Child Labour in India

Child labor in India is a human right issue for the whole world. It is a serious and extensive problem, with many children under the age of fourteen working in carpet making factories, glass blowing units and making fireworks with bare little hands. According to the statistics given by Indian government there are 20 million child laborers in the country, while other agencies claim that it is 50 million. In Northern India the exploitation of little children for labor is an accepted practice and perceived by the local population as a necessity to alleviate poverty. Carpet weaving industries pay very low wages to child laborers and make them work for long hours in unhygienic conditions. Children working in such units are mainly migrant workers from Northern India, who are shunted here by their families to earn some money and send it to them. Their families dependence on their income, forces them to endure the onerous work conditions in the carpet factories. The situation of child laborers in India is desperate. Children work for eight hours at a stretch with only a small break for meals. The meals are also frugal and the children are ill nourished. Most of the migrant children who cannot go home, sleep at their work place, which is very bad for their health and development. Seventy five percent of Indian population still resides in rural areas and are very poor. Children in rural families who are ailing with poverty perceive their children as an income generating resource to supplement the family income. Parents sacrifice their children’s education to the growing needs of their younger siblings in such families and view them as wage earners for the entire clan. The Indian government has tried to take some steps to alleviate the problem of child labor in recent years by invoking a law that makes the employment of children below 14 illegal, except in family owned enterprises. However this law is rarely adhered to due to practical difficulties. Factories usually find loopholes and circumvent the law by declaring that the child laborer is a distant family member. Also in villages there is no law implementing mechanism, and any punitive actions for commercial enterprises violating these laws is almost non existent. Child labor is a conspicuous problem in India. Its prevalence is evident in the child work participation rate, which is more than that of other developing countries. Poverty is the reason for child labor in India. The meager income of child laborers is also absorbed by their families. The paucity of organized banking in the rural areas creates a void in taking facilities, forcing poor families to push their children in harsh labor, the harshest being bonded labor. Bonded labor traps the growing child in a hostage like condition for years. The importance of formal education is also not realized, as the child can be absorbed in economically beneficial activities at a young age. Moreover there is no access to proper education in the remote areas of rural India for most people, which leaves the children with no choice.

Child Labour in India

Child labor in India is a human right issue for the whole world. It is a serious and extensive problem, with many children under the age of fourteen working in carpet making factories, glass blowing units and making fireworks with bare little hands. According to the statistics given by Indian government there are 20 million child laborers in the country, while other agencies claim that it is 50 million. In Northern India the exploitation of little children for labor is an accepted practice and perceived by the local population as a necessity to alleviate poverty. Carpet weaving industries pay very low wages to child laborers and make them work for long hours in unhygienic conditions. Children working in such units are mainly migrant workers from Northern India, who are shunted here by their families to earn some money and send it to them. Their families dependence on their income, forces them to endure the onerous work conditions in the carpet factories. The situation of child laborers in India is desperate. Children work for eight hours at a stretch with only a small break for meals. The meals are also frugal and the children are ill nourished. Most of the migrant children who cannot go home, sleep at their work place, which is very bad for their health and development. Seventy five percent of Indian population still resides in rural areas and are very poor. Children in rural families who are ailing with poverty perceive their children as an income generating resource to supplement the family income. Parents sacrifice their children’s education to the growing needs of their younger siblings in such families and view them as wage earners for the entire clan. The Indian government has tried to take some steps to alleviate the problem of child labor in recent years by invoking a law that makes the employment of children below 14 illegal, except in family owned enterprises. However this law is rarely adhered to due to practical difficulties. Factories usually find loopholes and circumvent the law by declaring that the child laborer is a distant family member. Also in villages there is no law implementing mechanism, and any punitive actions for commercial enterprises violating these laws is almost non existent. Child labor is a conspicuous problem in India. Its prevalence is evident in the child work participation rate, which is more than that of other developing countries. Poverty is the reason for child labor in India. The meager income of child laborers is also absorbed by their families. The paucity of organized banking in the rural areas creates a void in taking facilities, forcing poor families to push their children in harsh labor, the harshest being bonded labor. Bonded labor traps the growing child in a hostage like condition for years. The importance of formal education is also not realized, as the child can be absorbed in economically beneficial activities at a young age. Moreover there is no access to proper education in the remote areas of rural India for most people, which leaves the children with no choice.

