Long way to go

The problem of child labour, which varies from State to State, must be fought on many fronts. Here is a progress report on the National Child Labour Project.

UTTAR PRADESH Venkitesh Ramakrishnan in Varanasi and Mirzapur

TRAVEL through the districts of Varanasi and Mirzapur, rated as the hotbed of child labour rackets and anti-child labour activism in Uttar Pradesh, and it is evident that the October 10 notification of the Union Labour Ministry with enhanced provisions against employment of children has had little effect in the region. The Grand Trunk Road, one of India's first national highways, passes through both these districts, and one can see children employed in dhabas (roadside eateries), restaurants, hotels, motels and teashops situated along the road. In fact, most of the dhaba owners are not even aware that the latest notification under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act extends the ban on employing children below 14 years to enterprises such as restaurants, hotels, resorts, spas and recreational centres.

According to the Labour Ministry's estimation, Uttar Pradesh has the largest number of child workers in the country - 19 lakhs in the 5-14 age group. The evaluation essentially covers the carpet and silk-weaving industry of the Mirzapur-Varanasi belt, the lock-and-key manufacturing units of Aligarh, the brass vessel industry of Moradabad, the sports goods units of Meerut, the fireworks production units of Jhansi and the brick kilns spread across the State. According to informal estimates of social activists who have been campaigning against child labour, with the Act covering more areas the figure could well touch 30 lakhs.

This speaks volumes about the socio-economic backwardness of a large number of communities in the State as also the indifference of successive governments in addressing this backwardness. According to Shruti Raghuvansh, a Varanasi-based social activist who has been involved in efforts to rescue child workers for close to a decade, the exploitation of children is inextricably linked to social inequities and the communal and caste discrimination that has existed in the region. "The majority of child labourers," she pointed out, "belong to the socially backward communities, Dalits and the Muslim minorities." This, according to her, is no accident as these communities have been historically denied opportunities to better themselves socially and economically.

According to political analyst Indra Bhushan Singh, the last couple of decades, marked by social and political assertion by Dalits and other backward communities, should have naturally brought about a change in the situation, but this has not happened on account of two factors. First, the lack of focus on the part of the political leadership of the "newly assertive communities" on the overall economic advancement of the oppressed communities and specifically on issues such as child labour. Secondly, the gargantuan dimensions of the exploitation and the expanse of industries that employ child labour.

Social activists are hopeful that the enhanced Act would strengthen governmental and non-governmental initiatives to address the problem. However, the situation in Uttar Pradesh gives no such indication. Government agencies that are supposed to enforce the law have not come up with any fresh initiatives. Officials of the Labour Department in Varanasi admitted that no action had been taken in the district on the basis of the new provisions. Many officials cited the conduct of local body elections in October and early November as a reason for the lack of "forceful advancement" of the law.

Anil, a co-coordinator of the Project Mala schools initiative, which has a commendable record in rescuing children from exploitation and abuse in the carpet-weaving industry, told Frontline that the effect of government action was not very perceptible. "If they are claiming to have taken some measures, then we have not experienced their effect." Anil added that Project Mala ran six schools and provided education to over 1,000 child labourers "rescued" from the weaving industry. "Right now," he said, "our basic focus is on this area [weaving industry]." This industry alone is said to employ five lakh children.

However, a handful of social activists have started addressing the new provisions as part of their social and developmental initiatives. Efforts to provide informal and formal education to rescued child labourers form the core of their interventions. "Our initiatives," Shruti Raghuvansh told Frontline, "are not centred around any particular industry and we are trying to rescue children from dhabas, the carpet and silk industries and even from domestic abuse." According to her, domestic abuse and industrial exploitation are entwined in many cases. Commercial enterprises such as silk and carpet-weaving or production of sports goods are basically run as small-scale industries relying on household units. "Economically deprived parents make use of their children in these units, naturally without giving them any remuneration."

But some of these "parent employers" in Varanasi's silk manufacturing units told this correspondent that some of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in child labour rescue operations were only doing a cosmetic job. Mushtaq, a weaver who employs two children aged 11 and 14 in his `unit' at Lallapura, said that an NGO had taken away the older child on the pretext of giving him an education. But it returned the child after three months, saying that he was "incompatible with studies". Mushtaq also said that the NGO had promised financial compensation for taking away the services of the child, but never kept the promise.

