dharna while he was supposed to be working at his job for which he is getting paid.
This is not me talking but the views of the people in the villages and the street in KPK.

I had wanted to relate the comments made by the common people of KPK about the 2nd Mrs. Khan but I simply cannot as the language used was rather severe.

I ran into an ANP guy in Charsada and he said and I quote…..the best political gift that PTI could have given us Imran's marriage to the TV Anchor.the more she comes out in the news media the better for us.

[LifeH2O]

"the job comes without any financial remunerations and it requires the incumbent to spend a lot of her time raising the profile of street children of KPK and hopefully Pakistan. The flak directed at Reham would have been justified had she been given a party position in PTI or a paid job in KPK Government – but as matters stand today, that is not the case."

Read that again for Maryam Nawaz's appointment and all faces will look evil. I read somewhere that salary of NS is 0 if that is correct he must be a really nice person to sacrifice his salary to serve the country for free.

[LifeH2O]

"Angelina Jolie has acted in some very interesting films but that has not stopped her from doing some great work as a UN Ambassador. I have no interest in Reham's past or personal life; all I care about is the work she is going to do for street children."

I don't think that Angelina Julie did that by riding on someone's shoulders. I don't know if RK's life before this marriage has anything of that sort.

[Shimatoree]

Sting

Angelina Jolie had made her place in the world of acting…..yes that is right……IN THE WORLD.

And come to think of it her being named something by the UN is a great attempt by the UN to capitalize on the Marketing Potential of Jolie……….but she don't do much anyway herself.

In this case here that we are talking about.well you know the rest of the story.

I have great faith in the wisdom of those that work in the streets of Peshawar and who discuss matters in the Hujras of the villages…………their verdict is not in favour of Mrs Reham Khan from any angle.
She might be popular amongst the WESTOXICATED in Karachi , Lahore or Islamabad but in the heartland she stands no chance regardless of the claims made by those in the PTI or by herself.
I do not blame her for trying to develop a political career for herself but to keep saying that she is not doing so is DISINGENUOUS.

Also I think MQM will win 246 in Karachi but that is no rocket science since Imran failed to make a deal with with JI.
I will give him the GREAT GAMBLER award for doing that. Since if he does win by himself…then he can ditch the JI. Unlikely to happen.

[stingingnettle]

Life,

You write:

"Read that again for Maryam Nawaz's appointment and all faces will look evil. "

A perfectly reasonable point made but there is a very important difference; Maryam was appointed to run a VERY large publically funded scheme for which she had no qualifications. Yes Reham has no qualifications to be an ambassador for street children but she does not have a budget and is at best an attention drawer to the cause. Maryam could only be sacked by her father who had appointed her; this is plainly vulgar nepotism. IK NEVER asked for Reham's appointment; KPK Govt may have tried to ingratiate themselves in the eyes of IK by appointing her but my feeling is that IK is not cut that way; he does not get ingratiated.

Nawaz Sharif may as well be drawing no salary but his and his family's living and travelling expenses are paid by the state. I suggest you file a freedom of information request to find out what NS and his family is costing Pakistan where there is tax even on the sweets children buy!

Yes, not getting paid or being highly religious or talking the talk means nothing; if you deliver competently, that is all that matters. I do not wish to know who is related to whom and what their ancestors did and about how many holy men and women preceded them; I just want a slightly more tolerable life for my compatriots.

[stingingnettle]

Shimatoree sahib;

I am not in favour at all of giving Reham Khan ANY role within PTI. It will be a disastrous mistake on part of PTI to surgically graft her on PTI's 19 year struggle. There is something genetically wrong with us as a nation; we love brown-nosing to the extreme - we do everything possible to prove our loyalty to people and families instead of the good or evil they do. The exact word I am looking for is 'khushaamdi'; we are a nation of highly khushaamdi people who need to have a bit more spine and dignity and stop falling in love with leaders and their family.

We need to have a bit more self-respect and stop trying to keep up appearance. We tend to confuse respect with reverence and there lies the problem.

Imran Khan MUST at all cost keep Reham out of politics; a bit like Margaret Thatcher's husband Dennis Thatcher who most people did not know existed or not. I do not find Reham's highly westernised past problematic as long as she does not try to gloss over it with the lacquer of piety and religiosity. She is the person she is and her past is her own business as is her present and future.