Tag Archive for: India

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Rampant Child Labor Goes Unaddressed in Kashmir

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By Sana Altaf [from IPSnews.net] India

SRINAGAR, (IPS) – Fourteen-year-old Shafat Ahmad works as a domestic helper in the house of a Srinagar-based government employee in Kashmir. His younger sister embroiders shawls in an unregistered textile venture in her native village of Beeru.

“When my father first brought me here, my employer promised to send me to school,” Shafat told IPS. Though he is keen to pursue his education, he has yet to attend a single class.

The Ahmed siblings’ story is just one among thousands, as increasing numbers of children across the Kashmir Valley become mired in a child labor epidemic that strips them of their childhood and the chance for a decent education.

Kashmir’s handicrafts industry, which has long served as the backbone of the state economy, has recently gained more sinister recognition as one of the state’s leading employers of child laborers.

A prominent sociologist, B.A. Dabla, told IPS that the shawl industry was a particularly ravenous employer of children, especially young girls, whose small hands are useful for the intricate work of shawl making. Read more

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Asia Leads World in Child-Labor Products: US Report

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AFP

WASHINGTON – India, Bangladesh and the Philippines lead the world in the number of products made by child workers, a US government stock-taking of the global scale of underaged labor revealed Monday.

Some 130 types of goods – from building bricks and soccer balls to pornography and rare ores used in cellphones – involve child labor in 71 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the Department of Labor said.

“We believe that we all have God-given potential … and every child should be given the right to fulfil their dreams,” said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis at the release of the 10th annual “Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor.”

Focusing this year on hazardous work performed by children, and relying in good part on International Labor Organization data, the report examines efforts by more than 140 countries to address the worst forms of child labor.

The International Labor Organization estimates that more than 215 million children are involved in child labor.

One-third of countries have yet to define hazardous kinds of work prohibited to children, it said. Some nations have no minimum age for such work, and still more lack the means to monitor and enforce bans on dangerous child labor.

A rundown of goods produced by child labor, issued alongside the report, underlined the degree to which youngsters in developing nations are forced to work, rather than go to school, for little if any wages.

India topped the list, with its children being used to make no fewer than 20 products, including bidis, bricks, fireworks, footwear, glass bangles, incense, locks, matches, rice, silk fabric and thread, and soccer balls.

India also led a separate list of products made by forced or indentured child labor – seven types of goods in all, including carpets, embroidered textiles and garments.

In Bangladesh, children produced 14 kinds of goods, many of them of an industrial nature, such as bricks, footwear, steel furniture, leather, matches, and textiles including jute.

In the Philippines, children took part in the production of bananas, coconuts, corn, fashion accessories, gold, hogs, pornography, pyrotechnics, rice, rubber, sugar cane and tobacco.

The Department of Labor announced Monday a $15 million grant to the World Vision charity “to address the worst forms of child labor in sugar cane production” in the Philippines.

Sandra Polaski, deputy undersecretary for international affairs at the Department of Labor, told AFP that India’s place atop the child-labor table reflected its billion-plus population, and not neglect of the issue.

“India is one of the two largest countries in the world, and so the larger the country, if there is significant poverty, you would expect to see more” child labor, she told AFP.

“The Indian government is the first to say they have to find more ambitious ways” of tackling the problem, she said, adding that New Delhi took a big step in 2010 when elementary education was made compulsory across the country.

Worldwide, Polaski said, the United States expects to see an uptick in the use of child labor as a consequence of the economic slump of 2008 from which the world has yet to re-emerge.

“We expect that some more children have fallen back into child labor,” she said. “As households have been pushed in some countries below the poverty line, they’ve made up the difference (in income) with child labor.”

Child labor remains in much of Latin America, but Polaski welcomed signs of progress – particularly in Brazil where child labor persists in agriculture, but poverty-fighting policies are showing results.

In Africa, children are working at mines in Democratic Republic of Congo, particularly at those producing cassiterite and coltan – both used in the assembly of mobile phones – and wolframite, used for tungsten steel.

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Absenteeism, a Perennial Problem in GTR Schools

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MEERA SRINIVASAN

Access during monsoon, prevalence of child labour are the reasons

P. Ranjitha walks for nearly an hour and a half to reach school every morning. “It takes little longer when it rains,” says the class VIII student of Government Tribal Residential (GTR) School, Ponneni.

Her matter-of-fact response about at least three hours’ walk to school and back home made it seem like a common practice among students like her who go to GTR schools.

Her classmate T. Prakashraj says, “I walk two hours every morning to reach school,” as if to highlight that his feat outdoes Ranjitha’s.

While many children stay in tribal hamlets around the area, some children such as Ranjitha and Prakashraj stay in localities far away and go to the nearest GTR School. Read more

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Child Labor Continues – Unabatedly and Shamelessly

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 From [Newkerala.com] 

New Delhi : Pramod is all of nine. His tender age, however, does not give him the luxury of a carefree and fun-filled life. He and his younger brother toil on the streets of Delhi, selling cigarette and other tobacco products for a living.

