Dear Kailash Satyarthi, when will you speak up about missionary baby sellers?

Some horrific tales of child trafficking rocked the country earlier this week. A missionary home founded by Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa, was caught selling babies. The racket was busted after a couple who had paid up and was expecting to receive their child, was left high and dry. Sisters from the missionary home were arrested and interrogated, and it has now emerged that a largescale baby-selling racket was underway.

The sisters had worked out quite a business model. Many suspect that the clampdown on foreign funds is what caused them to resort to such barbarity, but nonetheless, that is certainly not a valid excuse. The sisters it is believed took in unwed mothers, and sold off their babies, charging the buyers in lakhs. Some local media reports suggest that as many as 280 children from various missionary homes across the country are missing today. Most of the pregnant women are also allegedly minors, which gives this entire racket an even more sinister shade that is beyond the scope of this article.

Children in India, especially those from poor backgrounds, are subject to all sorts of inhuman and damaging treatment. It increasingly looks like the church is a big party to this. Surprisingly though, most people who have spoken out against this or worked in this field, never mentioned let alone acted against the church in all these years. In fact, unlike in other domains, it is for the first time that we are being fully exposed to the church’s atrocities in this domain. Considering these people have worked in this field for years, were they really unaware of a such a large-scale operation until today?

Kailash Satyarthi for instance, emerged from the shadows and became the face child rights, not only in India but globally. He is hailed internationally as the man who rescued thousands of children from atrocities, and has even managed to bag a Nobel Prize for it. Somehow, throughout his career, we have never heard one word from him about the church indulging in the sale of children. This has been his field for decades, so it is unlikely that he was ignorant about it.

But what is even more shocking than his supposed ignorance is how he has chosen to remain quiet about this. Kailash Satyarthi is the face of child rights, he has a Nobel Prize, and therefore whatever he says is bound to be taken seriously and covered widely. However, he has refrained from condemning this racket and rebuking those who are at the helm of it. Somebody in his position not speaking up when something of this nature comes up, is quite shameful. Something massive has erupted in his field of work, and his silence about this can easily be construed as tacit support.

Once cannot expect anything better from the mainstream media, who pretend not to realize the magnitude of what has been uncovered, and report about it minimally, only because they have to. But for somebody who built a career rescuing children in distress, one wonders what makes such a person go silent. If Kailash Satyarthi is really committed to the cause, unlike the mainstream media, why be so selective?

Is it because the church is involved in this one, and Kailash Satyarthi depends on foreign funds which might stop flowing the moment he takes on the church? One cannot be sure about this, but the fact remains that he has steered clear from this issue, which is a crying shame.