Studying the magnitude and forms of exploitation of children in a slum in Delhi

Pages:369-373
Taruna Narula (Department of Humanities and Sciences, YMCA University of Science and Technology, Faridabad, Haryana)

Child abuse has serious physical and psycho-social consequences which adversely affect the health and overall well-being of a child. Physical abuse of children involves inflicting bodily injuries or forcing them to engage in physically harmful activities. In Indian situation, it includes torture, cruel abuse, excessive punishment and restraint that create substantial risk of physical harm to the child. Child abuse also poses substantial risk to the child’s mental health and development, sometimes even causing death. This is now a focus of public attention in the society. Cases of suspected abuses are often featured in the news media. Physicians and others in medical community play an important role in identifying possible victims of child abuse. Most researchers and authorities agree on the basic issue of child abuse resulting from parental misuse or exploitation of the rights of parents or of other guardians to control and discipline children under their care, which is detrimental to the child’s health and well being. To study the magnitude and forms of exploitation a survey was undertaken .In this survey 100 sample size was taken of children and parents in Delhi’s slum area. It was conducted for the purpose of study mostly children works as industrial labour and household workers. Most of the cases are of mental and verbal abuse, in which parents are also involved as they use abusive words for their children in anger. Even children are forbidden to go to school which directly challenges the government’s law of free education. Survey showed that there is less awareness among children regarding government organizations which fight against child exploitation.