Clearly, the child labour problem in India's most populous State has multifarious dimensions. It can be addressed only through a concerted effort combining social and political empowerment of distressed communities, considerate enforcement of the law that differentiates between commercial exploitation and compulsions of poor "parent employers", and promotion of grassroots projects to spread elementary education through formal and informal means.

ANDHRA PRADESH K. Venkateshwarlu in Hyderabad

ANDHRA Pradesh, which had the dubious distinction of having the largest number of child labourers in the country, has now bequeathed this honour to Uttar Pradesh. But this is poor consolation for the State, which has a long way to go before attaining the goal of becoming "child-labour-free". The State Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution way back in March 2001 to eradicate the scourge and achieve universal elementary education by 2004. But the problem of child labour remains in all its pernicious forms - from those employed in roadside garages to adolescent girls in hybrid cotton-seed farms - persists though the actual number has come down, if one were to make a comparison of the Census reports of 1991 and 2001.

Notwithstanding the all-pervasive existence of child labour, the State government comes up with tall claims that give the impression that it is on the verge of being eradicated. The Labour and Education Departments claim to have brought down the number of child labourers from "29 lakh in the 1990s to two lakhs now", adding that many child labourers have been enrolled in schools. NGOs working in the area of child labour, however, dismiss the claim as "unbelievable" and "fictitious".

"Can the government reveal the concrete steps it has taken so far to bring about such a dramatic change?" asks Shantha Sinha, Magsaysay award winner and child rights crusader, whose M.V. Foundation has mainstreamed over four lakh children through a string of bridge schools. The Foundation works on the basic premise that "any child out of school is a child labourer" and the only way to eliminate child labour is through a formal education. This premise has now been adopted by the government.

Like her, many people feel that the issue of child labour is not given the priority it deserves, though it could impinge on a State's economy and the overall gross State domestic product, add to existing disparities and threaten the functioning of a democracy.

"The government responds only when there is public outrage or media pressure following a gross violation - such as the rape and murder of two Scheduled Tribe girls working on hybrid cotton farms. It has characteristically been a knee-jerk response. It wakes up to a crisis and then goes back to sleep," Shantha Sinha says.

Not surprisingly, the employment of adolescent girls in hybrid cotton-seed farms in Kurnool and Mahbubnagar districts continues unchecked. Cotton-seed production, a labour-intensive industry, is prevalent in backward areas where cheap labour is available. Lured by the higher wages, food and shelter, many parents send their wards to cottonseed fields. Farm-labour families consider work in these fields highly remunerative, but the trade has an exploitative angle too.

Only girls in the pre-puberty stage are engaged to work in the fields, the myth floated being that only flowers handled by minor girls will bear fruit. The fact is that the nimble fingers of young girls are more suited to the work. Besides, young girls can be easily disciplined and made to work longer hours. Their wages are also lower than what adults would demand.

This year, cotton seed is cultivated on 7,000 acres (one acre is 0.4 hectare) in Allagadda andYemmiganur of Kurnool district and 8,000 acres in Gadwal and Ieeja areas of Mahbubnagar. Industry sources say that the area under cultivation has been shrinking owing to various factors; a decade ago, the two districts alone met 50 per cent of the cotton-seed requirement of the entire country.

Of the Rs.80,000 investment for an acre, nearly 50 per cent involves labour cost. Each acre generates 1,000 man-days' work, requiring the services of six to ten children daily. The peak season lasts 80 days, during which time children are required to emasculate the flowers and puff the pollen collected from male plants on to the emasculated flowers. The exercise ensures cross-pollination to make the seed hybrid. This laborious process is not required for other crops for which male sterile lines are available.

The cotton seed industry operates in a multi-tier system. The large companies operate through mediators known as organisers, who in turn work with farmers by supplying them inputs and money. Seed giants such as Monsanto, Proagro, Tulasi, Rasi, Nuzvid and JK have contracted middlemen for sourcing seed material. Each acre of seed plot yields 300 kg.

Monsanto was the first company to sense the magnitude of the problem of child labour involved in the industry. Besides launching a campaign, it paid a higher price to farmers who did not engage child labour.

Checking the problem seems to be hampered as there is no law banning agricultural labour of children. An effort to rope in seed companies has had a limited effect.

The official estimate is that around 25,000 children would have worked in these fields this year. Campaigns such as "Chaduvula Panduga" (festival of studying) have been taken up in a major way for a week or a fortnight but there was never any follow-up to cater to the demand generated by such campaigns to open more schools, improve their infrastructure and post enough teachers.

