Freed From the Bondage of Children and Family
Media exposure and prompt action by the administration and a voluntary organisation bring liberty to some bonded child workers in Kancheepuram's silk-weaving industry.
in Kancheepuram
Some of the children who were released from bondage, at a function in Kancheepuram on June 3.-S. THANTHONI
"I CANNOT believe I am costless and tin can run across daylight." These words of 13-year-former V. Manikandan, who was freed from a main weaver in Kancheepuram, a major silk-weaving centre 80 km from Chennai, left most of those gathered at a contempo function to mark the release of bonded children with moist optics. Like Manikandan, over 150 children, between the historic period of half dozen and 15, from Kancheepuram and Tiruvannamalai districts are thrilled to be out of the loom pits in which they had been working from dawn to sunset, 365 days a yr, for several years.
They are free today thanks to the Kancheepuram commune administration and the Social Action Movement (SAM), a non-turn a profit, voluntary organisation based in Kancheepuram. The master weavers had kept them in bondage against loans ranging from Rs.1,000 to Rs.10,000 that their parents had taken. Manikandan, for instance, had been in bondage for v years equally his father could not repay in full Rs.5,000 that he had borrowed from a main weaver. The commune administration and SAM acted after the media exposed the plight of thousands of children like him (Frontline, Feb 28, 2003).
The district administration released 114 bonded children by ways of action taken under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 and deposited Rs.20,000 in the name of each child; started ii special schools (at Pillaiyarpalayam and Yagasalai) that would deed as "bridges" earlier the children are integrated into regular schools and sent notices to some master weavers under the Bonded Labour System (Abolitionism) Act. According to E.P. Annalarasu, Project Officer, Nilavoli Palli (`schools under moonlight'), the district administration has come out with a number of other schemes, which are expected to receive funds to the tune of Rs.five crores from the National Child Labour Project (NCLP). Lxxx per cent of the funds and so far have come from the United States regime and the remainder from the International Labour Organization.
Under the NCLP, several measures are to be introduced in areas where child labour is a major trouble. The programme proposes to gear up over l special schools, strengthen regular schools, plant more 500 self-aid groups (SHGs), train women in vocations that could supplement their income, make a monthly deposit of Rs.100 in a nationalised bank for every kid taken off work and put in a regular school and book offending master weavers under the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Deed. Annalarasu says: "We will take all precautions to brand certain that every released child remains in school and non at work."
How is the assistants going to ensure that the children do not slip back into bondage? According to Annalarasu, the commune assistants has initiated steps for this. For example, of the Rs.twenty,000 that is allotted to the family of every child released under the Bonded Labour System (Abolitionism) Human activity just Rs.one,000 will be given to the parents and the residual will be deposited in a nationalised bank in the name of the kid. This amount will exist released to the family unit after the child turns 21. Even the interest on the deposit (Rs.98 a month) will be paid to the family only if the child is in schoolhouse. The sum of Rs.100, proposed to be given to each released child under the NCLP, will exist put in a recurring eolith business relationship only if the child remains in school.
Annalarasu says: "Though the NCLP has been effective in Kancheepuram since 1997, we take not got any funds from the government and the steps we accept taken to rehabilitate the released bonded children have been supported simply by philanthropic funds." In 1997-98, the district administration released 81 children from bondage under the Bonded Labour Human action and gave Rs.x,000 in total (the amount given nether the Act at that time) to the family of each 1 of them. Some of the families took the money but sent the children dorsum into bondage.
On June iii, SAM, which has freed over 200 children in the by three years and put them in special schools, released 27 bonded children from Kancheepuram and Tiruvannamalai districts by paying Rs.72,500 (collected from philanthropists and people who offered aid afterwards reading media reports) to the primary weavers. SAM conducted a three-week orientation form for the released children before putting them in regular schools. But the existent challenge, co-ordinate to Begetter P.B. Martin, secretary, SAM, is to prevent them from going dorsum to work.
