The Plight of Indian Children
No country on this earth can rival the need of India’s children.
The untouchability feature in the caste system is one of its cruelest features. It is seen by many as one of the strongest racist phenomenon in the world. India has the largest number of children in the world. It’s illiteracy rates are as high as 90% in some Dalit* communities. Of India’s nearly 400,000,000 children under 18 years of age, 70,000,000 are child laborers, 10,000,000 are bonded laborers (a form of slavery to pay off family debts), 13,000,000 are homeless and 2,000,000 are abandoned in the street without families.
India has the largest child labor force in the world. Estimates show that as many as 150,000,000 children are put to work or left out in the street to beg. Forced into labor is the lesser evil these children face. They are commonly assaulted, raped and murdered.
For a Dalit child, the garbage dumps are their playgrounds and going to school is an impossible dream. Tragically, each day is one of survival searching in the garbage for something to eat. Alone, hungry and unloved, these children want to be cared for and need to be told that God loves them.
Grace TotalLife Ministries reaches out to as many of the homeless children as financially possible through our Orphanage Ministry.
*Dalit – The word “dalit” comes from Sanskrit root “dal” and means, “broken, ground down, downtrodden, or oppressed.” In the traditional Indian caste system, a member of the lowest caste.