Last Sunday I was watched a talk show on TV called “We the People”. The discussion was about child labor in India and if the solution is as simple as banning it. I have always been on the wall on this subject, especially with respect to employing them as domestic help because I have seen first hand that alternatives are much worse. They work long hours in export companies exposed to health hazards and sexual abuse, they are more protected in a home environment. One person in the audience also made this point. There was a famous designer called Ritu Kumar who talked about craft being passed down generations from father to children. If you ban children from working, these crafts would be lost to the world and they will also lose their livelihood. The other point made was that if you send them to government schools, by the end of their schooling they do not have any skills that can provide livelihood, is it the right option for them? For many children it is the choice between starvation and working. There were, of course few panelists who were outraged that we could still make excuses for child labor after 60 years of independence.
Till this point in the debate, the audience was divided evenly in its opinion on the subject. I should say so was I. Then, a person who had worked as a Jari worker in his childhood spoke. He talked about how he was forced to take up a job after his father fell ill. He had to work continuously for 14 hours every day. His two fingers are still deformed due to this. He talked about how they were beaten when they made even small mistakes. The anchor asked him, “If it is a choice between starvation and work, isn’t it better to opt for the latter”. He said, “All I can say is that childhood happens only once in a person’s life. If that is spent in these conditions how would his adulthood be? Please give us a chance to live. This can’t be called a life.”. Then he was asked, “The government schools are bad and they don’t equip people for livelihood. Is it fair to force them to go school when they cannot support themselves at the end of it”. He said, “Don’t keep blaming the government. Aren’t you all the people who elect them? It is your responsibility too”. Then the anchor asked, “What if your circumstances are so bad that you cannot survive without sending your children to work”. He said, “if my circumstances were that bad, I will choose not have children”
This was the turning point of the debate. After this, no one could give any palatable excuse for child labor. Even I am in no doubt now. What I would not want for my child, I should not accept for any other child. As one panelist rightly put it, “We do not have enough moral indignation to bring it to a stop. There was a village where I worked and the entire village decided that even a single child of the village would not work. It is because everyone realized that it was inexcusable.”
I gained another important insight from this debate. If you want to truly understand a problem, just talk to the person who has been through it.
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A very interesting debate indeed. I loved the Jari worker’s words when he said I will choose not to have children at all if my circumstances were bad.
These debates about child labor has been going on since long, but this debate really summarised the whole thing in few simple words.
Does We the People come in NDTV?
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Thank you Saraswathi. Yes it comes on NDTV on Sunday at 8PM IST.
Archana,
The solution obviously is not that simple. It is not only a case of life and death for the children, it is so for the parents too, and parents are the ones making the decision. As with lots of things, we cannot expect the politicians and government to provide the solution. It has to be a community based effort starting with every individual. Part of the answer is not just avoiding the hiring of children, but providing the infrastructure and financial back-bone to educate these children – and if I remember one of your previous articles, you are already doing it – educating the daughter of your house maid.
• For example, similar to a 401 K match by a company, every household could match the amount set aside by the maid towards his/her kids’ education up till a certain amount.
• A community, for example all households in a flat, could donate a certain amount into a children’s education fund set aside for the children of all the maids working in the community.
• Government could provide tax benefits to companies that donate money to a similar pool mentioned above.
Beyond all of the above, the motivation must come from the parents of the children themselves and awareness needs to be created for this. Perhaps an effort akin to a war-time campaign to create such awareness should start at each sub-community level.
Irrespective, it is easy to write and talk about such solutions, particularly for someone like me who is an NRI with state of residency being USA.
Thanks for highlighting this and raising the awareness once again on child labor and illiteracy.
Ganesh
Hai Archana
I realise that it would have been an interesting debate. In one of my friend’s house, a 11-yrs-old girl comes for domestic work. she does her work in the morning and then, she goes to school. Her main aim is to have mid-day meal provided in her school. But, she does not gain any knowledge. Often, she fails to go if she has some other domestic work. She will never become skillful in any aspect. But, she has picked up the nuances of domestic work and she does it with great ease which even the elder ones cannot do. When she never had work, she fell sick because of malnutrition and her parents asked my friend to help them out. It is better not to give birth to kids if one is equipped to take care of them. It is applicable to parents from affluent families too. Nowadays, parents feel that they can buy everything. That is not the case. They send their kids to reputed schools and expect them to take up the whole responsibility. During evening hours, they send them to tutors and fail to own up responsibility. Unfortunately, they fail to realise that their kids are in need of their personal care and attention.
Regards
Vimala
Ganesh – Thank you for those really insightful comments. I agree that we need to have a concrete plan to solve the problem. All what you say is possible only if all of us truly believe it is unacceptable for children to work.
I remember a conversation I had with my cousin sister. She told me that we tend to shout at servants and find fault with them because they are soft targets. We tolerate so much more from our peers and superiors. It bought about a change in my attitude towards servants. I realized that at some subconscious level we think of them as less human than all of us. We expect them to be more honest, more grateful and not have frailties that we possess. After this conversation, I started seeing them as human just like all of us. They have their faults and they have their strengths. It really changed they way I dealt with them.