Parents of many of the released children are not sure if they volition be able to keep their wards in school for long. Speaking on behalf of all the parents whose children were released past SAM, Dhanam, Chamundeswari's mother, says: "We know the value of education. We are all swell to send our children to school. But our economic status is such that the Rs.100 to Rs.250 that the child brings every month from working in the loom is a big help to the family." Nine-year-old S. Sankari asks: "How is it that fifty-fifty after working for so many years the corporeality of money my parents owe the master weavers remains the same? Nosotros want to say farewell to piece of work and march to school. But how can we?"
11-year-old D. Annamalai laments: "Is in that location no solution to our misery? Nosotros all want to be in school. Nosotros know it is the correct of every child to be in school. But is that right not applicable to poor children similar u.s.?"
Studies show that poverty is non the only cause of bonded labour. The other major reasons include lack of access to credit, the absence of coordinated social welfare schemes, the inaccessibility and the low standards of schools, caste discrimination in schools, the not-implementation of minimum wages for adults, adult unemployment, and historical and economic relationships based on the caste hierarchy and other discriminatory factors. Monthly developed wages are so low - Rs.500 to Rs.1,500 - that the workers are forced to keep borrowing from their employers, who ensure that the loans remain even though the value of the labour performed by the kid is enough to repay the debt several times over.
According to Annalarasu, one way of ensuring that the released children remain in schoolhouse is to provide supplementary income to the families. The SHGs have an of import role to play in this regard. He says that the commune administration has started over 500 SHGs and has lent Rs.eleven.32 lakhs in the past eight months. He suggests that the SHGs help in the eradication of child bondage in many ways. They provide boosted income to the family, create awareness about the advantages of sending children to school and also aid build social force per unit area to send children to school. This is borne out by the fact that over xx children in the areas covered by the SHGs have voluntarily joined the special schools without even claiming the Rs.xx,000 they are entitled to nether the Bonded Labour Act.
WHILE information technology is of import to ensure that the released children do not return to bondage, information technology is besides crucial to rescue thousands of children who keep to exist bonded to master weavers. The regime has a office to play in this. According to Annalarasu, the commune administration has acted to solve the problem by starting 30 schools (for adults and children), which function from 7-30 p.m. to nine-thirty p.k., to arrange those who work during the day. Several children from these schools appeared for the matriculation-level Board examinations as private candidates and have washed well, he says.
Night schools should non be seen equally a solution to the problem of bondage of children. The children, after working 12 hours a twenty-four hour period, find it difficult to sit through the classes. The only fashion to deal with the result effectively is to implement the law on compulsory primary instruction strictly.
But, according to North. Radhakrishnan of the Arivoli Iyakkam (a literacy movement) in Kancheepuram, there are many issues in implementing laws against child labour and bonded labour. The laws vary in the matter of fixing the upper age limit to define child labour: it ranges from 14 years to 18 years. According to Radhakrishnan, the district administration had booked 141 cases nether the Child Labour (Abolitionism) Human action (1986) in Kancheepuram but simply one came up for hearing. The Act has a number of loopholes. For case, an subpoena has removed the provision for iii months imprisonment for chief weavers who employ children; at present they only have to pay a fine of Rs.ten,000.
Says Radhakrishnan: "Information technology is easier to release a child under the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Human activity. The Commune Revenue Officer is the magistrate nether the Act and if he certifies the release of the kid, the master weaver has to comply." Thus, according to Radhakrishnan, different Acts are invoked depending on the state of affairs. "The bottom line," he says, "is to encounter to it that the child is out of bondage and into school."
But asked why only 114 children had been released in Kancheepuram under the Bonded Labour Act while thousands remain enslaved, Annalarasu says that parents have to fill up a grade giving details such equally the name of the employer, the nature of work and the corporeality owed. Simply 114 parents had submitted the details.
Inquiries revealed that parents hesitated to requite the details either because they had been threatened by the employers or because they did not desire to spoil the chances of getting help from the master weavers in future.
According to T. Raj, project officeholder, SAM, this amounts to looking at the issue simplistically and shifting the responsibility to poor parents who are compelled to transport their children to work. The district administration needs to await at the issue comprehensively without compartmentalising it on the basis of projects, programmes and targets if it really intends to "free the children from bondage and wants them to see daylight".
Source: https://frontline.thehindu.com/other/article30217663.ece
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