Nevertheless, if the Statewide situation is considered, there have been some positive results of the increase in general awareness and the combined efforts made by the government and the NGOs on children's education. According to the 1991 Census, 81,92,094 children in the 5-14 age group (34,11,831 of them girls) were in school, leaving 84,63,562 children out of the school system. In 2001, 1,30,78,287 children were attending school and 46,35,477 (26 per cent of the total child population) were out of the school system. In terms of percentage, while only 49 per cent of children were attending school in 1991, 74 per cent attended school in 2001. So it can be said that during the ten-year period, school attendance in the State increased by 25 per cent against the all-India figure of 16 per cent.

Census 2001 ranks the State as the fourth best in terms of absolute increase in educational attendance of children; the State had ranked 10th in 1991.The State was ranked second best (Uttar Pradesh being the first) in terms of educational attendance of girls.

The Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) report for the financial year 2003-04 pointed out though the State government claimed to have abolished child labour in 2004, it also said that it had "rescued" three children from hazardous occupations. Describing the claim as hollow, the CAG also exposed the diversion of funds earmarked for child labour abolition schemes flouting of Supreme Court guidelines, and other irregularities.

For the record, the government policy recognises the linkage between child labour and compulsory school education. The policy initiatives include the Back to School Programme, Residential and Non Residential Bridge Course Centres for the 9-14 age group under the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and the District Poverty Initiative Programme (DPIP), the National Child Labour Project Scheme and Early Child Education Centres.

Then there are programmes taken up by local NGOs, industries and international agencies such as the International Labour Organisation (International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

"What is required is a concerted and constant intensive campaign and close monitoring of programmes. We need to involve gram panchayats, mandal and zilla parishads and municipalities in this effort, as is being done in Kerala," Dr. Sinha says.

With inputs from D. Sreenivasulu in KurnoolDELHI T.K. Rajalakshmi

IN 2001, rag-picking and scavenging, along with four other occupations, were added to Part B (list of prohibited processes) of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986. But these activities continue unabated and an estimated three lakh child rag-pickers "work" in the resettlement colonies of Delhi.

Child labour rehabilitation centres are too few to accommodate the huge number of working children. There exist no disaggregated data on the sector-wise distribution of children in the various occupations, both hazardous and non-hazardous.

There are 20 Transitional Education Centres (TECs) in the National Capital Region under the Indo-United States project for rehabilitation of working children, with each catering to around 50 children. These projects are monitored by officials of the Labour Department. Children are entitled to a stipend of Rs.100 under the National Child Labour Project (NCLP).

Kiran Sharma runs a TEC from her home for rag-picker children rehabilitated under the NCLP, at Swaroopnagar, a semi-authorised colony in north Delhi. She started the TEC in June and employed two teachers and a helper, but no money has arrived. The teachers are to be paid Rs.1,500 each a month and the helper Rs.800. The children have to be paid Rs.100 as well. "I can get a thousand children from this locality but where can I keep them? Today a mother came and took her child away, saying that the child would return to the centre when the money comes," she said.

There were other problems too. The NCLP centres are supposed to cater to children in the 9-14 age group. Children below this age group are supposed to be "mainstreamed" into schools directly. But the younger siblings of the "working children" end up in the NCLP centres in the absence of pre-primary school facility and creches.

"Labour Department officials tell us not to keep younger children at the centres. But where will they go when the older siblings are with us and the parents are at work?" asks Beena Jaiswal, who runs Kirandeep, an NGO, in Jahangirpuri in north-west Delhi..

Ashok Agarwal, a High Court lawyer fighting for the right to education of children, said children in the NCLP centres who did not belong there should be mainstreamed directly into government schools. "Nobody is interested in these children."

In 1988, the Centre launched the NCLP in nine districts with a high concentration of child labour. Later, it extended the programme to 250 districts. In Delhi, it was launched in June this year. Although on paper there appears to be a lot of convergence with universal education programmes such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, nothing much is happening on the ground.

The NCLP societies run special schools for children in the 9-14 age group. These societies are required to conduct surveys and identify children working in hazardous occupations and processes. Those in the 5-8 age group are to be mainstreamed directly to formal educational systems through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) and the working children are to be rehabilitated, through the special schools, under the project.

