A 13 year old girl named Rekha in India has put her foot down on the shameful actions of her parents in trying to push her into an arranged marriage against her will because she wants an education.
Rekha : An inspiring little girl from India (image ABCNews.go.com)
In the past she had been working with her family to keep food on the table before a UNICEF sponsored program gave her an opportunity to get an education:
Like her father, she helped to support her family by rolling a type of cigarette called beedi. Then two years ago, a government non-profit program plucked her from a life of child labour to enrol her in special school.
Along with learning the standard classes, Rekha and dozens of other former child labourers were also taught leadership skills. The school, part of a UNICEF program, was free of charge so that families would not remove children from the program due to cost.
Nothing wrong with kids working a bit to help the family, learn some skills, earn some money, work ethics etc but getting stuck into harsh factory conditions (assuming that’s the case here) isn’t really teaching the kids anything other than misery and leaving them with no choices.
When I was little I got stuffed into spiderweb filled crawl spaces on weekends to lay electrical cable and hammer in cable clips (and the odd fingernail) onto electrical cables or digging trenches to earn my pocket money. Difference is that that was one day (perhaps rarely two days) a week rather than 12+ hours a day/7 days a week and I went to school monday to friday. That and as a spoilt westerner: my childhood version of “tough work” is nothing compared to what the kids in India or africa put up with.. As I’m sure my Father occasionally pointed out.
In Rekha’s case the work she was doing has been blasted for both the working conditions and the toxic nature of the substance they’re handling. A CNN article describes the problem:
Handling burley tobacco leaves without gloves, in unwashed clothes and rarely bathing, these children can absorb the same amount of nicotine in one day of harvesting that they would from smoking 50 cigarettes.
So a necessary part of any childhood, education is the key to avoid falling into an endless cycle of poverty or unhealthy work (including forcing the next generation and the next into child labour as well). This is because with education comes a much wider range of possible futures, as was the case with little Rekha:
It was from these leadership classes that Rekha gained the strength to defy her family, her village and change her future. And with this decision, she inspired a chain reaction among her friends and throughout her village.
Good on her, I hope she inspires many others to refuse to be “promised”, bought, traded or sold. Back in India’s history books an old skinny guy named Ghandi had a pretty massive impact through quiet refusal to do things, so it’s not like her actions are without precedence.
I think the days of people treated as bargaining chips or livestock should fade into dim memories, documented and discarded from acceptable practice. Perhaps Rekha’s given the world a bit of a much needed nudge in that direction.
