Children of Poverty
One billion children worldwide live below the poverty line.
We are all born equal, some more equal than others of course, but we all exist with probability in our genes and possibility in our futures. In the West these facets are kept alive longer than in many places, but in many countries they are often replaced by a desultory reality before childhood has even skipped into being. The exuberance of a boy is tarnished by the brutality of finding your way in a country of conflict. The innocence of a girl’s life so soon transmutes into fear and oppression, as her world becomes the possession of men.
And yet the innocent exuberance remains despite these things, and it occasionally makes you think that poverty of mind is more impoverishing than poverty itself.
Childhood to many is a Western whimsy, a fanciful stanza that retains a pulse but no heart beat beyond a certain age.