POVERTY ALLEVATION AND WOMEN

Women's Economic Empowerment through Co-operative Farming

(Vocational Training & Business Development)

Due to the lack of specific implementation plans and faulty representations, local communities have not adequately accepted government and private schemes for the upliftment of women. Women have not actively participated in their own emancipation due to their lack of economic independence and rampant illiteracy. Therefore, The George Foundation decided to address this important issue of women's empowerment in India by raising the status of women in Hosur Taluk through economic empowerment and education.
Krishnagiri District is the most backward district in Tamil Nadu. In the geographical location selected, there are no high schools, no private schools, inadequate primary health sub-centers, and no NGOs. Roads, water supply, drainage and communication network are inadequate to augment economic development. Fragmented land holdings are not conducive to commercial farming. Child labor is rampant in this socially backward area. Population statistics of our country clearly indicate that quality education is out of the reach of the poor and marginalized irrespective of their innate potential. Women are often exploited by their communities. They have very little voice and no knowledge or means of improving their social and economic status.
In the villages of the area, the caste system is deeply entrenched. The lower caste colonies are ostracized and basic facilities are denied to them. Female infanticide is a common practice and women are punished socially for bearing girl children. Gender biases are very evident in the preferential treatment given to the male child.
Rain-dependent agriculture, home-based animal husbandry, silkworm rearing and brick making are the main income generating activities. Fisheries, horticulture and industries have been established in a few select areas such as Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri and Hosur. Rural folk find it difficult to travel to these cities in search of jobs. The average family income level is below the poverty line.
One of the popular schemes employed by several NGOs, and supported by some international and bilateral agencies, is the so-called "micro-finance" or small loans that usually range up to $100 (Rs. 5,000) per woman to start some form of business. Notable successes have been recorded, and the program has received considerable world attention. Most poor women entrepreneurs are said to have been able to make their businesses successful, and repay the loan. However, our experience in this area with lower caste poor women has been somewhat different.
Poor women, especially from backward communities and lower castes, are mostly illiterate, untrained, and have very little social and economic status. In India, there are over 350 million such people, mainly in rural areas. The unemployed are nearly 200 million people, a great majority of them belonging to these deprived sections of the society. Without meaningful skills, social status, and economic power, they are unable to do any business on their own even with financial assistance.
To start even a small rural business, it takes no less than $500. According to some studies conducted by the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Ahmedabad, the average capital need for a one-person small business is in excess of Rs. 1 lakh ($2,000). Further, the chances of making any business successful is very small - the odds are barely 1 in hundred for an educated person. Uneducated lower caste rural women find it almost impossible to initiate any such entrepreneuring work without adequate capital, proper training, and on-site daily support.
Based on our understanding of the problem faced in our rural community, we have devised a scheme for empowering poor and socially deprived women. The key ingredients of this program can be summarized as follows:
Adequate training in an area where the women have natural abilities and understanding (for example, farming and cattle rearing)
Use of superior technology to obtain better output and higher profits (modern farming techniques, such as use of proper fertilizers, deep ploughing, drip irrigation, etc.)
Creation of financial assets through savings (from profits generated from sale of produce, over and above wages received)
Ownership of physical assets (use of financial assets to purchase cultivable land - ½ acre per family)
Sharing of resources such as wells, tractor, etc. among several farmers
Provide a support system that addresses concerns, difficulties, know-how, etc.
Access to information and markets (knowing what high-value crop to grow and when, which markets offer higher prices on a given day, tie up export contracts, etc.)
Only when these requirements can be met, we believe poor illiterate rural women can be expected to turn into entrepreneurs.
The George Foundation has purchased/leased 250 acres of land. An executive committee comprised of representatives of The George Foundation, village panchayath, and agricultural consultants has been formed. Under its direction, the soil is being prepared for crop cultivation. Superior seeds of selected crops have been purchased. The panchayath members are highly motivated about this project. People from the surrounding villages are participating in the preparation of the land for farming. This program will be expanded to cover the neighboring state of Karnataka in its later stages.
Members of the village panchayat, the village administrative officer and the block development officer have been with the project from its planning stage. The geographic community and the community of beneficiaries, particularly poor rural women, were involved in planning and implementation of the project.

