Child labour: An evil to be fought

On November 14, when the nation celebrates the birth anniversary of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, as Children's Day, there will be many kids all over the country working to earn a living. These are the children who work to stay alive despite the Child Labour (prohibition and regulation) Act-1986 forbidding the use of children as workers.

Justice BC Patel (retired), member, National Human Rights Commission, said that because of the rampant use of child labour, the Child Labour Act needs to revised. The commission had confirmed 23 cases of violation of Child Labour Act in Gujarat this year, Justice Patel said. Mayank Trivedi, superintendant, Observation Home, Khanpur, agrees. He said that on an average he gets 11 to 15 cases of child labour each month.

One of the biggest flaws in the law banning the use of child labour is that it does not recognise agriculture as an industry that employs children as workers. Social activists working to stop the use of child labour say that, for this reason, it is very difficult to rescue children employed in agricultural work. Though official data on such children is yet to be released, agricultural is one of the biggest employers of children as labourers.

Sukhdev, a social activist, said that even within the agriculture sector, cotton farms are the biggest employers of child labour.

Ashraf, a city-based activist who has studied the situation in more than 200 villages in four blocks of Viramgam, Dholka, Dhandhuka and Bawla, said that at least five-six children from each village work on cotton farms. However, because of greater social awareness, the number of child workers on cotton farms has declined over last year.

Occupational hazards in agriculture include heat and pesticides which are frequently the cause of many health problems. During the harvesting season, children run the risk of injury to their fingers, especially in BT cotton fields, Ashraf said.

Shah of Ganatar, an organisation that deals with child rights, claimed that the use of child labour in agriculture was responsible for a high dropout rate in schools. Children may be enrolled in schools for the whole year but, in practice, they go to school for just 4-5 months a year. Most of the dropouts leave school to work on farms as labourers, Shah said.

An activist of Centre for Development, Rafi, gave the example of the girls of Jhanjharka village to illustrate how girls in many villages were unable to continue with school because they had to walk long distances to fetch drinking water for the family.

In September, villagers of Jhanjharka had installed a diesel pump near the village pond for use in irrigation, Rafi said. This left no water for the village during summers and because of this the girls of the village had to travel over 3 km to fetch water. This had resulted in a high dropout rate among girls here, Rafi said.

Migration due to agriculture also harms children as they have to leave school to help their parents. Massive migration of agricultural labour has been noted from Maharashtra and Rajasthan. Rafi said that, last year, more than 1900 migration forms were distributed among migrating farmers but till date not a single farmer has received a migration card.

The number of children working as domestic help has increased steeply. Ashraf said that till about three years back, there were no child servants in his society. "Now there are at least 5-6 in the society," he said.

The mining scams that have come to light recently have also exposed large-scale use of child labour in mines. Ashok Shrimali, who came up with a report called, 'Children and Mines', reported that in Gujarat 8-10% of the total number of child labourers are involved in mine-related work. The Child Labour Act clearly indentifies mines as one of the most hazardous industries for a child. Yet mine-owners hold no legal liability for using child labour.