Children and Families in the Third World: Dilemma or Hope?

Abstract

The plight of children and families in the developing countries should arouse the conscience of the world for more than one reason. The whole question of man’s survival on this planet has become linked with the problems arising out of poverty and deprivation on one hand, and of man’s technical ability for self annihilation on the other. The extremely high infant mortality, the horrendous toll of infectious diseases and the abject poverty — with all its frightful consequences in physical deprivation, emotional instabilities, and social handicaps — are receiving growing recognition. Not so well appreciated is the fact that the historical process that created these societies of immense differences in wealth and social power has also made them extremely insecure. These societies are in a process of rapid change. The struggle for a new order gives rise to responses with a variety of normal and abnormal manifestations, with opposing forces locked in grim battle. The struggles raging in these societies (of the Third World) have a truly global character. One can only hope that the struggles do not turn into conflicts which produce either prolonged psycho-social disturbances or short-term intense aberrations capable of overshadowing the normal course of evolution of human societies. It is contended that the ‘Dilemma’ arises only when the compulsions of the inexorable process of change are not recognized, and the present is viewed in the framework of an unchangeable or slowly changing past. In other words, when the narrow interests of today blur the vision of a better tomorrow.