Since 1978, the government of India has attempted to tackle the issue of working children. But millions of children still work in humiliating and injurious occupations. State strategies have failed to meet constitutional commitments to children. Scheme-based, relief-oriented strategies have not only failed but also caused irreparable harm to them. The approach has been criminalizing rather than empowering, and marginalizing rather than inclusive.
Poverty is a condition that ails more than 42% of India’s population. The present rationale is that the poor have brought this condition upon themselves through resisting education, succumbing to superstition, and lacking initiative. It is also believed that compulsory education and microfinance are effective in solving the problem. However, the possibility that poverty could be the result of economic models and the slow progress towards political decentralization is rarely debated.
Global recession is also contributing to increased poverty and vulnerability of those who already lack social security, increasing the numbers of children who work. Plans to address child labor concentrate on the ‘pull factor’ (the demand for child workers) instead of the ‘push factor’ (the reasons why children enter the labor market). They attempt to prevent child employment by using punitive measures against the employer through raids and financing bridge schools for rescued children.
This bypasses the fact that bans only try to shut off the demand for child workers, paying little attention to the causes of poverty and the increasing supply of children to the labour market. On the other hand, blind faith in schooling to solve all problems and the conviction that all work is a curse upon childhood are simplistic generalizations.
It is worth noting that present schooling for children from marginalized communities does not promote independence, critical thinking and an enquiring engagement with the world. It is rather a form of ‘training’ designed to meet the needs of a rapidly changing market. It would be more practical to address the supply side of child labor since this would place the focus on the basic causes that push children into the labor market and would lead to more sustainable solutions.
It is likewise not acknowledged that working children are thinking and feeling human beings who are capable of participating constructively and actively in the formulation of solutions. They and their families need to be empowered to become agents of their own change. Such an approach, with the right support and resources, can achieve much more than treating them and their families as lawbreakers.
It would be advisable to break up the problem into manageable portions and decentralize the design, planning and implementation of initiatives to the panchayat and municipality level, as a previous step to make working children and their families part of the solution.
Decentralized social monitoring would enable local governments to have a better grip on the progress of action plans. Each panchayat or municipal ward could begin by conducting a detailed survey of child workers in the area. This data should serve as the baseline for monitoring progress. Social monitoring by children, their families, the community and local governments, would enlist the whole population in the mission.
India must uphold the Convention of the Rights of the Child and keep the ‘best interests of children’ as the central principle of all strategies and interventions. This can only be done by recognizing children as active participants in the process.
Source: infochange
