Tara was a maid working in a household of Lahore. Lot of village people in Pakistan move to big cities in search of better income. They have lots of children with them and they make them work in posh houses for few thousand ruppees a month. Tara's parents also did the same when coming from Qasur (a small town near Lahore). Her father was a diabetic and couldn’t afford costly medication. Her mom took her and three other siblings to this city of 60 million.
Their first need is a quarter - a room in which the whole family can live. The tradition is that the family who provides them with a room then owns one family member as the servant for almost all the household chores. The girl or the boy, usually 9-14 years of age, then works from 6a.m. to midnight defying all laws of decency and of prohibiting child labour.
Tara also worked like that. Only 13-years-old, she already had five years of experience making chapattis, cooking rice and curries, dishwashing, laundry, ironing, and going to market for groceries. Her younger sister served in an adjacent house while their elder brother took tailoring courses to further the family income.
Realizing the importance of education, all of them decided their youngest sibling would go to school. He is now in grade four but is doing poorly as there is no coaching available to him. There are separate education systems for poverty stricken people and for rich ones. The former don't impart education or training of any sort. The result is that unless they pass beyond 10th grade, they never find a decent job and resort to drugs and crime. Lately, there have been terrorist groups who pay heavily to lure them.
One day their grandfather came and declared that Tara must be married. At her age the poor kid didn't even realize the full impact of the word. She thought of it as a doll's marriage and started to dream like one. She was married in a remote village because most of the marriages in Pakistan are made on clan/ tribe bases. It’s considered a sin to marry outside of one's baradree (clan).
Article comments
1 - Ms. Keighley (qing-jao)
This is one of the saddest, most heartstopping stories I have ever read. The compassion, pity and pure sympathy one feels for Tara is immense, especially if one realizes, as I do, that this story is true down to the last detail, and an actual reality at this moment for a poor suffering child. After reading this, I wish, a wish almost overpowering in its strength, that I could help Tara and the other girls like her. So deserving is she, of life, liberty, and happiness; for having helped her family, and acted with such loyalty and respect in regard to their wishes, that when she is hurt, and her life before her made unjustly bleak, something inside you must rise up and say "This is Wrong!"
To you who wrote this article, Thank you.
Writing this was a great act of courage and compassion. I hope it may bring aid, but even if it does not, the fact that you tried shall not be overlooked. There Is a use to it. Please believe it, and continue to write without feeling abashed for having informed and taught. Your writing helps us all, I think. Thank you, again, so much.
With Sincerity,
- Ms. Keighley