A visit to the TEC at Bhalaswa, a large resettlement colony in north-west Delhi, spoke volumes of the rehabilitation efforts. There are six TECs for a population of nearly 2.5 lakhs in this colony.

Beena Jaiswal said mainstreaming of children in schools was difficult as there were reluctant parents and hostile school principals. Since January, the teachers under the SSA in her area had not been paid salaries. "How can you expect them to teach?" she asks.

Most of the children at the Bhalaswa TEC are girls, though not all of them are child workers. Savita, who had completed Class V from a municipal school, was unable to seek admission in the local municipal school when her family was relocated to Bhalaswa from central Delhi. She joined the TEC.

The NCLP scheme envisages educating children on personal hygiene and sanitation, besides giving them vocational training. But right opposite the Bhalaswa TEC lies a huge mass of sewage. Amid an overpowering stench, the mid-day meal is cooked and served to the children.

A State Labour Department official said that the demand for education was huge. But there was not much clarity on the roles to be played by persons at different levels under the NCLP. Tarannum is a young community worker. When asked about the response from the community, she said she had not spoken to the community but only to some parents. When told by the Labour official that the parents were also part of the "community" concerned, she looked embarrassed.

Evidently, Tarannum is a victim of this top-down jargon. She probably knows that the NCLP is not a permanent entity, her services are not permanent and there is no regular scheme of pay but only an honorarium. With such meagre incentives and great expectations of community service, she is aware that she can bring about only cosmetic changes.

According to Department of Education figures, the number of out-of-school children in Delhi in the 6-10 age group is 98,097, of which 46,474 belong to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Similarly, 2,20,658 children in the 11-13 age group are out of school, of whom 34,061 are from the S.C. and S.T. communities.

The present child labour rehabilitation schemes are not enough. Last year, an NGO rescued 500 children from zari factories but most of them found their way back into the labour market. There needs to be permanence of structures from where the children are not trafficked. Secondly, the teachers should be given proper and regular salaries so that they are more committed and do not become part of a third tier of education, contributing merely to the creation of a third category of citizens - out-of-school children.

TAMIL NADU T.S. Subramanian in Chennai

DARKNESS has descended early on the Marina beach in Chennai on October 30 as the deep depression in the Bay of Bengal, which dumped several centimetres of rain for two days, threatens to let go again. Yet, strollers and couples are aplenty on the vast sands of the 4.5-km-long beach. Many of them are sipping ginger coffee, sold in plastic cups by an emaciated-looking boy. "I am selling ginger coffee today because the weather is chilly and people would prefer hot ginger coffee to sundal (channa)," says S. Soundararajan, who is a school dropout from Pudukottai. Asked where the other boys selling sundal were, he said many of them had not turned up because of the bad weather. He added: "Many have gone back to their villages because their employers were warned that they would be fined Rs.20,000 and jailed for a year if they employed children."

Some distance away is Khader Meeran, who is selling toy rockets. A school dropout, he lives with his parents in Mylapore, Chennai. His skill with the rocket, which when released from a catapult speeds away and returns like a boomerang, was perhaps gained from years if not long months of practice.

Another boy, selling sugar candy, firmly refuses to reduce the price. "The price of sugar is ruling high," he says. He is from Bihar.

They are among the 461 child workers on the Marina. They earn a living by selling sundal, murukku, vadas, water packets, balloons, kites and ice-creams from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. or by working as dishwashers in the mobile eateries that sell bhel puri, paani puri and other fast food. There are 800 such shops behind Anna Square on the beach road and another 200 behind the Light House. Many of these boys are migrant, seasonal workers. About 70 per cent of the boys belong to the southern districts of Tamil Nadu such as Madurai, Sivaganga, Ramanathapuram and Tirunelveli. Of the rest, many belong to Chennai and the others are from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar or Madhya Pradesh.

They are bonded labourers, their parents having pledged them to sundal vyaparis for Rs.5,000. They stay with their "owners" and their day usually begins with a pre-dawn trip to the market to buy groundnuts and vegetables. They then prepare the sundal and other snacks to sell on the beach. Each boy has to sell 10 kg of sundal a day. Anything less than that would mean beatings and no meal at night. Some employers give them Rs.20 or Rs.30 a day, while others just provide them food. Some of these children have had no education at all, but the majority are school dropouts. Those from Chennai go to school and in the evenings sell on the beach.

