Pathways to Safety: Locating Child Rights through Literary Narratives of Marginalized Childhoods

Abstract

This study aims to make a comparative reading of Bina Shah’s Slum Child (2010) and Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) through the perspective of the United Nations 1989; Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The text of both novels highlight the experiences of marginalized children in South Asia, depicting how lack of resources, social barriers of caste and class, moreover ethnic biasness force such children toward exclusion and complete denial to rights of respect, education and protection. Slum Child is the story of Laila, a Christian girl born in the slums of Karachi who as a child struggles against the structural neglect and gender oppression. The White Tiger is a narration of the struggles of Balram Halwai who while living in Indian rural setup, faces the bitterness of labor and decides to change his social status. Through illegal enterprise he exploits others thus proving how servitude and exploitation influences childhood detrimentally and standardized injustice. By placing these stories within the theoretical framework of child rights convention, the study argues that literary narratives serve a purpose of a record of what authors feel and write about marginalized childhoods and how their rights can be protected in an unstructured settings. It is an alternate approach to highlight the issues of those who remain neglected in the mainstream social activities. By giving voice to the sufferings and resilience fictional works not only depict systemic violence but also suggest the possibilities of security and dignified upbringing of these children. In the contemporary era, where child protection has become a challenge on global level, South Asian novels offer critical insights into how communities can rethink safeguard and equality for children.