Take a quick look through the front pages of our papers these days. The headlines scream of rapists, child labour, trafficking......things that we hardly admit to existing in our country.
Yet, what is the reaction from our readers?
Sometimes newspapers need to fear that constantly highlighting such issues may backfire and produce the opposite results to what we hope for. That instead of being wracked with concern because everything is not as perfect as we would like to believe in Bhutan, our readers will grow indifferent, accepting such things as part of everyday life. That they will glance at the headlines and it won’t mean anything to them except a graph with rising numbers.
Child labour is a real issue in Bhutan. And it is a shame because it may happen elsewhere, but it must not happen in a country that declares Gross National happiness to be its national policy that an innocent child does not get to lead the life he or she desires and deserves to.
And there are only two things we can do about this. We can admit that we are, like any other country, cruel to those children who we don’t feel responsible for, that we are the kind of nation that will accept that it’s children are living in despair. Or we can give their lives back to those children who deserve to play outside, not work.
But what we cannot do is globe trot, naming the pluses of the great philosophy of Gross National Happiness, teaching its ‘real meaning’ to the other countries who are unenlightened in our wise ways, while we know in our hearts that our children are suffering back at home.
The malignant hypocrisy hangs in the air when a rich official’s wife ill-treats her maidservant, who is only a child, while her husband attends international conferences and speaks to people about GNH. It happens in Bhutan.
Hypocrisy reeks out of the workshops where the mechanic’s helper is but a small child with a grease-smeared face, who we fail to look at; somehow, our gaze always goes through him.
It is a shame that we must remember every time we tell a newcomer about Bhutan the Shangri la. A shame, because we are the ones responsible for this despicable occurrence, and we are the ones who should act to remove it.
We are the ones who should go beyond saying, ‘tsk tsk, he should be in school,’ to ensuring that he IS. The ones who should think of what kind of persons we re, when we employ that little girl from some remote village to work for us, to look after our children when she herself is no bigger than they are. When we deny her education, and in some deep-rooted way, teach our children, and worse, herself, that she is somehow less of a person than they are.
It needs a brief looking back into our own childhood, into the hurts and losses and all the emotions that we may still remember with clarity, and the realisation that they are just like that. Beneath those rough exteriors, they want a little love, and assurance of an adult, whose shoes they have stepped so early on in their lives while their hearts are still raw with childhood.
And we, the people who say with pride that our national philosophy is GNH, need to give out a little bit of that happiness to these children.
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I totally completely absolutely agree with you! Thanks for bringing relief to my heart.
ReplyDeleteDipika, newspapers never give good news. As a journalist you should know that. So when you see that Bhutanese newspapers are full of stories about rape and child labor etc. it may seem like suddenly there is too much of it, but looking at it from another point of view, it is also a good sign. Finally, people are writing about these issues and giving it attention. As a journalist you should know that. I am rather taken aback by your shallow understanding then that there is a great deal of child labor in Bhutan.
ReplyDeleteAs a citizen you should know that Bhutan is a largely agrarian economy and children have always worked beside the adults to keep the family going. Whether this is child labor or not can be debatable. But the issue of children being employed is always sensitive and Bhutan has already put into place child labor laws and minimum wage laws. To me this is a great achievement. We may not have reached western standards yet, but by putting these legal frameworks in place it is a start.
A country doesnt change overnight and many of our social problems will not disappear overnight. As a writer myself who focuses on these issues I am rather disappointed with your lack of understanding and expectation for a poor country like Bhutan to meet the standards of the west.
As the king of Bhutan and the current PM have said, Bhutan is by no means a GNH state yet. If it seems like Bhutan is a hypocrite preaching about GNH while it confronts these problems itself, just remember that they were not preaching at these conferences but rather trying to bring together people from all over the world to give definition and meaning to a concept and make it more implementable.
I have not said that because the papers carry more stories about rape, trafficking and child labour, they have started existing or increasing. Please read the entry again. You are so used to hearing the same thing over and over again that when you read something new, you still understand what you already know.
ReplyDeleteI am a journalist who writes unhappy stories. I think it is my job to bring out these issues. The coverage is definitely increasing. But sometimes I worry that having too much of these stories make people thick skinned. They stop caring; they accept it as a part of life. They are not shocked anymore. This is my fear.
Again, I have not mentioned helping out parents in the farms as labour. The Labour Act allows children younger than 18 to work certain types of jobs, which I think is a good law in the Bhutan context. My concern is children mechanics, and servants in people’s homes. They are the people who I am concerned about.
