Will there be a Happy New Year for children?

As 2016 starts, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kailash Satyarthi writes a heartfelt plea about protecting our children. New amendments to the Child Labor Act will allow children below the age of 14 years to help their families in 'non-hazardous' family businesses or in the entertainment industry. He gives examples of 3 children, between the ages of 8 and 10 years, being treated like slaves by their uncles. 'Uncle' is a generic term in India. It is possible that the children were sold by their parents to fill their own stomachs. In Bangalore 3 girls were sold to 2 men who assaulted them sexually. They ran away once, only to be resold by their parents to the same 2 men. In Tamil Nadu 3 girls, even younger in age, were sold by their parents to 2 families who employed them as household servants and tortured them. Child labor is abhorrent and must be eliminated. But how? When adults have the right to produce as many children as they want and parents have total control over their children. In 2012 there was a huge controversy when Norwegian Child Protection Service removed 2 Indian children from the care of their parents. Foreigners have accused the Norwegians of using child protection as an excuse to abduct children from their natural parents and hand them over to Norwegians who do not have children. No politician in India would ever dream of protecting children. The reason is simple: Children do not have the right to vote. So to show their hypocritical concern they passed the Right to Education Act which forces private schools to reserve 25% of their seats for children from slums. Very noble. Except that the reason that middle class children do well in studies is that with educated parents they get a lot of help at home, which will show in exam results. So, to stop widespread failure of poor students all exams up to Class 10 were made optional and no student could be detained. Which meant that there was no way of knowing whether children were learning anything in school, so teachers stopped teaching. Only 48% of Class 5 students can read Class 2 texts and only 44% of Class 8 students could do divisions. Government school teachers are incompetent so the crafty politicians thought that RTE was a cheap way of getting votes. Now 18 states are going to revoke the policy of no detention of students for failing in exams. Uttarakhand, a Congress ruled state, says that it cannot afford the cost of RTE. With such enormous right to education is it any wonder that there are 75,000 beggars, that is 21% of the total, who have passed Class 12. What can they do when 2.3 million applied for jobs as peons in UP, around 25,000 with post graduate degrees. Unless you are in politics when you become deputy chief minister. Instead of giving phony rights children should be given the real right: The right not to be born. Will anyone listen?