“My family is very poor and there is not much scope to earn a decent living in my village in Kanpur,” Pramod told IANS, working in a kiosk in the INA market in south Delhi.

“That’s why I and my brother came to Delhi a year back and we have been selling cigarettes here to earn some money,” he added.

Said his younger brother, who said he was aged eight: “If we had enough money we wouldn’t have come here on our own… Maybe we could have gone to school.”  Read more

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Child Labor – A Non-negotiable Evil

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Despite several Constitutional provisions and laws that safeguard the rights of all children, India has the dubious distinction of having the largest number of child labourers in the world. If one were to believe Government’s estimates, there are about 1.20 crore economically active children below the age of fourteen. However Non-Governmental sources estimate a staggering 6 crore children engaged as labourers across the country. Almost 70 percent of these children work in the agricultural sector, while the rest continue to languish in the informal & unorganized sectors like garment, embroidery, carpet weaving, glass bangles, brass ware, shellac jewelry, sporting goods, leather, plastic goods, stone quarries, mica & coal mining, tea plantation, brick kilns, construction sites, roadside restaurants and domestic work.
India is the breeding ground for the worst forms of child labour. At least one crore or one out of every six child labourers is trapped in slavery as bonded labourer. Tens of thousands of children are trafficked from one state to another on tall claims and false hopes of a decent life. Several others are trafficked across the national borders. India is known to be a destination for large number of Nepalese and Bangladeshi children. Child prostitution, child marriages, “Devdasis”, forced amputation and beggary, children misused or abused by militant groups are some of the many forms of contemporary slavery that widely persist.
The push factors behind this social evil include abject poverty, illiteracy, lack of awareness, gullibility of parents, child un-friendly mindset prevailing in the communities, socio-cultural discrimination, gender bias, poor outreach of legal safeguarding & ensuing development, absence of or poor education facilities, State’s incapability to effectively handle natural disasters like flood, earthquakes droughts & famines, development disasters like deforestation, mining and displacement are largely responsible for children falling prey to child labour. On the other hand, the insatiable greed on the part of employers who always scout for vulnerable, docile and cheap workforce, prevalence of corruption and apathy among the law enforcement agencies coupled with connivance between traffickers and employers are some of the key pull factors resulting in child labour.
Children are preferred over adults because they are unable to unionize, they do not demand decent work and never do they retort to strikes despite all sorts of abuses and exploitation. We should remember that each child is employed at the cost of an adult’s job. India has 6 crore child labourers and about 6.5 crore unemployed adults. Several studies have revealed that most of the jobless adults are the very parents of full time child labourers. This is a vicious circle. No country could ever possibly solve the problem of poverty, unemployment and illiteracy without eliminating child labour.
Globalization, privatization and liberalization have fuelled the massive demand for cheap and docile labour in production supply chains. Similarly the ever-expanding middle class is always on a watch out for a poor and docile child to employ them as domestic help for looking after their own children besides performing the usual household chores without a whimper.
A common notion that prevails is that poverty is the root cause of child labour, but it is a half baked truth because the fact of the matter is, that child labour creates and perpetuates intergenerational poverty. Child labourers are cursed to reel under poverty for the rest of their lives. In most cases, inhuman working conditions severely affect children’s tender organs thereby drifting them towards occupational diseases. Children engaged in agriculture are exposed to pesticides, insecticides and heavy machinery. Such children gradually acquire incurable ailments and often meet with accidents that render them physically crippled. Many children handling toxic chemicals in factories and workshops are susceptible to similar risks. Children producing fire crackers to amuse and entertain others more often than not meet with devastating accidents. Sivakasi, Virudhunagar and Sattur are infamous for such accidents. Similarly, children working in stone quarries and mines are diagnosed with tuberculosis and silicosis. Thousands others are compelled to work under inhuman conditions in glass bangle factories of Firozabad and brass & metal workshops in Moradabad, Aligarh & Delhi only to burn their lungs and little fingers.
I have personally come across thousands of cases where children weaving carpets in Mirzapur – Bhadohi belt were diagnosed with chronic lung diseases that cut their lives short, unfulfilling their dream to sit on the plush carpets that they produce. Children stitching foot balls and other sporting goods seldom get an opportunity to play with them. Those slogging endlessly in garment sweatshops never get to see their mothers and sisters adorning the beautifully and intricately embellished ensembles produced by them. What a shame!!!
Prevalence of child labour is nothing short of utter disrespect not only towards the Constitution but also towards all the International Declarations, Treaties and Conventions that have been promulgated in the past. Child labour and slavery are worst of human rights’ violation. It is a crime and a social stigma. Child labour is the biggest obstacle in the way of education and development. It is a slap across the face of civilizations, cultures and religions. Child labour is an evidence of serious lack of political will and social concern. Child labour denies freedom, justice, dignity, equal opportunities and fulfilled childhood simultaneously endangering child’s present and future.
India has several legislative provisions aimed towards the children. There is a specific law; Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 which is objectionable and incomplete. It does not prohibit all forms of child labour thereby posing serious contradiction to the recently passed Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 which calls for compulsory schooling for all children up to the age of 14 years. How can one law be in contravention to the other law that allows children to remain at work places instead of classrooms???Kailash Satyarthi
* Author is the founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, founding President of Global Campaign for Education and Chairperson of Global March Against Child Labour. He is world’s foremost leader in the fight against child and bonded labour. He is a distinguished social activist and has freed thousands of bonded and child labourers.
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Helpline in Delhi to Combat Child Labor

