The touching story of the Filipino kid, Cris Valdez or Kesz, who was rightly awarded the International Children’s Peace Prize is a real telltale of the horrible conditions in which millions of children live or rather forced to live in Third World countries. It was indeed very painful to note that the parents of Kesz who were unsuccessful to sell him at his birth abandoned him later when he was just five years old. I still wonder when this was the fate of Kesz, who was the third child of the nine children the parents had, what must have been the fate of the other children.
Kesz is not an exception. Many unfortunate children meet a similar fate and are left to fend for themselves. The society that allows atrocities or exploitation of children or just feel indifferent toward the children who are abandoned on the streets has no right to raise its head. Of course, the governments and the authorities which turn a blind eye to the pitiable conditions of children do not deserve to remain in power even for a day. The increasing list of billionaires in countries like India or the constant economic growth rates year after year have no value or meaning if there are children wandering on the streets or being exploited or forced to work in squalid and difficult conditions.
As the world keeps falling deeper and deeper into a materialistic void, it is adding thick layers of apathy over its skin to become insensitive to the pain and suffering of the poor and helpless people that include the hapless children. What more evidence is required to prove this point than the fact that the most popular tweet was about Obama retaining his control over the White House.
The courageous efforts of Kesz must reverberate in different parts of the world to inspire others to run such movements to emancipate children from various social evils. — Safi H. Jannaty, Dammam
Fighting for children’s rights
