Child exploitation

Under normal circumstances and laws, every act of slavery is frowned upon by humans, and such practices have been strongly kicked against by various laws, thereby abolishing slavery in most parts of the world, if not all. But even with that, there are still acts of slavery being practiced today. Although some of these acts are not openly regarded as slavery, when you take a deeper look at them, every sign of slavery is right there — and one of such acts is what I want to explain or point out.

In my part of the world, there’s this common practice among humans, especially married couples, where they go to the village to take either a boy or a girl to live with them in the city. The main intention, as they present it, is for the child to help them with work, mostly house chores, while they promise to treat and train the child as their own by providing food, clothing, and sending the child to school.

Sometimes, this child is taken from their extended family, and the parents of the child believe that the burden of training and expenses will be lifted. But do you know what happens most times? These couples do not keep to their promises of taking the child as their own. They usually turn the child into a slave, where he or she works like a donkey, barely eats good food, and struggles to get a proper education. Isn’t that slavery?

This is not just something we see in movies; I have witnessed this act play out before my very eyes many times. There was a pastor we had back then (hello, I’m not judging, please). He had two children of his own and also had a little girl of about 10 years living with them(the girl isn't their daughter). This girl was overworked. She practically did every single chore in the house, and just by looking at her, one could easily tell she wasn’t being properly taken care of. Meanwhile, the two biological children of the man were pampered and enrolled in one of the best schools in the city, while the little girl was sent to a public school where she usually trek to and fro to school.

Like I said, I don’t have the power to judge a man of God, but I honestly felt that what they did to the girl, all in the name of “taking a child and training her,” was nothing but modern-day slavery. The girl was so little, and I knew deep down that she must have developed a purged and bitter mindset toward the family, but because she was, in fact, just a child, she couldn’t dare to voice out her pain.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what happens in situations where families take a child from the village to the city under the guise of helping or training them. Sometimes, the family doesn’t even bother to enroll the child in school or any learning center at all. Instead, the child is heavily overworked with all sorts of household chores and, in some cases, even sent out to hustle or do petty trading outside the house.

Now the big question is: Is there a way to eradicate this?

The only possible way is to stop allowing families to take children from the village to the city or even from extended families with the intention of “training” them. However, this will be extremely difficult because not everyone has bad intentions when extending a helping hand to train a child from an extended family or bringing a child from the village to assist and care for.

But all the same, if the childcare system in the country can step up and put strict measures in place to checkmate this pattern of lifestyle, it will go a long way in discouraging this indirect act of slavery and protecting innocent children from being exploited.

Thanks for reading.

This is my entry to Week 179, Edition 03 of the Weekly Featured contest in Hive Learners Community

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