People & Their Problems

New Delhi, 29 October 2014

Nation’s Children

SAFETY, RIGHTS BEG ATTENTION

By Dhurjati Mukherjee

Children’s safety or their rights don’t honestly appear to be top priority for Governments. Child labour is rampant and missing children’s list is never-ending. A nation-wide campaign on the lines of Swachch Bharat (Clean India) to sensitise both people and administration begs attention.     

Lakhs of children go missing every other year and the number keeps growing. Taking a grim view, the Supreme Court had last year asked States to set up special juvenile police units at every police station across the country. Further, it had made it mandatory for all States and Union territories to immediately register an FIR on any complaint of missing children. A dedicated officer was asked to act swiftly in cases where children were in need of care and protection or were in conflict with the law.

However, even after close to two years, most States have shown little concern, forcing the court to pull up governments, including West Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Tripura and Karnataka. The directives came on a public interest litigation filed by Nobel Laureate’s Kailash Satyarthi’s Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Movement), which as per National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figures, found 117,469 children reported missing between 2008 and 2010 but only 20,000 FIRs had been registered by the police.

A significant portion of the missing children are said to have been trafficked and never return home. A report said most of the cases involved enslaving girls in brothels for commercial sexual exploitation and in homes as child domestic labourers. As usual, the police ignore these and sadly do not care to investigate.

Besides, even the laws to prohibit employment of children are in place but the report card about their implementation and enforcement leaves much to be desired. Can the Government consider the right to childhood? With Satyarthi getting the Nobel Peace Prize, for working relentlessly for the past three decades to rescue children from bondage, fortunately there is sharp focus on the condition of children in the country, specially those from the poor and the economically weaker sections of society, coming mainly from dalits and tribal communities.

India is possibly the only country facing an acute child labour problem, having one of the highest numbers of child workers in the world. According to UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children report (2013), 12 per cent of children aged between 5 to 14 years in the country are child workers, which come to over 28 million children. The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (2007) suggested a much higher figure of 45.2 million children working in various sectors. Social activists doubt these figure as those below 18 are internationally accepted as children and, as per this formulation, around roughly 50 million children were at work. In fact, the Asia-Pacific region has the highest number of child labourers in the world.

Though India was the first country to join the International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour way back in 1992 and also ratified the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, millions of children continue to be drafted into the country’s labour force. The problem is indeed quite acute where children are used in hazardous industries where pollution levels being very high, it slowly and steadily affects their health.

Though there is much talk against child labour and social activists have launched campaigns in various parts of the country, many households use child labour for various types of work and a significant section among them treat them very poorly. There are also reports of family members sexually exploiting them. What is worse, many girls are trafficked and sold in brothels or far off places where they are sexually exploited.  

The present Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 does not prohibit but only restricts employment of children in jobs deemed to be hazardous. This is in contradiction to the Juvenile Justice Act, which defines children as those under the age of 18. However, an amendment bill pending in Parliament proclaims that it “is proposed to prohibit employment of children below the age of 14 years in all occupations and processes to facilitate their enrolment in schools in view of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education, 2009 and adolescents (persons who have completed 14 years of age but have not completed 18^th year) in hazardous occupations and processes . . . . .”

However, child rights activists have been demanding ban on employment of children up to the age of 18, as per the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child which states that “a child means every human being below the age of 18 years unless, under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.” However this appears not quite rational in a country where poverty forces children to do odd jobs for a living. There is need to focus on education and health where the budgetary allocation is presently below 3 per cent of the GDP, has to be substantially increased.  

The imperatives are well known but determined action is necessary. Awareness at the gram panchayat and the block levels is called for as sincerity and active action of these institutions as also of NGOs and CBOs can change the situation for the better.

At the same time, a lot more could be done. One, child rights need to be more politicized to receive appropriate support at all levels. This has happened in some fields like food security for children (through the Right to Food campaign), right to education and the Food Security Act. Nevertheless, such efforts need to be given more encouragement through higher allotment of resources and involvement of NGOs at grass root level.

Two, State must recognize the multi-dimensional nature of poverty and initiate interventions that address concerns relating to child education, health, food security and nutrition. Primarily, the drop-out rate, which is as high as 40-42 per cent at the elementary level, needs to be checked while the enrolment rate has to be increased.

Three, States in cooperation and consultation with the civil society must pay more attention to improving accountability. Several schemes and programmes are being implemented with regard to the welfare of children and if there is lack of accountability and strict monitoring, the desired results would not be forthcoming.

Four, mere formation of new institutions and/or committees would not help if programmes and projects do not reach the desired beneficiaries. In 2007, the government set up the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights with much fanfare but it is not quite active in its work. In spite of several requests from NGOs, it has not undertaken any worthwhile work in the eastern region where problems of children are indeed quite acute.

The launch of Bal Swachchta Mission on November 14 (Children’s Day), aimed at motivating children in keeping themselves clean, their homes, schools and surroundings clean, are small steps. However, the focus has to be on education and health of the child for which the State governments have to ensure strict monitoring and allocate more resources.

Satyarthi’s fight for improvement of the conditions of the children can become a reality if the civil society is involved – right at the block level -- through a clearly defined policy where public-private participation could ensure greater role and responsibility to NGOs and CBOs.

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)