Send to friend

Prof. Nina Rao The search for new products and new markets, like rural tourism and eco tourism have infiltrated into areas where there is little awareness of the dangers of tourism and its impact on children. In fact, when some NGO studies have pointed to the abuse of children in tourism services the administration has denied it

Services account for 11.5% of child labour in India.(Unicef, 2002), out of the 1.26 crore children at work.(2001 Census). The main sectors are vending, repairing, food preparation, scavenging, shoe shine, car wash, begging, domestic services, hotels, restaurants and the informal sector in Tourism, like beach walking, selling of trinkets, water, laundry, massage and other supplementary needs of tourists at a site or destination. Many of the job descriptions overlap and require unskilled labor at exploitative wages and under poor working conditions. Now we have the addition of Medical tourism, where organ trading and surrogacy in child bearing are becoming an important economic activity, running into several million dollars .Sex Tourism, particularly pedophilia, has already been studied and talked about, and it is only in 2003 that Goa passed the Goa Childrens Act 2003, which makes the tourism establishment responsible for abuse of children on its property or adjoining beaches and parks. (Equations paper for Campaign Against Child Labor, Karnataka).

We have just come to know about the exploitation of children in civil strife and war, both by the State and the Maoist groups that are active in several states. Orissa and Chattisgarh are examples in the Salwa Judum army vs the Maoist peoples war groups.(TOI, New Delhi, March 17th,2008 Report :Children Suffer Most in Naxalite-Salva Judum Crossfire) The National Commission on Child Rights has stated that 30,000 people have had to migrate to Andhra Pradesh to escape the crossfire. They said that Naxalites took away children between the ages of 10-16 to act as informers and couriers. From the age of 12 they were given arms training. The Salwa Judum activists had showcased children as victims of Naxalite violence. This ensured that no one was safe in the villages any more. In personal interviews in Jespur, people complained that during the day the police forced children to join the SJ and at night the Naxalites forced them to procure supplies as well as to contribute one child per family to the armed struggle .No social sector activity like PDS, education and health care was allowed in these areas. Displacement also kept these IDPs out of the net of social safety nets since they had no certification. Children become the worst sufferers and find their way into the informal work force to survive.

Under Indian Civil Law, Child Labor (Prohibition &Regulation) Act, 1986, no child under the age of 14 can be employed, and 15 occupations and 57 processes have been identified as hazardous, where it is assumed that employment of children will be rigorously punished. On October 10th, 2006 The Center banned the employment of children under 14 in Dhabas/hotels, as domestic help in homes, and in any form in the hospitality industry. By December 2006, 1,672 violations have been reported but no major action has been recorded against these violations. The dismal performance of the Welfare of Working children in Need of Care and Protection scheme that is being run as a formality with no commitment to the cause of the poor and helpless working children is cause for concern. Only 3.96 crore of the 45 crore allocated has been spent.( Parliamentary Standing Committee reported in Mail Today ,”Working Kids Scheme in Limbo as funds lie unused” May 10th, pg 15)The targets and projects set for 2006-07 were also not met. How the States fared is interesting according to current data on working children relating to Dhabas, Restaurants and Hotels and Domestic services:

(Source: And Child Labor on, Hindustan Times, Oct.10,2007,Pg.10 based on RTI applications by Bal Adhikar Abhiyan)

According to the HT item above, child labour in domestic services and eateries in Delhi and Mumbai alone numbers over 1.5 Lakh. NGOs and Officials accuse each other of dereliction of duty, and admit that enforcement has been lax .The administration believes that implementation would improve once guidelines on rescue and rehabilitation and bridge schools have been established .A success story from Karur in Tamil Nadu shows how Physco-Trust created non formal education, employment for parents and self help groups as well as women’s saving groups to resolve the problems of rehabilitation of children rescued from labor in the textile weaving industry ,laundry, and other services. Today it is an almost 100% child labour free city.(Times of India, 2 Dec,2007 :Bridging the Gap for our young work force ,Amit Bhattacharya.)

What keeps child labor alive in spite of activism is the social acceptance and the low wages. Govt. Servants employed many children rescued. Bachpan Bachao Andolan did a special drive in Bihar on children working in roadside eateries, and rescued them. But where did they go and how long before they are back? There are several reasons for this poor compliance. There is little or no awareness of the law; no ethical pressure in employing children for work which appears homely but puts the child at risk in terms of lack of sleep, malnutrition, open to sexual abuse, and accidents at work.

Convention 138 which states that no child below the age of 18 can be employed in any economic activity because it is assumed that the mental and physical preparation for adult life, and compulsory schooling will only be complete at that age is not universally applied. India has not ratified the convention because our Government believes that compulsory schooling up to the age of 14 is sufficient. It also believes that poverty and skill development should be given more value than the issue of children at work. Our 1986 Act explicitly excludes children working with parents, even if the occupation is hazardous. Thus, there is no action taken if the age bar in our legislation is infringed, if child labor is a survival strategy for the poor. India has also not ratified Convention 182, which deals with the worst forms of Child Labor including slavery, bondage, trafficking, serfdom, prostitution, pornography, combat and mining. We have poor implementing legislation for these two important Conventions although many countries have ratified them as ILO-IPEC. Members .At the moment a violator pays a fine of Rs20,000/- and a rescued child is given Rs.1000/- towards rehabilitation .Government wage structures still indicate minimum wages for children in contradiction to their own legislation.