In 2004, the Chennai Corporation implemented the NCLP, which aims, among other things, to eliminate child labour in non-hazardous occupations by 2007. It came up with an innovative initiative called "School on Wheels", which is a bus painted on the outside and inside with cartoon characters and so on and equipped with a blackboard, play materials and stationery that schoolchildren need.

Six teachers travel on the bus along with NCLP field officers. At first the children ran way, thinking that it was "a police bus" on a roundup mission. The teachers and field officers slowly encouraged them to board the bus and introduced them to learning in a free atmosphere. Soon the children came in on their own when the bus arrived and it was easy to motivate them to join regular schools. Now, two years later, 104 of the 461 children are regular pupils in mainstream schools in the city.

Explaining the rationale of the project, K. Dillibabu, Project Director of the NCLP in Chennai, said: "We thought, if child labourers on the Marina did not go to school of their own volition why can't the school go in search of them?" To make the learning materials and the teaching methods exciting, the Corporation chose the activity-based teaching and learning methodology developed by the Rishi Valley School near Madanapalle in Andhra Pradesh. This included play-way methods and learning through music and dance.

But the "owners" of these children were livid. "Their parents have borrowed Rs.5,000 from me. Will you give us that money?" one of them asked the field officers. "So we decided to target the employers," said Dillibabu. Field officers, factory inspectors, labour inspectors and teachers set about convincing them to allow the children to study. The Joint Commissioner (Education) of Chennai Corporation, Sandhya Venugopal Sharma, also informed traders that employing children was illegal and punishable. "Parents, too, had to be motivated because they feared loss of income," said N. Revathi, a field officer.

Trained officials met the employers individually and the stall-owners through their associations. They persuaded them to send the children, including some girls who sold flowers, to the mobile school for half an hour in the evening. "Some traders agreed. Many were reluctant because they had given money to the children's parents. We tried to change their mind by meeting them every day," said S. Chinnachamy, a field officer. Finally, they said they would relent if their association agreed to allow the children to study. Every day the bus arrived at two designated places at a given time and remained there for half an hour.

Today one of the children, Mahesh, 14, from Ramanathapuram, is a first-ranker in the 8th class in the Corporation Middle School on Mundakanni Amman Kovil Street, Mylapore. He has an appetite for learning: earlier he used to visit the bus and learn for extended hours, not minding the beating he got from his employer. Ganesh is another bright spark, who is now a resident of Saranalaya, an orphanage.

The NCLP officers are in touch with the children who have left the special schools to join mainstream schools. The officers and teachers monitor the children's progress. "They write tests and examinations regularly. We evaluate them with the help of their schoolteachers," said Dillibabu.

Building on the success of the `education bus', the Corporation is planning more mobile schools in areas such as Besant Nagar, Ashok Nagar, Kodungaiyur and Koyambedu in the city, said Chinnachamy.

A major component of the NCLP was the elimination of child labour in hazardous occupations by 2005. In Tamil Nadu, the NCLP targeted, among other occupations, the tanneries in Dindigul and other places. According to NGOs, some units in Dindigul once employed children, mostly school dropouts whose parents were tannery workers, but not any more. Labour officials also say that the tanneries, which use corrosive chemicals to process foul-smelling wet leather, do not have any child labourers. But the Dindigul Tannery Workers' Union is conducting a survey of the leather processing units on the basis of information that children have been working as helpers, says K. Ganesan, district secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU). He added that tannery workers, mostly Dalits, sent their children for this work.

"Children cannot do such work as it requires skill and experience. Even minor changes in processing would spoil the finished product," says K.A.R. Mohideen, a leading exporter in Dindigul.

The closure of tanneries - down to 45 now from 87 in 1984 - undoubtedly aided the process of ending child labour in them. Unhealthy competition in the purchase of raw materials and the slump in demand, including in the global market, led to many of the smaller units shutting down, leaving hundreds of workers jobless.

In the matchstick units of Vellore district, as also in tanneries and the handloom and beedi industries, a focussed response helped. In April 1995, District Collector M.P. Vijayakumar, now the Commissioner of the Chennai Municipal Corporation, initiated a district-wide child labour census with financial assistance from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the help of 10,000 volunteers of Arivoli Iyakkam (Literacy Campaign).

