The labourer who can only dream about freedoms of childhood

Today I’ll be sharing the story of 13 years old child labourer Fawad.

He works as a salesman at his elder brother’s rented shop where they sell curtains and bed sheets.

He has five brothers and a sister. All four of his brothers work in the same field but at different rented shops.

All of his elder brothers are illiterate and have never been to school. Same is the case with his parents but Fawad attended school till Grade Five.

After failing in Grade Five for three times, his family decided to make him quit studies and forced him to join his elder brother at work as his elder brother is physically-challenged and needed a loyal and hardworking salesman.

As I met Fawad and asked him about his past life, his life before joining his brother at work to which he sadly replied that he’d often miss that life.

He exclaimed, “I miss my friends, hanging out with them, visiting amusements parks, I miss my school teachers they were amazing,”. Despite what he said  I felt he was satisfied with his current life as well since he was helping his elder brother to earn his living, and their family’s too.

Fawad believes his brothers won’t decide anything which would harm Fawad or won’t be in his favour, so he lets them decide his future.

Even if he would have completed his studies he wanted his brothers to decide his future as he has an unshakable belief that they love him a lot.

Fawad’s best part of the day is when he returns back home from hectic 12 hours shift and sleeps. Away from the thousands of thoughts that would make him happy and sad for variegated reasons, he loves to drift into the world of dreams where he knows no one will point fingers to him, nor would he be responsible for delivering the best.

A place where he would be himself, unapologetically.

Just like Fawad, our educational system, too, has been in the dreamworld for far too long now.

Such kids who would enjoy school earlier and yet remain deprived of the benefits clearly state the fact that reforms to turn their lives around, need to be implemented.

It may not benefit Fawad personally but if acted upon quickly,, we can always prevent more Fawads joining the survival struggle without educating themselves