How can this not be hurting Indian families big time?It's not your fault, but this statement misunderstands the problem. It is a problem that just doesn't even make sense to Americans.
See, you said "Indian families" as if there is a single concept of what "Indian families" means there. They still operate on a separated class system. The lowest classes are not considered "worth" worrying about. So there is at current no way to say "Indian families" as if there is just one classification of "families."
Some strata of Indian society is little different in opportunities than our middle class. Others no different than our rich. But their poor aren't just downtrodden and without money but otherwise little different than any other Indian citizen. They are considered less than human in many ways.
So, here a family, is a family, is a family. All families are considered the same at some root level. But there many millions of people that are not considered "worth" worrying about their families or "worth" worrying about the hell their children are forced to live in.
When we in America say "family" we have a singular concept that fits ALL families. When we see an exploited child we equate that child to our own children. We experience sympathy and that sympathy can lead to help being offered. But, when some Indians see child sex workers from the lowest classes, they do not see themselves and their own children in that situation. It's almost inconceivable that they could be "like" the lower classes. The upper classes have no sympathy, no empathy because there is no feeling of kinship, no assumption of the humanity of the lowest classes.
To us this is an alien concept. We live in nearly as classless a society as one can find. There it is far, far different.
If your mother is a sex worker, YOU will be a sex worker. There is only recently a sense of rising above class in India and it is a concept that has yet to permeate society.
Class stratification has put up a barrier to any kind of cross-commiseration with others who are in this horrible situation. Bet you dollars to donuts the mother and child in this horrible situation are among the lowest rungs of the caste ladder. A Brahmin or Vaishya will not have any sympathy for or feel any kinship with a Dalit.
This is the same kind of stratification the Lotus-Eaters are going for. They want to drive us into the same pit of despair that mires many others in the Third World.