The door-to-door survey, conducted in two phases and covering seven lakh households, revealed that the district had 15,421 child labourers, of whom 7,511 were engaged in hazardous occupations and 7,910 in non-hazardous occupations. It also found that child labour was most rampant in the beedi industry, which is essentially home-based. There were also many instances of bonded labour, where parents pledged their children to beedi contractors for money that would meet family expenses. These children toiled in beedi mundis for 10 to 14 hours a day with only a break for lunch.

To root out the practice, the administration initiated the process of sensitising all the stakeholders - parents, employers and opinion-makers - about sending the children to school. The Collector and the Additional Collectors visited and spoke to employers in the matchstick and beedi industries, among others, and to parents of child labourers. Many child labourers were freed in raids and their employers were arrested.

The administration then set up 251 special schools under the Child Labour Abolition Support Scheme (CLASS) with the active participation of the Indian Council for Child Welfare. The intention was to educate the children in a non-formal environment before they could be admitted to regular schools.

The Chennai Corporation, too, has set up 20 special schools, which function from Corporation schools, community centres or Ambedkar Manrams in the city. Here one-time child workers of restaurants, tea stalls, automobile workshops, vegetable markets, units where steel utensils are polished, and small factories making steel almirahs and tables, were introduced to activity-based learning.

"Each special school has 50 children. They are child labourers whom we have rescued. They don't go to work anymore. They are studying full-time, from 9.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m.," said Chinnachamy. They are given basic education for four months and then introduced to textbooks, depending on each child's capability.

In Tiruchi district, special schools under the Child Labour Elimination and Effective Rehabilitation Society (CHEERS) have helped reduce the number of child workers in the past decade in the beedi and textile units and quarries. More than 1,500 children have been brought into the mainstream and many of them have even become graduates.

That the special schools serve their purpose well is clear from the fact that of the 251 schools in Vellore district only 93 are functioning now. The rest have been closed for want of pupils. A total of 2,470 children - 1,077 boys and 1,393 girls - are currently studying in the 93 special schools.

In order to keep the momentum going, District Collector Dharmendra Prasad Yadav said the administration would adopt a multi-pronged strategy, involving village administrative officers (VAOs), headmasters, teachers, block development officers (BDOs), panchayat presidents and village leaders, to persuade parents and employers not to encourage child labour. Parents would also be given loans and other forms of assistance under a rehabilitation programme so that they do not have to pawn their children to contractors.

Child labour is not a serious concern in western Tamil Nadu at present. Thanks to the NCLP launched in Coimbatore district in 1995, as many as 13 of the 19 panchayat unions have been declared "child-labour-free". S. Jayakumar, Project Officer, DRDA, who holds additional charge as Project Director, Kovai Child Labour Abolition Support Society, says child labour in hazardous industries has been abolished in the district, and the administration is focussing on the remaining blocks and industrial sectors. Between 1996 and 2006, as many as 14,128 child workers were rescued and enrolled in special schools in the district. Of them 7,416 have joined regular schools. Children work in some restaurants, shops and bakeries in Udhagamanalam. Nilgiris Collector Santosh K. Misra claimed that child labour was not a cause for concern in the district.

In Salem district, despite the district administration rescuing about 17,000 children, including 8,343 under the NCLP (Project Smile) and 5,967 through the SSA, since 1995-96, there is an allegation that steps are yet to be initiated by Project Smile to rescue children from domestic labour and also from work in restaurants, tea shops, roadside eateries, dhabas, holiday resorts and so on. However, Project Smile officials said that they had planned to undertake a number of measures to make people aware of the ban. The Salem Childline had rescued six children found employed in hotels on October 10. In Erode, the main hazardous industries are tanneries and dyeing units. Only a few children worked there; they have already been rescued by the Labour Department. Over 900 child workers in textile units and automobile workshops were rescued in 2005 and admitted to the special schools. During 2006, about 30 child workers of automobile workshops, hotels and brick kilns were rescued and action has been initiated against the employers. According to District Collector D. Karthikeyan, there is no child labour in the district. In Krishnagiri district, 3,060 child workers have been enrolled in regular schools. Of them 2,126 were brought into the school system through the SSA and 934 by the NCLP. In Dharmapuri district, more than 11,000 child workers have been enrolled in regular schools.

With inputs from K. Raju, P.V.V. Murthy, Syed Muthahar Saqaf, G. Satyamurty, M. Soundariya Preetha, D.Radhakrishnan, R. Sundaram, S. Ramesh and S. Prasad

KARNATAKA Ravi Sharma in Bangalore

THE amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, banning the employment of children in restaurants and dhabas and as domestics has not meant anything new for Karnataka. "It only changes the nature of prosecution; it certainly does not change the nature of inspections," says State Labour Commissioner K.S. Manjunath. "While earlier no prosecution was possible under the Act, now the Labour Department can directly prosecute violators."