And I don’t have to read papers to confirm their existence. I see them everyday. A little servant girl, who takes care of children the same age as her, almost. Who know that this girl is not like them. They can call her names, she does not get to eat the pastries that come in a box, its meant for the children of the house. We all know how things like this matter when you are a child. Sometimes even when you are an adult. I see their eyes and remember what we were like then. You can call this a personal entry. Maybe that makes me brutal. But I am not basing this on blind statistics or newspaper articles.
Also, I do not measure any standards of the west. I don’t care who does what. I just know that the hurt I see is wrong. The desire of the children to go to school and learn, the rebels who could be bright lights behind that roughness. We have a different measure of human rights here. We are people to whom “aye mosh” comes automatically. Compassion is our measure. And we are falling short.
Also, i don’t think it is “Bhutan” going and making the views known. I am not calling “Bhutan” a hypocrite. I don’t know how I can. I am calling the person who keeps a maid in his house, who might smack her once in a while, and then prattles about GNH, a hypocrite. If you call that person “Bhutan”, that is your definition, not mine.
I am a believer in GNH. I believe that perhaps we are the country who can get closest to achieving it. I have written a lot in this blog about GNH, as well. I agree with His Majesty and the PM, we are not there yet.
But, like HIs majesty has said, we need to keep asking ourselves if we are heading there. And I do. True, it is a slow process, removing social ills.
ReplyDeleteI hope that with my writing, someone is inspired to treat a child they may be employing a little more kindly, with more compassion. Everyone must work to reach that Utopian goal. Mine is by writing.
Well, the issue of child labor in third world countries (I hate using the term but have to go with it in this case) is always a fine line. While I am with you in that children should not be mistreated, abused and exploited, I think that without child labor in places like South Asia and Africa, children and families will starve or be in worse predicaments. Mind you, I am not saying that it is ok, but lets be realistic here.
ReplyDeleteI always find it disconcerting when i see ads on the streets of NY that say don't buy this because it was made in a factory in India which used child labor. Well, if you don't buy, you are also indirectly starving those children. What should be solution is that instead of boycotting these goods they should demand that the companies pay them well and provide them some education (and they should prove that).
In Bhutan we do not have orphanages or shelters. There are village kids who are physically abused by their own parents and have no where to go and therefore run away or, because they are so poor are sent to work in someones home. Now here is the tricky situation. In some cases they can be treated worse of than they were in their homes but in many cases, as I have seen, they are treated better. Yes they may have to work for their living or do chores, but they find a second home and escape being starved, abused or neglected. I say this out of experience. I have worked as a reporter in Bhutan and I have seen that in many cases, these children find better homes outside their own families. Sometimes they don't but because we did not have the social services set for them there was no choice but to seek a way through this set up.
Of course times are changing and people's attitudes are changing and hence all those rules on labor wages and laws on child labor etc.
However, the reason why I responded to your post was because I have a problem when general statements on very crucial issues like these
As you said: "Child labour is a real issue in Bhutan. And it is a shame because it may happen elsewhere, but it must not happen in a country that declares Gross National happiness to be its national policy that an innocent child does not get to lead the life he or she desires and deserves to.
And there are only two things we can do about this. We can admit that we are, like any other country, cruel to those children who we don’t feel responsible for, that we are the kind of nation that will accept that it’s children are living in despair. Or we can give their lives back...."
Others may disagree with me but when you say "Child Labor is a real issue in Bhutan" you make it sound like it is happening in unprecedented numbers, like it is in India or Nepal, and it is not.
I am working on a book of a child who was so abused in his own home that he ran away and lived on the streets of Thimphu hoping to make something of his life and he does with the help of people he comes to know. This would never have been possible if he had stayed in his own home.
I am glad to hear your story about the boy. I do not say let children stick to their families, it is sad, but true, sometimes families can be the child's worst enemies. How heartwarming that sometimes children who find horror at their own homes have the good fortune to meet kind people outside.
ReplyDeleteA child above 13 can work as a maidservant in Bhutan. This is the law. There are many children below this age who work in homes, though.
I know a case where a child was beaten badly by her employer, and it even came to the authorities, but the employer happened to be 'well connected'.
Sure our numbers are not so bad. Like i said, i do not compare. We have had cases of an employer trying to rape his 'servant girl'. there may be cases that are not reported. There are cases of girls being illegaly brough in from darjeeling, kalimpong, siliguri, which actually amounts to trafficking. chillingly, these girls have no records. They do not exist in bhutan, officially. It is a badly kept secret.
I think our disagreement stems from our perspectives, u look at the brighter side. But I agree with you, all servant girls are not mistreated. If that was the case, it would have been easy, we would just ban the practice and build a home for these girls. but because some of them lead better lives at someone's homes, things are so complicated. what we want at the end of the day is that a child be educated, be allowed to be a child.