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In a bid to tackle child labour and handle complaints from workers, a toll free helpline would soon be launched by Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, a state government official said Tuesday.

The helpline number 12789 will be functional between 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., added the official.

“It is being commissioned with an aim to provide a sense of confidence and assurance to workers and make it an effective tool for approaching the authorities in case of denial of the minimum wages by the employers and for enforcement of all labour Laws,” said the official.

It will also function as an instrument to eliminate child labour as the affected children could call on this helpline or someone else may call on their behalf helping the labour department to rescue them, added the official.

According to the official, a senior officer will be deployed at the helpline and reports would be sent to the labour secretary every six hours. A review meeting would be chaired by Labour Minister Ramakant Goswami every fortnight.

“The callers will be intimated about the action taken in a shortest possible time that may not extend beyond four days,” added the official.

Goswami said that wider consultation and preparations have been made before commissioning of the helpline which is going to be the first in the country.

“We have chalked out a comprehensive plan to provide help and required consultation to the labourers in hardship. The department is all set to adopt more humanistic approach and has also decided to closely monitor the enforcement of various labour laws,” said Goswami.

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Moin Paid with his Life for Being Slow at Work

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Sahim Salim in New Delhi

Sahim Salim investigates the shocking death of 10-year-old Moin Khan, the latest victim of child labour in the country.

When 10-year-old Moin Khan’s parents sent their child to New Delhi with his maternal uncle, the couple from Madhubani in Bihar would have never known the fate that lay before him.

They didn’t know that Moin’s uncle Kalimullah Khan was taking him away to work 14-hour shifts at his makeshift factory in a single-room rented apartment in northwest Delhi. The tortured 10-year-old paid with his life for being slow on April 16.

His maternal uncle beat him to death. The crime would not have come to light had a cremation caretaker, who noticed Kalimullah’s brother trying to cremate the little boy’s body the following morning, not informed the police. Read more

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India bans child labour in circuses

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AFP [from Dawn.com April 2011]:

NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court on Monday banned travelling circuses from employing children and ordered the government to conduct raids on all performing companies to rescue minors.

The court edict followed a petition lodged by a children’s rights group that has lobbied for full implementation of Indian child labour laws, which are regularly flouted by circuses.

Children are often trained to perform high-wire acrobatic acts, juggling stunts and other attractions for audiences in India, where circus companies move from town to town throughout the year.

Read more

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Factory owner beats 10-yr-old worker to death

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Indrani Basu, TNN | Apr 18, 2011, 04.24am IST [from the Times of India:]

NEW DELHI: Delhi was again confronted with the ugly truth of child labour in its midst when a 10-year-old migrant working in a beedi-making unit died after being allegedly beaten up by his employer. The boy was about to be buried on Sunday morning when an alert cemetery caretaker called the police.

Moin, who had come from Madhubani in Bihar, had blue bruises all over his body, the police said. It’s not clear whether he died of asphyxiation or of injuries received on Saturday night.

Kaleemullah, the owner of the beedi unit being run from a rented room in northwest Delhi’s Bharat Nagar, is absconding since Saturday night. Neighbours claimed that the child had been working there for almost two months.

”It appears that the suspect beat the child on Saturday night and when he died, fled the spot. The child had been bathed and wrapped in cloth as per burial rites and was taken to the cemetery by Kaleemullah’s brother and others. We are interrogating them to check if they knew about the cause of Moin’s death,” said a senior police officer.

The cops are now waiting for Moin’s family to arrive from Bihar. “After the family identifies him, we will get a postmortem done,” he said.

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Child labour rescue team attacked, four hospitalized in India

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[from The Press Trust of India]

Several activists of a city-based child rights NGO were today allegedly attacked and severely beaten up by some people while they were trying to rescue child labourers.

A group of “traffickers” allegedly attacked workers of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) with knives and iron rods in Khureji area of east Delhi and forcibly took away some child labourers they had rescued from there.

Four BBA workers were hospitalised with serious injuries to stomach, head and chest, Kailash Satyarthi, founder of the NGO, said. The attackers also threatened him with a gun.

BBA regularly gives tip-off to police and labour department about child labourers being engaged in manufacturing units in the city. Satyarthi said several such incidents targeting them have occurred in recent months.

“A mob of hundreds had gathered there.