A wise decision

The decision taken by the Foreign Ministry to hold accountable both the parents and job agencies for sending underaged girls for foreign employment is a timely move that would prevent their exploitation by unscrupulous elements.

This comes in the wake of reports that a large number of underaged girls from the liberated Eastern Province were leaving for Middle East jobs after falsifying their passports with respect to age with the connivance of both the parents and job agents.

These young girls barely into their teens are obviously being made sacrificial lambs by unfeeling parents to tide over their domestic economic woes. One has only to recall the plight of Rizana Nafeek who is today on death row in a Saudi prison, to realise the dangers of sending young inexperienced girls for overseas jobs for which they have no training.

Clearly these young girls barely into their teens cannot be expected to have any job skills or training and will obviously be employed for menial tasks. They would also be ready game for heartless vultures as the horror stories that emerge from time to time in relation to our housemaids would testify.

This exodus of young girls as domestic help to the Middle East comes at a time when the Government is making every effort to export a value added product after giving all prospective job seekers necessary skills training.

This is with a view to obtain enhanced pay and other facilities to this hitherto neglected segment who had been the mainstay of our forex earnings over the years. This sudden exodus of young unskilled labour could only reattach us with a label as exporters of housemaids.

Perhaps economic reasons may be the driving force that compel parents to look for any avenue to improve their lot. In this task they are not beyond even using their underaged female offspring in sheer desperation, as the reports indicate.

True, the new hopes that have sprung among the Eastern populace for material possessions following the change in their living environment may have prompted many adults to send their young offspring seeking greener pastures. The phenomenon may also be associated with the desire for upward mobility in their new environment triggered by the economic boom.

But these adults should also be made aware of the pitfalls of their actions. Most of these underaged job aspirants are from rural areas in other parts of the country as well. They are easily exploited by unscrupulous job agencies who go to the extent of even altering the true age of applicants.

In the end these innocent victims who are supplanted in an alien culture could only meet with grief as the Rizana experience shows. Besides the issue goes into the core of our value system.

We still live in a society where children are treasured possessions in the family unit who are showered parental care and indulgence. Steps should be taken therefore to preserve this vital ingredient in our a social ethos. We see this phenomenon where young children broken away from their family moorings are left to fend for themselves.

Some of them are given away to domestic service at a very tender age. These children of schoolgoing age instead are made to slave and suffer various indignities just to supplement the meagre family incomes.

There is a law making it compulsory for children of a stipulated age limit to undergo schooling. Today we see little children begging in buses with their parents. There is also the phenomenon of street children who have severed ties with family and are living on the fringes of the law.

These children who have shed the innocence of childhood at a very tender age eventually fall prey to criminal elements adding to the crime statistics of the country. The authorities particularly the Child Protection Authority should seek out such children and strive to bring them into the ambit of civilised living after proper rehabilitation and counselling.

Its functions should be expanded to include ensuring that children enter schooling in their formative years. Some developed countries pursue such programmes to wean the younger generation away from evil influences.

A programme also should be launched to rehabilitate slum children and bring them into the general mainstream. The NCPA should strive to play a more proactive role without merely confining itself to deal with cases of cruelty to children or foreign adoptions and go into the core of the problems affecting the children in our society.