In looking at child labor issues, we have seen the operation of pull and push factors as determinants of supply play an important role. Under push factors we have observed migration, destabilization of families in the new economy and the agrarian crisis, destruction of support systems and kinship networks, particularly in artesian and craft communities and the lack of safety nets for slum dwellers and street children. The push factors include growing global urbanization, trade and services growth where part time, piece rate and flexi hour jobs are available.75% of activity still takes place within the family. We have also observed more boys than girls as child labor though girls work longer hours. It is also known through parental response that children at work contribute 20% of the household income. It is therefore the nuclear family in an urban environment that has kept child labor alive. So we can see that the market economy is the main instrument to keep a supplementary labor force going through economic contradictions that develop with self-employment reducing in some sectors and increasing in other services.

Now coming to Tourism we see its expansion as directly related to globalisation. The Tourism growth rate in the Asia-Pacific region has now touched 10%, which is double the growth rate of the world average at 5%. (UNWTO,07). Secondly, the Structural Adjustment Programmes of the 90s have pushed the pace of liberalization that has encouraged the growth of the informal economy under the operation of market forces. Tourism has also brought about a change in legal and political structures, as for example infrastructure development and SEZs that have suppressed the rights of local communities living on the margins of the formal economy. Fourth, the agendas of International and inter-governmental organizations, determined by industrialized societies and TNC think tanks, like WTTC etc. have pushed for the development of tourism, and for setting targets that compete aggressively with other countries to come into the top 10 or 15 destinations, not counting the costs to the people who will have to host tourism. The search for new products and new markets, like rural tourism and eco tourism have infiltrated into areas where there is little awareness of the dangers of tourism and its impact on children. In fact, when some NGO studies have pointed to the abuse of children in tourism services the administration has denied it. The UNWTO on the other hand sees Tourism services as the ideal opportunity for youth and women, who are entering the workforce for the first time. The National Human Rights Commission has reported sex tourism in the backwaters of Kerala, the beaches of India’s long coastline, as well as Pilgrim centers (Sexual Exploitation in the Tourism Industry-the Kerala Scenario, Equations, Bangalore). Fifth, the coverage of tourism businesses and destination services under GATS have increased the incidence of Child Labor and child abuse, because many operations in the formal sector have slipped into the informal sector since the high end business is now controlled by large companies with foreign partners.

Many have proposed the rights approach to child labor (Burra, Nidhi Pundhir, Plan, etc) but in a country like India where hierarchies and differentiations have stratified peoples and communities, there is no level playing field for the exercise of rights that assume an equality in law and citizenship. Therefore I would argue for legal-judicial intervention in issues where child labor and the conventions governing the rights of the child should be implemented, through facilitation of civil society and institutional frameworks. Currently we have several administrative committees like the NAECL (94), The Standing Group on Child Labor headed by the Cabinet Secretary and a Monitoring Committee under the Labour Secretary (98), a resource center NRCCL set up in 93, along with schemes and programmes that don’t seem to be achieving significant gains .The Census (2001) has made an attempt to broaden the definition of child labor in order to bring about policy change and effectiveness in programmes. It has included home based and non-wage economic activity by children. There is a suggestion for an integrated administrative arrangement to deal with the issue of the continuance of child labor in the country. This is important because the issue of penalizing offenders is hampered by qualificatory caveats, invisibility, and mobility and poverty alleviation arguments that are really the basis of social acceptability and governmental ignorance and inaction. Civil Society groups are also moving towards an integrated movement, to bring activists together from different sectors, since child labor is prevalent across the board.

Where Civil Society groups can be most effective is to clarify definitions of Child labor that are contestable. Why 14 years? Why not 16 (age of consent for sexual intercourse) or 18 (the age of right to marry, to buy liquor, to vote)? Why are family based activities not considered hazardous? Why is medical tourism not seen as hazardous, after the Nithari case has blown the cover on the death of several children in a slum on the outskirts of Delhi, all of who had probably had their kidneys removed? Why does the Convention on the Rights of the child put the issue of children in armed conflict, sale o f children, child prostitution and pornography as an optional protocol? The need for lobbying on these questions, as well as for the ratification of the ILO Conventions is an important and necessary part of the fight for the elimination of child labor.

Child labor is a complex issue. To start work at between 6-8 years, to learn to deal with hunger, humiliation, physical and sexual abuse, and to go unsung to an early grave is a fate we do not want our children to face .A culture that tolerates poverty, unemployment and illiteracy will also not be vigilant in enforcing any legislation that bans such bitter experiences for lakhs of children who have a right to a better life and a better future. Several NGOs have taken up the task like the MV Foundation in Andhra, Lokadrushti in Orissa, Ganatar in the Rann of Kutch, and Seeds in Karnataka, have all taken the cue from the Census and are seeing the prohibition of child labor as a part of the movement to get the child back to school and propose that the legislation should now be called Child Labor Prohibition and Education Act, 2001.

(Revised version of the paper presented at the Seminar Enslaved Innocence, Child Labour in India, Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, Jamia Milia Islamia, 14th.March, 2008)