On World Day against Child Labour, the Indian activist calls for better schooling for everyone as the only solution to the problem. Some 55 million children live in slave-like conditions, especially among the lowest castes of society.
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New Delhi (AsiaNews) – "The only feasible path to solve the problem of child labour is to guarantee children a better level of education," said Lenin Raghuvanshi, director of the People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) in Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), on the eve of "World Day against Child Labour" which is scheduled for tomorrow, 12 June.
In an interview with AsiaNews, the Indian activists and 2007 Gwangju Prize for human rights laureate said that "more than 55 million children are working in India," mostly "from Dalit, Tribals and other backward castes in India" and "all out of school," which is "cause for great concern."
In spite of its booming economy, "India is still very much a patriarchal and caste-based society with gender discrimination. The destructive effects of gender discrimination, patriarchal oppression and the semi-feudal society so prevalent in 21st century India are manifest in our 55 million children, employed at times in subhuman conditions."
Many of these children are under the age of five and put their lives at risk for a miserly salary. Similarly, "a large fraction of these child labourers are working as slaves, bonded to their "jobs", Lenin Raghuvanshi explained, with no means of escape or freedom, often stuck in their "job" until they repay their parents' loans.
These children do a variety of things: silversmithing, tea farming, stone quarrying, cigarette making, fireworks, fishing, embroidery, and much more. An untold number is also forced to serve as domestics, shop boys, prostitutes, and involved in child trafficking. Many even end up mutilated and forced to beg.
Child labour is closely related to poverty and the lack of a proper education, especially when parents cannot first maintain their children. The situation is more complicated for girls, who live in a shadowy world, taking care of their younger siblings and helping their mothers in house chores rather than going to school.
"Education," insisted the Indian activist, "is a fundamental right of the child, and the government is preparing a reform that would make education free until the age of 14 in accordance with Article 21A of the Indian Constitution."
For him "the entire education policy should be geared towards providing children with quality education without discrimination. Instead caste, gender and corporal punishment are still responsible for an early dropout rate, which forces children into the child labour market."
In Raghuvanshi's opinion, the "Scheduled Castes and Tribes Act should be improved to prevent atrocities and discrimination against backward classes and provide more resources." But is needed above all is "a cultural change that eliminates the tragedy of child labour at its roots".
In 2004 the Indian activist "adopted" three villages and a suburb in a trial project called "Jan Mitra Gaon" or "people-friendly village" that included the reopening of primary schools, the end of forced labour, making education for girls compulsory and the adoption of non-traditional education practices.
In vast areas of the Indian countryside primary education is non-existent, but the PVCHR was able to open educational facilities for children in 45 villages.
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Child illiteracy and child labour are the continent's main social ills
One fifth of India's GNP is generated by exploited minors working in farming sector.
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Geneva (AsiaNews) – As the school year began yesterday in many Western countries, the world celebrated International Literacy Day. Organised under the auspices of UNESCO, the event had "Literacy and Gender" as its main theme. According to the UN agency's own data there are 860 million illiterate adults, more than two thirds women. The number of minors not attending school exceeds 110 million, 56 per cent girls.
Illiteracy is directly related to poverty and underdevelopment, circumstances that force millions of children to leave school before they become fully literate and work in conditions where they are easily exploited. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has estimated that throughout the world, 250 million children, aged between five and 17, were engaged in child labour, 155 million in Asia alone.
In Asia child labour has become a virtual system that is particularly abusive of girls. Sexual exploitation has in fact become a major social ill in many Asian societies. Many girls are forced into prostitution in countries like Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Pakistan. "About one million children are lured or forced into the sex trade in Asia every year," reports Child Workers in Asia, an organisation fighting child exploitation. "A more alarming fact is that people known to them introduce many of these children into the work," it adds.
Children in Asia are used in different types of work: farming, making leather goods, stone-cutting, mining, toy making, textiles, making brick in kilns, construction, dumpsites. The problem is accentuated by western multinational companies setting up Asian branch plants in many manufacturing sectors, especially textile.
The many wars in Asia compound child exploitation for they provide opportunities to recruit boys into armies. Tens of thousands of them have thus been recruited and are being recruited, often by force, by armies and paramilitary groups. Human Rights Watch reports that many, very young children are serving as soldiers in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia. Many others have been recruited by groups such as the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines.
Worse still is the situation in India where human rights activists have denounced child debt bondage. At least 5 million children are forced to work to repay debts their parents contracted or for the cash advances they received. According to Human Rights Watch, very few children are ever ransomed from bondage. Asian Labour Monitor estimates that one fifth of India's GNP is generated by exploited minors working in the farming sector, mostly children of landless families. With 44 million minors working, India has the unenviable world record in child labour. (MA)
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"The protection of human life [at all its stages] is the "rock solid and inviolable" foundation upon which all other human rights are based." - Benedict XVI