Karnataka had evolved its own legal mechanism to rescue and rehabilitate children and penalise their employers. As far as children employed in domestic work are concerned, the Labour Department, Childline or NGOs have suo motu taken up cases under the Minimum Wages and Juvenile Justice Acts ever since the Minimum Wages Notification for Domestic Workers came into effect in April 2004. Violators were hauled up before child welfare committees, with the Labour Department mobilising relief packages for the wronged child.

In the hospitality industry, cases of child labour are dealt with under the provisions of the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, which prohibits the employment of children under the age of 14.

But neither measure has helped Karnataka become a "child labour-free State", a status that the S.M. Krishna government hoped to achieve by 2007. The State has not been able to eradicate child labour in sectors like mining, construction and sericulture and in activities like rag-picking, which were declared hazardous years ago. Besides, while children earlier went to factories and worksheds and received a meagre daily wage, today in many industries, such as agarabatti rolling and chilli packaging, factories have gone to the homes with work handed out on a piece-rate basis to the entire family.

In 2001, the Krishna government initiated a timebound "Action Plan to Eliminate Child Labour". With over one million children in the six to 14 age group out of school (and involved in labour), Karnataka hoped that the action plan would, within a six-year period, ensure that all children under 14 were enrolled and remained in mainstream schools.

While the plans were grand, the funds never materialised; just Rs.8 crores was given out of the promised Rs.36 crores. The lack of political will, the absence of convergence between key government Departments such as Education, Women and Child Welfare and Labour, and the almost non-existent coordination between government bodies and NGOs did not help, either.

But Manjunath is not unduly worried: "The Action Plan has not been a failure. The incidence of child labour has certainly come down. But child labour is a social problem, which has to be tackled by society at large. You can't draw a plan, mark a date and try to eradicate it. The Labour Department is at best a catalyst and an enforcement agency."

Awareness of the problem has grown, says Suchitra Rao, coordinator for the Domestic Child Labour Elimination Project (DCLEP) set up by the State government with UNICEF assistance. "The number of children working in the sericulture industry in Magadi [near Bangalore] has come down from 8,000 in 1999 to hardly 200. Similarly, in Davengere district's jewellery-making industry, the number of child workers has come down drastically."

In Davengere district, the local police run a rehabilitation centre for rescued children, while the Education Department manages another. Officials are, however, unable to tell how many children in the six to 14 age group are employed. While some government sources put the number at 100,000, NGOs believe the figure is around 600,000.

Joint Labour Commissioner S. Manjunatha Sastry feels that numbers do not give the true picture: "The number of children in work is a dynamic figure, it keeps changing. Migrants also cause fluctuations. In some areas and occupations, especially beedi-making and agarabatti rolling, children work along with the family in their homes. The law cannot be enforced in these cases. In my estimate around 78,000 children are out of school."

According to the Commissioner, the frequency of raids has increased exponentially in the recent past. Between April and October this year the Labour Department inspected over 28,000 premises, rescued over 1,100 child labourers and rehabilitated all of them. Rescued children and their families are counselled and attempts are made to unite each child with his or her family. Children are also admitted to the NCLP special schools or placed at the State Child Labour Project (SCLP) residential schools.

Children at NCLP schools are given food and shelter, imparted basic learning skills and, at the end of a period, which could vary from a few days to a year, sent to regular schools. Karnataka has over 250 NCLP schools spread across 17 of its 27 districts, with around 40 children in each of them. There are around 30 SCLP transit/residential schools where children are housed for periods ranging from a week to three months. Under the 2001 Action Plan, the State envisaged making all the NCLP schools residential, but that has not happened owing to the lack of funds. In a recent development, Deputy Commissioners have been asked to "reserve 25 per cent of seats in general hostels of the government" for rescued child workers.

The government has also started tent schools in regions such as Bellary where entire families are engaged in mining or construction activity. Children stay in the schools only until the mid-day meal is served. But the fact that they come is reason to be optimistic.

MAHARASHTRA Anupama Katakam in Mumbai

"THE State will be child-labour-free by August 15, 2006," Maharashtra's Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil declared in February. "Moreover, we don't just want to rescue them, we want to give them freedom and an opportunity to enjoy childhood."

