Click to play videoNew Delhi: The Government may have promised the Right to Education to every child but on Children's Day this year just how much of that promise has really been kept. A recent study reveals that India is home to the largest number of child labourers and school drop outs.
The stories of child labourers are not of childhood fantasies but of a reality bitter and stark. This seven-year-old (identity concealed) has spent two years of his life working for 18 hours every day making school bags which he knew he could never carry.
When his tiny fingers got tired he was abused and beaten up mercilessly by his masters. His friends too tell similar stories.
"He used to beat me all over my body. He also abused me," he says. "He used to force us to work from 9 in the morning till mid night," says another child labour.
Almost 42 per cent of our country of a billion people is below the age of 18. They are vulnerable and often exploited and while we exult over Right to Education many children are denied the right to life.
So just how real is even the Eight to Education?
Badarpur Khadar, a village barely 5 kilometres away from the national capital has generations who have never seen a school. No school has ever been built, and no child can be seen with a book here.
The villagers want their children to get education.
"I am illiterate but my child should study and get education," says a villager as other nod in agreement.
But the will to learn still does not guarantee the Right to Education. Will India continue to be blind to its future? Will India ever listen?
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