Childhood is the primary stage of life. It knows no worry or anxiety, no good or evil. It is the period of both ignorance and innocence. The heart of a child is as pure as a crystal and it is also said that “God lives in a child”.
But some people without understanding the importance of the fact that a child is God’s gift, abuse them to an extent that their future is ruined forever. However if they are lucky enough, they are guided by a mentor in the future who changes their view of the world explaining the significance of life and expliaining the fact that all individuals are not the same.
Child abuse is a crime which is committed by individuals who are frustrated by their own lives. Abusing a child is as serious crime as killing a person because a child is soft by nature and any abuse that he or she goes through in early stages of life, leaves a lasting imprint on its mind for always.
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The moment his memory flashes of the abuses that he or she has faced in their lifetime, however happy that moment might be, the child’s heart is filled with sadness.
However hard the child tries to forget or erase such memories all he or she ends up in is being frustrated. Some of the victims of child abuse lose their confidence forever and lead their lives as introverts.
Child abuse occurs in various forms. In extreme cases a girl child is found raped, some children are beaten up by their parents and at times school teachers. As a matter of fact, child labour is also a form of continuous child abuse.
At an age when the child should attend school, he or she is forced to work in factories, at workplaces and as domestic help in our own houses. If we practice child labour, we are also abusing the child, despite the justification that we are helping the child’s family to earn their daily bread.
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Childhood is the golden period of life and it is also said that God resides in a child’s heart. Abusing a child is like insulting the God you preach. A child has a soft heart and is free from all kinds of worries and anxieties as a result of which even a little misbehaviour with him leaves a permanent mark in his mind.
Child abuse includes both physical as well as verbal abuse. Even when a child is not abused physically, there are cases where he or she is abused verbally on a constant basis. This behaviour affects the mental behaviour of the child to such an extent that at times psychiatrist help is needed to get them back to normal mental stage. Not only have such children loosed the happiness that every child deserves in childhood but they also fail to understand what happiness means for a child.
The memories of childhood have their own significance in one’s life. As one grows up, one feels more and more attached with his childhood, the best period in an individual’s life. Having no anxieties, worries or work, a child is free from the dirty and filthy noise of the worldly life.
A child’s motto of life is “eat, drink and be merry”. And when the child is abused, it is easy to understand what kind of memories he or she will develop.
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Extreme cases of child abuse include; the case of Dhananjoy Chatterjee , a security guard who was executed by hanging for raping and murdering 14 year old Hetal Parekh on March 5, 1990 at her apartment residence in Bhawanipur, Kolkata. Aarushi murder mystery also involves the case of child abuse where a girl was killed for no fault of hers. Such cases are existing examples proving that demons still exist in our society and these demons can only be killed if the individuals and the government join hands for a fight against child abuse. We should keep in mind the fact that if we want to abolish child labour from its very roots we should first take oath that we will not employ and child to help us in the domestic purposes.
Every owner of a factory should keep in mind not to employ child labourers. The harmful effects of child abuse are essential to be understood by one and all to abolish it completely.