Saving childhood

SOCIAL ISSUES: India has over 12.6 million child workers, the highest in the world.

Last year when the ban on employing children below 14 years in restaurants, hotels, tea-stalls, eateries and that as domestic help was enforced, 12-year-old Gopal lived with his family in a village in Madhubani district, Bihar.

Now after a year of the enforcement of the amendment, he has transformed into a child labour.

Gopal works in a restaurant in Katwaria Sarai in Delhi and earns Rs 500 a month that is money-ordered to his parents. Other adult workers in the same restaurant get Rs 1,500 per month.

"For the past one-and-a-half months, I have been working here from 10am till midnight," he says.

Gopal is one of the over 61,000 children working in hotels, restaurants, tea-stalls and road-side eateries across the country, according to the 2001 census. This figure is just a small fraction of over 12.6 million child labourers in India, the highest in the world. Off the record, the actual number of child labourers in the country is five to ten times the official figures.

According to child rights activists, there has been little improvement in the situation even after one year of enforcement of the ban. Child labour is still rampant across the country, they say.

Activists believe that though law is a necessary step, it does not solve the problem.

According to the information obtained under the Right to Information Act by Bachpan Bachao Aandolan, an NGO working for child labourers, only 6,669 children were identified across the country as child labourers in the last one year.

Prosecution was initiated only against 872 offenders, but none was convicted under the Act. Only 55 cases of child labour were identified in the national capital.

"There was no change other than including the occupation in the banned category, and little supporting mechanism was prescribed for addressing the problem," says Pradeep Narayanan, senior manager (research), Child Rights and You (CRY).

"In almost every case, children are forced into labour either by economic or social compulsions or due to absence of choices and opportunities," Narayanan adds.

Kailash Satyarthi, chairman, Global March Against Child Labour, says, "The parents of working children are either unemployed or do not get work for even 50-60 days a year. In most cases, parents of such children don't get the minimum wages fixed by the government."

According to Narayanan, all the policies, programmes and legislation targetting child labour see the problem in isolation. "Moreover, there is little co-ordination between the Centre, states and ministries," he says.

A recent Ministry of Women and Child Development survey "Study on Child Abuse: India 2007" supports Narayanan view. It calls for better co-ordination at national, state and block/ward levels for "rescuing children from banned occupations".

Child labour can be eradicated only when the root causes are addressed, activists say.

"We want to provide all facilities to our children for their mental, emotional and physical development. On the other hand, we have no objection if children from poor families work," says Satyarthi, adding, "It is society's responsibility to save children from turning labourers".