Anti-Child Labour Law: See The Other Side of Coin

The new Anti-Child Labour law may have come to the rescue of many underage working children in the country but as the media has been constantly reporting, the law has made survival more difficult for some others.

For instance, 12-year-old Birendra Kumar is orphaned and already on his second job.

He is the face of the other side of the Anti-Child Labour law, a side that makes more vulnerable exactly those it is supposed to protect.

Birendra's new job is at a Patna dhaba - washing dishes and serving tea.

He lost his first job which was in a cloth showroom as the owner of the shop didn't want to keep him once the law came into force.

"I used to work in a cloth store and used to earn Rs 1000 a month. I lost that job and now I work at a tea stall,” says Birendra.

His new job pays him half of what he used to earn earlier, only Rs 500. With that, he not only has to fend for himself but he has to take care of his four-year-old sister as well.

"We don’t have parents,” says Birendra’s sister, Chutki.

In eyes of law, Birendra is still an offender and so is his employer but he has to continue working to earn money that keeps him and his sister alive.

He knows he is defying a law that has been much talked about but he also realizes that he has little choice.

"We are in dire straits. We want to go to school but we don’t have the money,” he says.

Locals have little to offer but pity for the children. “He is the only earning member of the family. They will starve if he stops working,” says a local resident, Ranjeet Kumar.

There are thousands of Birendras and Chutkis for whom this law is not a boon and even those who are in the crusade of enforcing the law hardly look beyond the rule books.

So this is a request to the Lawmakers please think twice before imposing any law on society. I am not a supporter of child labour but before imposing any law we should provide an environment which could preserve that law. Our society still not provided any other alternative to those poor children so how could we expect anything good?

Amartya Sen on Indian Child Labour and Gender In-Equality

Although India has witnessed social progress, serious challenges still remain - including the most important one of child deprivation, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said here Tuesday.

Speaking at a lecture on Child and Human Rights, Sen said: "There has been social progress in India but some serious problems still face the country - the most important among them being child deprivation and under-nourishment."

"There have been numerous programmes for the undernourished children but they have failed to create an impact. This disturbing picture needs rapid remedy," the renowned economist said while launching the Indian Journal of Human Development by the Institute for Human Development.

"Under-nourishment and lack of medical assistance have enhanced this growing problem (child deprivation). Thus we have to look forward to a broader framework to address deprivation of Indian children," he added.

He stressed that human rights activists needed to address children's deprivation in particular.

"Incorporating a legal system has certainly helped human rights. The idea of human rights can be used in other ways. The legislature can help to promote an ethical way of human life. The Supreme Court of India can help promote this as they have in the past," Sen said.

Referring to the issue of gender inequality and resulting child under-nourishment, he said: "Gender inequality casts a shadow on child under-nourishment right from the time the child is in the womb. And an undernourished child always has the propensity to cardio-vascular diseases."

Touching upon female foeticide, he said such cases were decreasing elsewhere in the world but rising alarmingly in India and it needed to be seriously addressed.

Did you feel the sob while wearing the glittering Trinkets?

In the corner of a dark room filled with the stench of kerosene, Prabhu Dayal crouches over a fire, his nimble fingers forming glass bangles in the flames.

Prabhu is only 8 years old, but his life is already one of endless toil, making the colourful glass bangles that are popular among women across India.

"Sometimes I get sores on my fingers but it's okay," Prabhu says, without looking away from the flame for a moment.

"When the flame is blue, it's okay. When it turns yellow, then foul gas comes out," he explains.

"It's not that difficult. Just hold the two ends (of the bangle) like this and join them with the fire," he adds, deftly showing his skill.

Despite a government ban on child labour, Prabhu is one of tens of thousands of children in India who work in horrific conditions in often dangerous industries to support their poor families.

Across the country, children stuff explosives into fireworks to be lit during religious festivals and extravagant wedding celebrations, or weave carpets, sew textiles and make everything from footballs to cricket bats to sulphur-tipped matchsticks.