I think the same is true with child labor too. We think of them as lesser children then children of our class. Although we talk about lack of alternatives, it does not bother us to see them slog and lose out on their childhood. In fact we feel we are doing them a favor by employing them and sparing them from other hardships. For all things that you said to happen, I think it should really bother us to see a child work. We should see it as a cruelty as something unacceptable. Then all of us will strive for change.
Thank you Vimala. A person in the debate also made this point. As I said, even I was on the wall on this subject. The fact remains that is a real cruel thing for the child.
Archana,
I feel, this is one of complicated issue.
What would be your opinion, if the child is taken care of well in his/her work environment, and he/she has an option to study part time?
We would feel, that would be better.. right. I feel so.. I feel, we need to be pragmatic, than from sensationalising the issue, which any way the media does for their rating.
My personal opinion is that, we need to create awareness among the employers to treat the child genuinely, and there should be some institutions to teach the child like evening school. What better would a child need, if he has opportunity to learn survival, and also gets education. Instead of forcing them to the school, which doesnot solve their survival problem, we have to provide them education without spoiling their livelihood.
I hope, when the employers realise, then even the child labour’s life would be better off. What is proposed there doesnt contribute even a part of solution.
The child labor is the result of utter negligence of the government towards its people.
If we observe, what role does a government has on an individual, i feel, its almost zero. An individual can survive only if he has money. We are better off because we were born among an educated community. We unknowing acquired the vision through our relatives & friends. But, do all childs have the same environment?
In my place, i went to a slum area, where a lady lives in a house, which is not even the size of our bed room, with her 5 children, all small kids. Her husband died out of drinking very recently. There would be more than 100 such families in and around them. Their society was entirely different from the society we came from.
We have enough to pay costly doctors, and costly schools.. but, how can those people, afford those? When any of their people fell ill, there is no one too look after them. Infact, if we closely observe, although poor, they are living by the support of each other, while we have a highly individualistic life with the support of our earnings.
So, when child labour has been one of a major problem, its not wise, to isolate this, and focus on it. It will not lead to any solution.
/*** “if my circumstances were that bad, I will choose not have children” ***/
I feel, its easily said than done.. The poor people, do not even have the resource for family planning.
And for your opinion on comparing your child with the rest, i feel, that would more complicate our outlook towards the problem. We might provide our children in costly schools, but not every one can do that. We are employing a maid to serve our children, but even that maid could not provide that to her children.
The need of the hour is that everyone should raise above their self-centered thinking and in turn think for the whole public. If we do that, then we will find, that the lifestyle that we are living is not affordable to 75% of our population. Not only in terms of economy, but in terms of earth’s resource.
We pay 1000′s of rupees for a dinner at a star hotel,.. and we pay the same to our maid as one month’s salary. We should think, how can our maid provide all the facilities to her child, with that meagre amount. But, we wish, she should give her children, what all we are giving to our own children.
So, what’s the solution for all these?
Having said all the above, i have to admit, i am also continuing the same lifestyle here. I am just spending 75rs for a month, to a maid for a month for washing my clothes.. But at the same time, i am spending 100rs for a single day petrol expense, during the weekend. This is pricking me a lot whenever i saw her. But, still i cannot give her more, because, the neighbours, will confront me.. I have find in what other ways i can help her..
Thanks for those insights Senthil. Surely there is no straight forward or simple answers.
We like to think home environment is safer, it was my opinion too until I saw the program. One activits who works with these children said that over 70% of them are subject to abuse even when they work in homes.
I wish there was an easy answer.
hey archana,
this is my new blog url:
http://whenmymindrambles.blogspot.com/
Vaidehi.
Hehehe…archanaa…i heard Dr.V.S.Ramachandran speech on the net and not live. If I would have watched it live I would have painted the whole city green
)
Archana,
The solution will be simple & easy, if each one of us, think in terms of society.
Just my few questions..
1. When education is noble, it should be unique to all. We should strive to provide quality education (which we feel) to all. And for that, today’s attitude of education as business should go. Instead, we should inherit our old legacy of education as dharma should come.. when that comes, we need use pay package to attract & retain quality teachers.. instead, we would have dedicated souls to impart education to the children.
2. We have lot of unemployed people. In Agriculture, almost all people had the scope to work and earn for their survival. The owners of the land, also were generous in giving the share to the other people, because everbody had the feeling that nature is equal to all.
But, today, we commercialised and commodotised even agriculture, and hence, even the food, the basic entity of survival, once freely available to all, now could be obtained only through money.
I feel, we cannot regain the lost culture of feeding the host (i forgot the sanskrit slogan).. but atleast we can realise that.
Nice post. It is definitely something worth thinking about. As Ganesh says, we need to raise awareness massively. Lot of serious issues in India are connected to the scale of poverty. Unless we have a serious plan to eradicate it, we will be forced to debate whether child labor is good or bad etc. Of course, the answer is no, but that is not going to help us eradicate it. Awareness is only a a part of the problem. Abject poverty is the main root cause.
Thank you Sukumar.
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