Why Richard Gere makes Oprah relevant in Nithari

How lovely to see Richard Gere dance with Bipasha, and kiss Mandira Bedi, and dance with sex workers on stage, and attend Parmeshwar Godrej's bash in Juhu where most of Mumbai's jet set will be in attendance tomorrow night... but the whole point of his visit to India, assuming there still is one, has been completely forgotten. One presumes the song and dance is about Gere's pet cause - AIDS.

And here's the link between AIDS, street children, paedophiles in Goa, and the Nithari mass murders as well as Oprah's school in South Africa.

India is reportedly the second largest victim to AIDS in the world. (I say reportedly considering the 2007 UN report put some countries in Africa much higher - for instance Lesotho's incidence rate for AIDS amongst adults at a whopping 23 to India's 1.5)

How is Oprah's school in South Africa relevant to all of this? Oprah's school is one of the few initiatives (and no, I don't get a commission for saying this) that is taking into account the fact that at the next level, the most vulnerable victims of the disease are children made homeless by poverty, destitution and the havoc wreaked amongst their parents by the disease itself.

The leadership academy Oprah has built received their applications from families devastated by AIDS, where largely teenage girls managed to work by night, supporting their siblings after losing their parents to AIDS, besides studying. If homelessness, poverty and unhealthy environments aren't precarious enough circumstances to push one into the hands of sexual predators, and traffickers, working by night to feed your family sure as hell is. The Academy addresses the need to stabilise the futures of such potential victims too.

Why is that relevant to us? Well, in terms of India, according to the recently released 2007 State of the World's Children - 1103371 thousand of the world's children live in India with an average life expectancy of merely 64 years. 76 % of these are reportedly attending primary school. 46% still undergo a child marriage. India's adult literacy rate ration is 73 men to every 48 woman. Of these, 120:112 is the primary school enrollment ration, and 79:72 is actual attendance. The secondary school enrollment ratio dramatically drops to 59:47 and attendance therein to 54:46.
As we stand, we are nowhere near ensuring safe, protected, fulfilling environments in which our children can study, and progress out of this situation.

Thus, with or without an AIDS epidemic to devastate us, we are a nation with poor educational infrastructure, pushing a bulk of our children towards manual labour, agricultural, tertiary and blue collar jobs — unprotected and disorganised segments that are the most vulnerable to the disease.

With the disease to grapple with, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, India has the single largest incidence of street children in the world. Reports of conservative estimates approximate that at 18 million children. (International Herald Tribune Jan 26, 2006). That's last year's estimate. Since then, the Child Labour Laws have come into effect in India. Which means, that none of these 18 million children now have legal recourse to employment in any part of the country - whether as tea boys, peons, table cleaners (however horrific it may seem to you and me, taking away their ability to be legally employed did not provide them with alternatives by which to support themselves, thus making them all the more vulnerable to predators). All those children and then some, are all still out there!

18 million children on our streets, most without parents or guardians, are vulnerable to the attacks of molesters, paedophiles and organ traffickers such as those in Nithari, human traffickers, drug dealers, and diseases such as TB, Malaria, and AIDS.

What's all the fuss about education for? Oprah's school addresses a vital need in the battle against AIDS too. It ensures that the survivors of the disease, rendered vulnerable by its predatory action, don't fall further pray to the cyclical nature of the epidemic by removing them from its immediate environment and its immediate repercussions. It breaks patterns of social behaviour reinforced by the saturated environment, and pushes them to seek higher standards of living, hope for stability, value environments and situations that provide safety and protection.

Above all it teaches children to value themselves, believe that they can change the circumstances in which they were born, push for that change, and permits them the opportunity in which to engage in these. It takes them off the street and into an environment that is safe - away from hunger that may push them into either lawlessness or towards lurking predators.

Paedophilia in Goa, organ trafficking in Nithari, gang rape in Bhiwandi - it's just the first week of the year. I think we need more than a dance and a bash. We need schools like Oprah's.