Around the town of Firozabad, about 230km southeast of New Delhi and the hub of India's glassware industry, rights groups estimate that 50 000 child workers endure lives similar to Prabhu's, labouring away in dozens of factories.

Under India's Child Labour Act of 1986, children under 14 are banned from working in industries deemed "hazardous" such as fireworks, matchstick-making, auto workshops or carpet weaving.

The ban was extended in October to cover those employed at roadside food stalls, homes and hotels.

But the rules are widely flouted, and prosecutions, when they happen at all, get bogged down in courts for lengthy periods.

In 1996, a government survey found that 22 000 children worked in factories around Firozabad. Charges were brought against plant owners, many of whom are still involved in legal battles.

The factories stopped employing children directly, but began outsourcing their work to "household units", workshops like the tiny, dark room where Prabhu works for eight to 10 hours a day.

A restless boy with sparkling eyes, Prabhu earns about 10 rupees (about R1,50) for joining around 1 200 bangles a day.

"Once we held a free health check-up camp here," says Chandel, a human rights worker based in the area. "Not one person came. Nearly everyone here suffers from some form of asthma."

The day begins at 3am for Prabhu, his two brothers and their father.

At 8am, Prabhu goes to school but he returns to the dingy workshop at around noon and works until 5pm. The finished bangles are then heaped on carts and bicycles, which are dragged back to the factories in Firozabad.

"After that we play," Prabhu says.

Middle-aged Ramrati lives in a one-room mud hut where she cooks in an earthen oven. She has three sons, aged between 5 and 13. All of them work in the bangle industry.

A daughter, who also grew up making glass bangles, died of tuberculosis a few years ago at the age of 16

"The bangles killed her," she says. "She used to cough a lot and turned weak. I got her married thinking her health would improve but she died in a few months."

The government has only banned child labour but it has not created any jobs. Until the parents get some other work, they will continue to use their children to increase their income. It's a question of livelihood.

Bal Krishan Gupta is the owner of Om Glassworks, one of the biggest factories in the region. Inside his sprawling residence is a cricket field, a fish pond and ducks playing on the lawns.

Gupta, who came to Firozabad in 1946, says his factories no longer make bangles, but he knows that children in the region are making them in hazardous conditions.

"But who is responsible for this? Is it not the father of the child who is making the child work?" he asks. Devastating economic circumstances in India see many parents sending their children to work for a pittance in factories. Though it's illegal, the rules are widely flouted.

Anti-Child Labour Campaign or A Debacle with Buds

It was in the month of October, this year, that the Government of India, with much fanfare, enacted the law of banning child labour, in this country. It was welcomed by one and all.

The United Nations Children's Fund, popularly known as UNICEF, while lending support to the government decision of banning child labour, had come out with its own anti-child labour campaign.

Eight year old Choonam Kumari alias Chuniya, from Northern Indian state of Bihar and hailing from a poor family, was the lucky one to have been chosen to feature in UNICEF's awareness campaign against child labour.

Later, Chuniya once again hit the news in the Indian press, but this time for wrong reason. She was found in the act of washing utensils near a roadside eatery, belonging to her father. Besides washing plates, she served food to walk in customers. Chuniya looking frail and lost, washing empty utensils on roadside was splashed all over the Indian newspapers.

The image depicting Chuniya, followed by the story of her poor plight, made a huge dent in the Indian government's campaign against child labour.UNICEF's Anupam Srivastav, Director ( Communications), Patna, clarifying his stand on the issue, said there was no monetary compensation made to Chuniya's family for using her photograph for anti-child labour campaign and nor she was their brand ambassador.

In India the outcome of globalisation has seen the mushrooming of huge shopping malls, multiplex cinemas halls and swanky restaurants in urban cites and rural towns. But still in the handloom embroidery industries, firecracker units, diamond polishing units and local restaurants, one can find large scale employment of child labourers and exploitation.

Shame to our Politicians who spend their money in foreign trips and conventions. Those craps are actually sucking us and wont stop untill they die.