Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Losing joys of childhood in labyrinth of labour

— Photo: M. Vedhan

FOR LIVELIHOOD: A boy engaged in manual labour in T. Nagar on Monday .

CHENNAI: Every time you see a child clearing the table at a restaurant, or baby-sitting another child, perhaps, a few years younger, it is yet another indicator of how child labour is still prevalent despite the efforts of the Government to abolish it.

Child rights activists observe that though there is a ban on child labour, a fairly large number of children are employed in the unorganised sector, including eateries, households, construction sites and mechanic sheds.

Domestic child labour

Secretary of non-governmental organisation Kalaiselvi Karunalaya A. Purushothaman says domestic child labour is rampant in the city. Volunteers of the organisation have rescued nearly 300 children of the Narikurava community, who were involved in rag-picking in suburban areas such as Tirumullaivoyal, Pallavaram and Ambattur.

Executive director of another NGO Arunodaya Virgil D’Sami says children in rural areas work in the farm, helping out with cattle-grazing and other activities.

Ms. D’Sami, who is also a member of the Child Welfare Committee, says nearly half of the cases, pertaining to child welfare, which are brought before the committee, are to do with child labour.

A child labour monitoring committee, comprising representatives of youth fora, women’s self-help groups and children ‘sangams’, has also been formed in Korukkupet and Tiruvottiyur. It would maintain a database of the status of the children’s education and health, she adds.

Societal insensitivity, employers and poverty are the causes activists attribute the menace to. “Apart from the attitude of the family members, factors such as absence of schools in the neighbourhood and lack of infrastructure in schools also contribute to child labour indirectly,” says Ms. D’Sami. “Most Corporation schools in north Chennai are still neglected in terms of quality education unlike those in the southern parts of the city. Checking school dropout rate is essential while addressing the issue,” she adds.

A senior official of the School Education Department says a survey conducted to identify out-of-school children about two years ago found their number to be around one lakh. Of them, about 30 per cent were child labourers.

Activists note that with more families migrating to Chennai from other parts of Tamil Nadu and other States such as Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar, children end up working, out of the sheer need for money.

Income matters

According to a young boy of about eight, selling ear-buds and hairpins at a crowded shopping area in T.Nagar: “I come here every morning. My father is a daily wage labourer and his income is not enough to run our family. The 30 to 50 rupees I make everyday is very important to us.”

When asked if he felt like going to school, pat came reply: “Yes, but I stopped going when I was really small and never went back.” R.Selvi (name changed), 13, works at a home in Adyar. Her job is to take care of a 5-year-old. “My father passed away when I was six. My mother is ill and since my little brother goes to school, I am the only person who can work,” she says. She stays in her employer’s house and visits her family once a fortnight. And she gets back in a day. “He [infant] can stay without his mother, but not without me,” she says.

The Rs.1,200 she makes every month is just enough for running her family.

“I stopped going to school a few years ago, but had there been someone else to take care of our monthly expenditure, I would have certainly studied. You know, it was my dream to become a teacher,” she adds.

(With inputs from K.Lakshmi, Meera Srinivasan, Ramya Kannan and R.Sujatha)

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