Of course, the State is nowhere near reaching this goal, but the mission is a move in the right direction, say NGOs and activists. Mumbai has been a hub of working children, in cottage industries that flourish in the city's numerous slums. Most of these "factories" are hovel-like structures, where children live and work for 20 hours a day seven days a week. Typically, the rooms are ill-lit, have a small stove in a corner, a small bathroom that smells in another corner and some nails on the wall where clothes are hung.

The employer arranges two meals and two cups of tea a day for the children and usually locks them in at night. In 2002, an LPG cylinder burst in a locked room where three boys lived and worked for a jewellery unit. All three died. Some rooms have a trap-door through which the children go into hiding in case there is a raid. This situation has been common knowledge for years, but little has been done to end it.

Patil was driven to take action when the media publicised the deaths of two boys working in zari units. Afzal Ansari, 12, died of hepatitis in April 2005 after his employer denied him treatment. Three months later, Ahmed Khan, 11, died after he was beaten by his employer. The post-mortem revealed physical and sexual abuse on the boy.

Children are employed in garages, powerlooms and in units manufacturing zari, leather goods, garments, jewellery and plastic goods in Mumbai and other parts of the State.

Aurangabad, Nasik and Pune also record high numbers of child labourers, most of whom are locals, says the State Labour Department. According to the Department, 90 per cent of the children in zari units in Mumbai are migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

In April, the government set up a task force with the aim of eradicating child labour in Mumbai. It includes members of the Labour Commission, the police, the Women and Child Welfare Department, the Municipal Corporation, the Shops Department and NGOs. The task force has conducted raids regularly to free children working in sweatshops. The government has since ordered the setting up of task forces at the district level under the District Collectors and set apart Rs.18 crores for the campaign. In several districts they have conducted raids and rescued child workers.

Additionally, it has launched an awareness drive and publicised telephone numbers where people can report cases of child labour. At present the offence is bailable. Patil has been pushing for it to be made non-bailable, to deter those who employ children.

According to official data, in the past one year, 1,846 children working in various industries in Mumbai were freed in raid and rescue operations and around 320 people were arrested for employing children. "Once the district groups become active, the number of children rescued and rehabilitated will increase," says B.D. Sanap, Labour Commissioner.

The number of children rescued is a minuscule percentage of the numbers that are working, say NGOs. It is estimated that there are 34,000 children working in the zari industry in Mumbai alone. Informed sources said that following the raids by the task force, about 23,000 children under 14 had been freed and sent home. Many of those above 14 are either working or working part-time and going to school under government programmes.

Pratham, an NGO, says that a recent survey by it of 12,000 eateries showed that 21 per cent of these establishments employed children. "It is going to be a massive task to get these children out of these places," says Farida Lambhay, director of Pratham. A few months ago the NGO rescued 399 children from 79 railway stations in Mumbai.

"The challenge now is rehabilitation. Rescue operations have been mastered. In fact, it is done in the most child-friendly manner. But what happens to the child once he is rescued?" says Lambhay. "We now need to be able to provide a quick response once the child is rescued. For instance, residential facilities for those who have no home to go," she says. "The present arrangement of sending them to juvenile homes as a temporary measure does not work. They are not delinquents to be sent to such places."

A grey area in the urban context is children working as domestics. Pratham estimates that there are at least 40,000 children working in the domestic sector. Since it is impossible to check every house, Pratham has suggested that each housing society be asked to give a letter declaring that its members do not employ children.

"While we welcome the ban on child labour, we need to work much more on the follow-up. Furthermore, we need to address the other layers of this issue, such as reasons why children end up working, the economic condition of parents and the income options for them, and most important the provision of education for all," says Lambhay.

At least some of this is being attempted under the INDUS (Indo-U.S. Labour Department) project being implemented in four districts, including Mumbai suburban, in the State. The INDUS school in Govandi has 30 children who attend various sessions through the day. It has been fairly effective, says Kishore Bamre, a field worker.

When the NCLP was launched in 1988, two districts were identified in Maharashtra - Solapur and Thane - to be covered under the project, along with seven other districts in the country. Now the project covers 13 districts in the State. Two years ago, another 11 districts were identified. Of them, five have been granted funding for special schools and six have completed their surveys to set up these schools. At present there are 170 special schools with 8,500 children.