The Concerned for Working Children

 It took heavy advocacy to pull Venkatesh out of the institution. His distraught mother asked the media why the government, which never showed up to support her through her poverty, was now bent on making her and her sons life worse by traumatizing them through such a harrowing ironically termed ‘rescue’.

The ban approach to child labour, in its actual field enactment implies that children such as Venkatesh, who are embedded in the larger social reality of a country where poverty is widespread, are often at the receiving end of ‘rescues’ which instead of protecting their rights, often tend to violate them. ‘Rescues’ involve children being caught by inspectors, dragged out of their work spaces, pulled into vehicles, deposited in alien institutions without an explanation under heavy adult scrutiny. The result for the child is a sense of being ‘criminalised’ even as their parents/guardians are actually treated as ‘offenders’.

Over the last few years, in conversation with children, we have arrived at the following clarity and understanding regarding the ‘raid and rescue’ method used across various types of work. The children’s experience can be categorised into three broad sections: as working children involved in legally permitted work that contributes to their growth and development such as an apprenticeship under adult supervision; children engaged in non-hazardous work in unfriendly conditions such as long hours with no breaks for otherwise light work; children involved in hazardous work. As in the case described above, the actual experience of the ‘raid and rescue’ was traumatic through all three situations.

In the case of children involved in non-harmful work, the raids were unlawful and arbitrary whereas in the case of the other two, the current process was highly faulty leading to increased trauma with no provisioning of long term solutions for the child in a difficult situation. This has meant that children have found it difficult then to contribute at home and the loss of household income often results in the child leaving school, being pushed into more dangerous work away from the public eye, malnourishment, etc. The trauma and shame experienced due to inept handling by unskilled and untrained staff only adds to the alienation experienced by the children and their family.

 Such a scenario, after 25 years of India being a signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), implies that a serious re-evaluation of our collective effort to support working children needs to take place. The current law on child labour responds only in a narrow punitive manner to the demand side of child labour. It refuses to acknowledge the supply side.

If we are to keep children at the centre of our approach to the issue, then asking and addressing why children work is fundamental. What an engagement with this question does, is flip the debate and build it on the terms of the child engaged in work. It brings the voice of children into the fold of governance. It asks for spaces where children may raise their voices without the expectation of sudden repercussions. It asks for research which builds on their experience. It recognizes the ‘child’ not as a passive recipient of the State’s parental protection but as an active citizen who has knowledge of her/his circumstances and can apply it to their life constructively. Also, it importantly implies that a holistic approach which considers the entire cycle of vulnerability from preventive measures to provisioning long term alternative options come within the purview of the response to child labour.

 The Concerned for Working Children has supported the formation of working children’s union, Bhima Sangha, in India since the 1990s. Bhima Sangha, along with the other International Children’s Movements, chose 30th April as a celebration of child workers. The first step they felt was to emerge from the fold of invisibility and assert their existence. Since then they have engaged through a multitude of creative ways on international, national and local forums to highlight their issues and bring out unique solutions.

We call for a deeper reflection on all parameters of child labour. We ask to move beyond the language and methodology of the ban and join the children in a conversation, a dialogue. Let us open spaces, so we begin to see and experience the world from their perspective.