Let children be children

Each May, the amusement park is especially crowded and cities have parades.

A wide variety of public activities are held and some zoos offer free admission to children.

Children get presents from their parents and are likely to stay away from homework or stress on a special day in May.
This special day is May 5, Children’s day.

 

 This special day for children not only has been celebrated in South Korea,
but also in many parts of the world on various days.  

Children's Day is on December 25 in Congo, Congo DR, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon Chad, Central African Republic. Albania and Armenia celebrated the day on June 1. It takes place on October 12 in Brazil. The Government of Canada designated November 20^th as National Child Day. Like this, Children’s day is a worldwide holiday to honor children. Although observation of the day varies from country to country, its purpose remains the same: to honor children and promote their happiness.

However, Children’s day is not existed for all children.

On May 5^th, when children in South Korea visited zoos and amusement parks, children in other parts of the world went to the workplace. When children in some countries get presents from

their parents, some children in other countries get the miserly amount of money after working the entire day; these children live every day, suffering from the severe manual labor and do not even realize there is a special day for them.

 

 

   According to statistics provided by UNICEF, there were an estimated 158 million children aged 5 to 14 years in child labour worldwide in the year 2006, and this figure is continuously increasing. The International Labor Organization estimated that worldwide, more than 10 million children are employed in drug-trafficking, sex work, and other hazardous labor.

This is what is called 'CHILD LABOR'.

There are various causes of child labor: poverty, adult unemployment, overpopulation, or social apathy.

 

 

Among these, poverty is the main cause of child labor. Parents send their little children to factories or shops. Some parents even carry infants and beg for money on the street.

Also, employers prefer to employ children. This is due to the fact that children are recruited for less pay. This adult’ exploitation of children as a cheap labor drives more and more children to the workplace.                                            
 

                                                                           
The situation in India, for instance, is even desperate. In Northern India, the exploitation of little children for labor is an accepted practice and perceived by the local population as a necessity to alleviate poverty. According to the statistics provided by The Government of India, around 90 million out of 179 million children do not go to school and are engaged in labor.

 

Children also have been recruited in war.

During the civil war in Sierra Leone in 1991, becoming child soldiers was a common thing. Children there were forced to join the army and trained to kill people.
The war began when a rebel group, RUF (Revolutionary United Front) started attacks against the government.
This rebel group overthrew the government, killed thousands of innocent citizens and chopped people’s hands in a way to prevent people from voting for the government.  RUF also threatened children to join the army, instilled wrong ideas and values into child soldiers and even used drugs to control children.  These child soldiers were used as combats, cooks, informants, porters, bodyguards, sentries, and spies.   

                                                                                                                                         
 Until now, they have greatly suffered from the aftereffects of war.

Besides, several thousands of children worked in diamond mines throughout the years of the war in order to finance the rebels’ weapons. The diamond mining in Sierra Leone took a myriad of children’s lives and was one of the major causes of the war. This is why we call the diamonds in Sierra Leone ‘Blood diamonds’.

                                                                     

 Children in Sierra Leone worked in the mines after the war and still do. These blood diamonds which represent children’s tears, blood and sacrifice are still extracted and smuggled to all over the world despite international efforts to block sales of conflict diamonds such as the Kimberley Process.   

 

According to ‘Free the children’(NGO), every year, 22,000 children die in work-related accidents and the number of children involved in armed conflicts around the world has increased to about 300,000 over the past decade.

 

For these children, Children’s day is meaningless or never existed.

What these children would long for is going to school or playing with friends instead of working in factories or fighting in armed conflicts. They are robbed not only of their freedom but of their basic rights. On Children's day,  why don't we make it our duty to take more concern over these children , who spend their valuable childhood days in factories and battlegrounds?