A Violence that Leaves No Physical Traces

In a landmark ruling earlier this year (April 6, 2008), the Supreme Court (SC) sentenced a man to two years' imprisonment for driving his wife to suicide following taunts over her 'dark' complexion. Referring to the man's acts as severe mental torture, the court said that disparaging and sneering remarks could be worse than physical torture for a sensitive person. Not only will this stance taken by the SC send a tough message to the perpetrators of emotional violence, it will also draw attention to its pervasive nature.Domestic violence is a widely known but loosely used term; as is apparent, it may not be fully understood by both the abuser and the abused. It connotes many, different and inter-related kinds of violent actions. Yet, only the most visible one - physical violence - has come to be, literally, the face of domestic violence. The apparent conspicuousness of physical violence often overshadows emotional abuse and violence. As a result, most of what is spoken or written about domestic violence constitutes physical battering, not emotional. Of course, all abuse - physical, sexual or financial - contains elements of emotional abuse. Yet, there are many people - mostly women - who primarily suffer from emotional abuse and violence. According to the World Health Organization, between 20 per cent and 75 per cent women across the world, had experienced one or more of these acts, most within the past 12 months. It may appear strange then that their plight lacks voice, especially when qualitative research consistently finds that women frequently consider emotionally abusive acts to be more devastating than physical violence. The reason behind this silence could be that emotional abuse and violence is complex to define and measure. It constitutes many kinds of behavior or actions that cause emotional suffering. For instance, denying emotional responsiveness, failing to provide care in a sensitive and responsive manner, being detached and uninvolved, interacting only when necessary, ignoring a person's mental health needs, treating the spouse or any other as a 'job to be done', and so on. Being subjected to the silent treatment for hours, days, weeks or even months on end can also be emotionally draining for many. A common form of emotional abuse is the denial of sexual relations. But as women, generally, are not supposed to initiate or demand sex, this isn't deemed as violence.Another reason why emotional abuse and violence remain under cover is because many women choose to suffer in silence. The social and cultural conditioning of women as guardians of family honor makes them feel responsible. Besides, women themselves may not perceive emotional violence to be as life threatening as physical violence. They may also be under the impression that such behavior will disappear with time. However, the truth is that emotional abuse follows a pattern; it is repeated and sustained. If left unchecked, the abuse only gets worse with time. What women themselves fail to realize is that, in the bargain, they could end up with their sense of self-worth and self-perception severely undermined. It may be a subtler form of violence but emotional abuse can cause serious mental trauma and agony. The scars of continued emotional abuse can have serious physical or psychological consequences for women, including severe depression, anxiety, persistent headaches, back and limb problems. As shown in 'Provoked', a film based on the real life story of Kiranjeet Ahluwalia in the UK, who killed her abusive husband, victims do not just destroy their own physical and mental health, they can even turn violent themselves after years of savage degradation.Take the case of Renu and Others versus State of Haryana (1991), where the court had ruled that accusing the wife of being barren amounted to mental cruelty. In yet another case, Gonanath Pattnaik versus State of Orissa (2002), the Court stated that 'cruelty', for the purposes of constituting the offence, need not be physical. Even mental torture or abnormal behavior may amount to cruelty and harassment in a given case. The flawed and incomplete understanding of domestic violence is not just harbored by popular discourse, but is revealed by police attitudes as well. Knowing domestic violence as physical assault only, they may look for injury marks to establish the crime. But for a victim of emotional abuse, there are no outward bruises to show and prove one's violation. Often, the victim cannot truly understand or explain how she is made to feel. In many situations, when the police show up, the perpetrator may appear calm and collected while the victim may appear hysterical. The emotional violator often is reported to play 'mind-games' by lying, contradicting, fabricating stories, denying or minimizing the scope of his action/s inconsistently. Many perpetrators invalidate their partners' perceptions of neglect and abuse. The motion picture 'Gaslight' (in the film, the husband convinces his wife that she is going mad, so he can have her certified insane and confined, and can then lay claim to her property without impediment) illustrates this dynamic quite effectively. Such complexities make the identification and verification of emotional violence rather tricky. Given the sensitive nature of such situations, law enforcement agencies - in metros, towns and villages - must be adequately oriented, sensitized and skilled to handle such cases. Thankfully, the new 2005 avatar of the law on domestic violence in India - Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 - carries a more substantive definition of violence. It goes beyond physical violence to include forms of violence that hurt the dignity of a woman and impinge upon her rights. It also stretches beyond relationships of marriage and includes co-habiting partners, and others who share a household, such as brothers and sisters. Most importantly, it acknowledges the acts of 'omission or commission', since omissions can be as grave and criminal as commissions. But having a stringent law in place is just half the battle. Since emotional violence is harder to bear than physical violence, the popular perception that views domestic violence just in terms of physical violence needs to change. Women should especially be made aware of the ramifications of emotional violence. Their families still need to be sensitized to the dangers of ignoring emotional abuse. Since laws cannot totally prevent violence, what is ideally needed is the active engagement of men against domestic violence. Helping men review their perceptions of masculinity and understand power dynamics in personal relationships could be the first positive step. Society - most specifically men - needs to engage with this concern more actively.

