1. Joanna O. Nalam
8-73
A Child’s Nightmare
You have younger brothers and sisters, right? How do feel about them? Annoying? Stressful?A
waste of time? Set aside those thoughts, and picture your brother or sister, sitting by a loom,
blisters all over, making those jeans and sweatshirts your wearing. Still think they’re that bad?
Well unfortunately, over 2 million children are working hazardous labours that cause mental and
physical problems. We must put an end to this nightmare. Today, children are taken advantage
of by people who are selfish and greedy enough to use them as commodities, labourers, and
soldiers for their own satisfaction and financial gain.
You must be wondering, how did child labour start anyway? Well there are tons of reasons
why. In my opinion, it all started with the government. Law makers are cruel. They make laws
that can only benefit rich people. They do not look beyond their wealth and into the world where
the poor live. The low class people work hard for the rich, day and night, in order to live and buy
necessities for their families. And if the money is not enough, they loan from moneylenders who
are impatient for pay-back money, parents are now forced to bond their children to a life of
misery from workshop masters. For example, Fatima, a character in the novel, Iqbal, was bonded
to Hussain Khan, a carpet factory master; because her father lost everything after the
embankment broke. (D’Adamo 19). Other children like Salman, Ali, Maria and Karim, also from
the novel, had parents that had no money to send their children to schools or had no access to
education themselves. The government does not provide adequate school facilities, leaving
children ignorant they are living a wrong life, uneducated and helpless.
As a result to the causes of child labour, children experience mental and physical problems.
“From that moment, Maria stopped talking and speaking”(D’ Adamo 77). Because of child
labour, children intend to close up as an act of coping after losing hope and family. Not only is
that, their rights are taken away from them; rights such as, education, proper health care,
protection, and to be loved. Twig, a child in the novel, Iqbal that works for Hussain Khan, is a
malnourished child at the point where you can actually count his ribs!(D’ Adamo 52). Other
children even suffer from skin diseases like scabies from unsanitary working places and blisters
from the chains that lock them to their looms. And some even lose their minds because of
extreme punishment given by masters. Children who fail to please their masters are sent to the
Tomb, an old cistern, where they are left for days to starve. It is dark and hot in the summer,

2. Joanna O. Nalam
8-73
making it hard to breathe. And their only company are snakes and sometimes scorpions. In result
to this, children often experience insanity and in extreme circumstances, even death (D’ Adamo
38, 40,41).
In order to stop and break the chains of child labour, we, the people who have knowledge of
child slaves, must encourage others to join community programs that specialize in ending child
labour and exploitation. We must raise awareness, scatter banners and posters everywhere, make
videos and spread it through the media. Not only that, teens can also participate in small worldly
activities such as the Vow of Silence, that is done every November 30th, where over a 1 000 000
students takean oath of not talking, texting, tweeting all, no Facebook usage, no form of any
communication for 24 hours. This is for the children that do not receive education, for the
children that are forced to work and for malnourished children. Doing this, the world will notice
our actions, forcing the government to make laws that ban child labour and to punish immoral
employers that hire children. Also to demolish workshops where children are kept and change it
into a well-constructed school where children can learn and not work.
We must protect the children of this generation, so that they may not experience the horror of
today’s reality. We will want to give them a better world where hope and peace are morning
graces, friendship and love as mid-day traits and safety and knowledge as bedtime lullabies. Go,
spread out, preach the things that cause child labour and the effects it had done to the children.
Help stop its cycle and give the rights of each child back. We all have that point in life where we
have that thirst to help end terrible things, well, this is the perfect time. Will you let it pass or
will you take a chance?