A Sixteen-Year-Old’s Silent Struggle

She is just sixteen. While many of her classmates are preparing for college, choosing courses, and sketching bright futures, her path ended abruptly after Class 12. Instead of walking into a university, she walked into strangers’ homes as a maid.

Born into poverty, she was raised in a household where being a girl was considered a burden. Her father made sure her brother studied in private schools, while she was left without encouragement or guidance. With no one to value her dreams, she abandoned her studies and began working for survival.

Soon, hunger and despair led her to steal food and items from the houses where she worked. She sold them, using the money to buy substances that numbed her pain. What began as survival soon became addiction. At home, she started drinking alcohol, following the pattern of her father. Over time, she lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong — not because she lacked values, but because she was denied the nurturing environment where such values are formed.

The Cycle That Breaks Girls

This is not a single tragic story. It reflects how poverty, gender bias, and lack of emotional care trap many adolescent girls. While boys are valued and invested in, girls are silenced and neglected. The mother, caught between an indifferent husband and a deteriorating daughter, slips into drinking herself. Food is scarce, affection is absent, and safety is lost when the girl sometimes spends her nights in public parks.

The cycle is painfully clear:

• Poverty steals opportunities.

• Gender myths silence the girl child.

• Neglect of mental health robs stability.

Together, they pull children into a spiral where choices are no longer choices, but desperate attempts to survive.

Why Emotional Regulation and Relationship Management Matter

If this girl had been supported early in emotional regulation and relationship management, her journey could have been very different. Emotional regulation helps adolescents recognize and handle feelings of anger, despair, or rejection. Relationship management teaches them to communicate, trust, and seek help instead of isolating themselves.

These are not just soft skills — they are protective shields. They empower young people to pause before a wrong step, to think about consequences, and to understand that their worth is not defined by neglect at home.

Simple interventions such as teaching adolescents safe ways to express emotions, creating peer support groups, or connecting them with mentors can make all the difference. With such foundations, a young girl could have found healthier coping mechanisms instead of substances, and support networks instead of abandonment.

When Trouble Has Already Begun

What about children who are already trapped in the spiral — those using substances, stealing for survival, or drifting into unsafe spaces? Too often, society shrugs and says, “It’s too late.” But it is never too late.

Intervention, when done with compassion, can change the direction of a life that feels lost. A safe environment — through counselling, community care, or structured rehabilitation — gives these children what they never had: stability.

In counselling, they learn to name their pain instead of numbing it. In recovery spaces, they relearn the rhythm of daily life — regular meals, rest, and trust. Through guidance, they discover that they still have choices left. What seems like a wasted life is often just a neglected life, waiting for one hand to reach out and say, “You matter. Let’s try again.”

This stage is fragile. Without intervention, the spiral deepens. But with timely care, even those slipping away can be brought back — not as idealized versions of who they “should have been,” but as resilient young people who finally know they are valued.

A Larger Responsibility

Policies and schemes may exist, but they cannot replace the role of love and care in a child’s life. A scholarship cannot console a daughter told she is unwanted. A government program cannot replace the encouragement that parents refuse to give.

This is where responsibility extends beyond families and the state. Communities, schools, neighbours, and extended relatives all play a part in breaking the cycle of neglect. When families fail, society must not turn its back.

Teachers who notice a child withdrawing, neighbours who see a girl sleeping in parks, community members who hear silent cries — all hold keys to prevention. Silence and indifference are as dangerous as abuse itself.

If we want real change, we must confront not only poverty but also the beliefs and behaviours that fuel neglect. The girl child must not only be protected on paper but also valued in practice — in families, classrooms, and communities.

A Call to Society

No child should have to sleep in a park because her family does not want her. No adolescent should silence her hunger with substances because no one offered food or care.

Poverty and patriarchy may shape circumstances, but emotional care and early skill-building can change outcomes. For those already struggling, compassion and timely intervention can bring them back.

Every girl deserves dignity, encouragement, and opportunity. When we nurture that, we do not just save one child — we save society from losing another life to neglect.