The Hindu : Restoring their lost childhood

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Restoring their lost childhood

By Mari Marcel Thekaekara

A child raped. Boiling water thrown on a domestic servant, a hot-oil scalding as punishment for a broken dish, branding with an iron because the laundry was not done perfectly. Starvation, arm-twisting, head banged against the wall, severe beatings — these are horror stories but they do not belong to our world.

In theory, all of us — so-called "civilised" people of the great Indian liberal, middle class — subscribe to education and literacy for the masses. All of us are against child labour. Yet... we make small exceptions. Such as getting a child to mind the baby. There are a hundred good reasons why employing a child can be justified. After all, the child will have to work anyway. And if she is with us she is safer, in better hands, than with some other horrid family which will ill-treat her, overwork her and feed her badly. Besides, working in a middle class home is definitely preferable to starving in some godforsaken village.

If she was home, she would be doing the housework, helping her mother and probably looking after goats or cows. Surely, city life is easier. Housework is light, it is not like toiling in the hot sun. We are only helping the poor to make ends meet when we take their daughters in to work in our homes. We teach them to cook and sew. But would we send our daughters to a life of drudgery far away from home, in an environment where the only conversation is a series of orders from morning to night? Do we think of the lost childhood of the children we turn into slaves? Or is it all right, even normal, to have different standards for "us" and "them?"

The statistics, as always, are shameful. A 1979 NSS (National Sample Survey) estimate shows that 10 to 20 per cent of the total child labour force is engaged in domestic work. Of these, 78 to 80 per cent is girls. A 1983 ORG (Organisation Research Group) survey puts the number of girl-child labourers at over 19 million. Yet, statistics are boring. We feel irritated when people go on and on about things that have been there for centuries. In order for it not to go on for a few more centuries, social change, radical reform must take place.

Charles Dickens shamed the Victorian society by washing its carefully-concealed dirty linen so regularly in his serialised newspaper columns that a howl of public protest went up, forcing the government to change the laws. In India, we have brilliant, well thought-out laws in place. But no one enforces them. Our leaders preen themselves on public platforms, waxing eloquent about our nuclear capability, economic miracles and the great IT coup. Yet, they don't give a moment's thought to the huge disparity between the world of IT, which welcomes Bill Gates with open arms on the one hand, and accepts a medieval, backward social scene — gross and utter exploitation of our children — on the other, as perfectly tolerable.

Some people have set up a howl of protest "Help the girl child escape to school." The Campaign against Child Labour is using the Women's Day peg to flag off a national event on girl child labour called nai subah or "new dawn." The campaign will begin on March 5 in Mysore with over 1,200 girl child labourers from 20 States telling India about their hopes and aspirations and asking to be allowed the luxury of a normal childhood.

The children will come from different work arenas. These cover agriculture, fisheries, sericulture, match and fireworks factories, the beedi and hosiery industry, brick kilns, domestic work, rag-picking and scavenging, bars and beauty salons.

In addition to a public hearing, which will have eminent judges listening to the testimonies of the girl child labourers, documenting these for use in campaigns, there will be a children's press meet, a symposium on child labour and one part dedicated to the children enjoying themselves. So there will be a film show, a magic show, cultural events, a painting session and an exhibition of the children's paintings, posters and photographs.

Unless Indian society, and that means us, is shamed into a situation where no individual can get away with employing a child, all legislation in the world will not change things. In order to enforce this, the Government and the NGOs concerned should have a plan to help the public get involved in the campaign.

Our leaders may not have the political will to work for the exploited but civil society can help if it is mobilised effectively. Only then can we call ourselves civilised.

(The writer is a social activist)

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

Stories in this Section

Short shrift to social sector

A major breakthrough

Image & substance in budget 2003-04

Are the Sikhs Hindus?

Restoring their lost childhood

The silent majority

Gandhiji and Savarkar