The Widespread Havoc of Child Trafficking in India

In India, one of the most populous countries in the world located in South Asia, 472 million young children are in danger every day while residing there. Human trafficking has been an incredibly difficult and problematic issue that India has suffered with for many years. However, child trafficking has been getting substantially worse than regular human trafficking over the past few years. Human trafficking for sexual purposes has been present in India for an incredibly long time, but trafficking children for labor and slavery has only recently received national attention.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), approximately every 8 minutes a child is trafficked in India. Children are lured in by adults offering them jobs and money for simple work but are tricked and enslaved to work grueling hours, be beaten and abused, get little to no food, and sometimes used for sex. In 2016, the NCRB reported that 45% of human trafficking was for forced labor and 22% was for prostitution, other 33% was for servitude or for forced marriages.

An estimate of 135,000 children are trafficked per year and in 2016, only 14,183 children were saved. 61% of the 14,183 are males and 39% are female. Locals in India are not the only cause of these high amounts of child trafficking. Tourists travel from countries where child trafficking laws are strict and extremely frowned upon to India for sex with children.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made India's situation much worse. During the COVID-19 pandemic, India had to enforce a lockdown of 1.4 billion people. India's citizens were forced to be unemployed and without pay for months, which drove them to extreme measures to survive. Many poor families had to sell off their children to have enough money to have food on their plates. In the span of 11 days, 92,000 cases of child abuse and negligence were reported to authorities.

Many families were desperate enough to sell their young women for extremely low amounts, such as, in Jharkhand, $415 (USD). In comparison, healthy goats were being sold at around twice that price. Eventually, there will be a massive influx of child labor for the first time in 20 years, according to predictions by the International Labor Organization.

Another major factor in the ever-worsening problem of child trafficking is early marriages. Parents marry their kids off to other families for money, similarly to selling their children off, due to having no other option to survive. The UN expects 13 million child marriages will take place over the next decade worldwide. In 2020 alone, there were around 500,000 child marriages across the world. India has the worst problems for child marriages than any other country. Approximately 27% of girls are married before their 18th birthday. With the pandemic expected to be coming to a close, it is predicted that child marriage rates will fall drastically due to families being able to financially support themselves.

Unless new policies are enacted and stricter rules are enforced, the alarming rates of child marriages, child trafficking, and child prostitution will continue to rise. The longer the issue stays unresolved, the more children will be prone to physical and mental abuse. However, there is hope, as many communities in India are being educated about how immoral and wrongful child labor is. If this continues, India's communities will give their children more opportunities for a normal, optimal childhood for their growth.

Air Pollution in New Delhi

New Delhi is one of the most populated areas in India, as New Delhi is the capital of India. It carries a population of over 16 million people. With a population so large, problems begin to arise, which is the case for New Delhi. The people, city, and environment are all suffering from air pollution.

Air pollution is the spreading of toxic material in the air. Air pollution is a big issue that creates problems in Delhi. This issue has become so severe that they advised people to stay inside to prevent respiratory diseases. They even shut down schools due to these same fears. Air pollution can lead to many health problems, most of which are respiratory. These problems can become fatal and lead to about 2 million deaths each year.

The government must work to begin to quell its air pollution issues. It first must start by preventing any more air pollution from being created. Which leads to the question: what is causing the air pollution?

Many factors are contributing to air pollution. Crop burning is one action causing issues. After a harvest, farmers burn crop waste to prepare their fields for the next harvest. It is a convenient way to remove any waste leftover from their harvest and prepare them for the next planting season. Crop burning happens most often in the winter when Delhi’s air pollution levels are at their highest, showing a correlation. This practice has been banned, but still done by farmers, meaning that air pollution will continue to grow through this practice.

Another thing contributing to this issue is Delhi’s large population. The size of its population creates a plethora of complications for the state. First off, the large population leads to many people driving at once. These vehicles burning petrol and diesel lead to air pollution for the atmosphere and are responsible for about 67% of Delhi’s air pollution.

Another thing this population need is housing. Construction workers build new residential areas for this growing population. Construction leads to dust flying into the air, which also contributes to air pollution.

Construction also needs space to build. The construction workers cut down trees to create room for construction, hurting the environment in two ways. Without trees, they can not absorb carbon dioxide in the air. The areas which were once helping with air pollution are also now causing more harm to the environment.

This large population also leads to large amounts of garbage and waste that are then burned to create more room. This burning of trash is horrible for the environment, and it contributes to the massive amount of air pollutants in the air of Delhi. Factories and industrial areas also release toxins into the air. These two air pollutants are very harmful to the environment.

In Delhi, the air quality index(AQI) tends to be in the hundreds, with its current AQI at the time of writing being 165, which is 8x higher than the WHO average standard. The main pollutant in Delhi is PM2.5, with a concentration of 59.2 µg/m³. PM2.5 pollutants are particulate matter with a diameter of fewer than 2.5 micrometers that come from power plants, vehicles, and many other places. These particles are more dangerous than particles like PM10. They can bypass the nose and throat and enter the lungs and the circulatory system.

Delhi and its people suffer as its air pollution worsens every day. It is estimated that 3000 metric tons of air pollutants are released daily. Every day Delhi wastes not working to solve the issue, the more air pollution there will be and the more health problems for people. The government must work to ban practices more efficiently, plant more trees, and find a way to limit traffic, and find a way to put fewer vehicles on the road.

The Failure of Bihar’s Women Education System

In Bihar, education seems to be improving. The literacy rate has gone from 47% to 61.8% according to 2001 and 2011 censuses, a massive improvement from what it was before. There are now fewer dropouts. There are more institutions for higher education. However, while there is an increase, an issue can be found when examined deeply. Women are not getting the same quality education that men are in Bihar.

While the increase in literacy is good, there is a divide among men and women. In Bihar, 71.20% of men are literate whereas only 51.5% of women are literate. There is a 20% margin between the two genders and this brings questions regarding the education system in Bihar and its equality, especially because Bihar is near the bottom when it comes to female literacy rates.

Women trying to get an education in Bihar faces many challenges. The first main one is the importance of women in agriculture. Women deal with crop production, livestock, and provide food and other necessities to their families. Due to their responsibilities, they struggle to find time to get a proper education.

Women also have fewer rights than men in Bihar and suffer from gender discrimination, inadequate healthcare access, lower income, limited inheritance, and land rights. Even further, these women have poor school environments. They have unpotable drinking water and toilet facilities, improper building, and a lack of teachers. Not only do they have a lack of teachers, but they also lack female teachers, who are safer for girls and protect them from abuse and exploitation.

If a girl were to enroll in a school, chances are, she would have to drop out. Data shows that as students age, the amount of women decreases while the number of men remains unchanged. The cause for this is that girls share the responsibilities of their families and must learn skills. They must work and are discouraged from getting an education.

Another issue is that female child are valued less than male children. Part of this is due to the dowry system. In this system, the wife's family must give gifts such as cash or property to the husband’s family. This takes a financial toll on the wife’s family. Women are viewed as a financial burden due to this system, leading to the neglect of female children.

Another thing that leads to the neglect of female children is that women live with the husband. On the contrary, the son cares for their parents, leading to parents caring far more for their male sons as they will be directly affected, whereas the education of the female child will not affect them as much.

In areas such as Bihar, women are neglected and their education suffers. They act as workers and providers for the family but lack education due to their great responsibilities. The discrimination of women in Bihar is prominent. With equality, better women's education can be fought for, the voices of women can be heard, and they will be able to improve their own lives.