Beggary in India

Associated with the problems of poverty and unemployment is the problem of beggary which is a social problem of great magnitude and grave concern in developing countries. Begging is a problem for society in as much as a large number of beggars means non utilization of available human resources and drag upon the existing resources of the society.
According to a recent survey by Delhi School of Social Work there has been a phenomenal increase in the numbers of beggars in India. In a decade since 1991 their number has gone up by a lakh.There are some 60,000 beggars in Delhi, over 3, 00,000 in Mumbai according to a 2004 Action Aid report; nearly 75000 in Kolkata says the Beggar Research Institute; 56000 in Bangalore according to police records. In Hyderabad one in every 354 people is engaged in begging according to Council of Human Welfare in 2005.
It is common to find beggars at rubbish dumbs, road sides, and traffic lights and under flyovers. The frail, crippled and mentally ill share space with children, women and able bodied men. The line that separates beggars from the casual poor is getting slimmer in a country where one in every four goes to bed hungry every night and 78 million are homeless. Over 71% of Delhi's beggars are driven by poverty. More than 66% beggars are able -bodied. The survey reveals that begging as a livelihood wins over casual labour. For 96% the average daily income is Rs 80 more than what daily wage earners can make. Spending patterns also reveals a unique pattern: 27% beggars spend Rs 50-100 a day.
Mumbai is home to majority of beggars. According to the Maharashtra Government they are worth Rs. 180 crore a year with daily income ranging between Rs 20-80.Almost every survey profiles beggars as a largely contented lot unwilling to take up honest labour. Nearly 26% in the DSSW survey claimed they were happy.81% claimed that they do not face any problem during begging and only 15% mentioned humiliation from public and police. A survey done in 2004 by the Social Development Centre of Mumbai revealed similar attitude. The majority of beggars see it as a profitable and viable profession.
However study published in the International Journal of Psychological Rehabilitation by Dr Yogesh Thakker reveals that 39% of the 49 beggars surveyed in Gujarat's Baroda district by a group of medicos suffer from one or other psychiatric illness. Nearly 74% of them had a history of addiction, psychiatric illness in the family and poor attitude of family members towards them. Over 68% admitted to feeling of shame and losing self-esteem, 25% to guilt, 4% to suicidal tendencies and 8% to anti-social activities.
There is no proper enumeration of beggars in the country. Moreover the number of women and children is ever increasing. The 1931 census mentioned just 16% women beggars. The figure shot up to 49% in 2001.There are 10 million street children many among who beg for livelihood.
The biggest problem lies in the changing attitude towards beggars. According to Mr Upendra Baxi former vice-chancellor traditionally begging has been an accepted way of life in India. Giving alms to the needy was built into the social fabric. That changed with the colonial rule. To the Victorians beggary embodied laziness and moral degeneration. Colonial laws held a beggar punishable for his condition. The newly independent nation imbibed this attitude towards poverty. In the new millennium the Government doesn't want them lying around middle class regards them as a nuisance.
India's beggary laws are a throwback to the centuries old European vagrancy laws which instead of addressing the socio-economic issues make the poor criminally responsible for their position. The definition of beggar in law states as anyone who appears poor. The anti-beggar legislation is aimed at removing the poor from the face of the city. The beggars who have spent years on the street find it very difficult to live in confined space. There are provisions for vocational training in the government run beggar homes. But these are worse than the third rate jails where convicts can spend up to 10 years.
India as a nation needs to think for its begging population. With the nation aspiring to achieve world standards in every field socio-economic measures are needed to curb the begging problem in India. The solution calls for a comprehensive programme and reorientation of the existing programmes. Philanthropic approach to beggar problem should be replaced by therapeutic and rehabilitative work.

Female Foeticide in India

The 2001 census of India reveals a decline in the overall child sex ratio for the age-group 0-6 years from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001.Contrary to the belief that the malaise is typical to rural ,backward areas, urban centers more literate and liberal have shown a drop from 935 in 1991 to 906 in 2001.
In Delhi, the national capital, the child sex ratio is an alarming 868.While the reasons for this vary from higher female mortality at a younger age as a result of neglect to infanticide and foeticide; the dismal numbers are a telling comment on the educated society that refuses to rid itself of its regressive male bias.
The Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Regulations and Prevention of Misuse Act came into force in 1994 to curb selective sex determination. With rapid improvements in diagnostic technology the Act was amended in 2003 in order that it became more comprehensive and was renamed the Preconception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act.

To monitor the implementation of the PC & PNDT Act, the ministry of Health and Family Welfare has set up a Central Supervisory Board as well as state-level supervisory committees. A ministry report indicates that there are 420 ongoing court/police cases for violations of the law. Of these only 65 cases relate to identification and revelation of the sex of the foetus, 43 are against people who have advertised facilities for sex selection and the rest are for non-registration of clinics/facilities.
Apart from the nature of the Act, government inaction in most cases is due to the fact that the patient, her family and the violators of the law are hand-in-glove. The Annual Report (2006) of the PC &PNDT division also identifies the non-availability of evidence or witnesses as the chief hindrance to implementing the law. The unscrupulous doctors and patients have developed their own sex determination code language to circumvent the law. For an instance if a doctor says collect the report on Monday the family is meant to infer that the unborn child is a boy. Friday connotes the girl child. Also signing a report in blue ink indicates a boy while red ink is meant for baby girls. The Annual Report mentions the fact the CMO or CS is usually not empowered enough to bring violators to book. Also abortions to limit family size add to the difficulty of nabbing guilty.
Despite the loopholes the government has exerted itself to advocate the girl child's right to live. A new website has been launched www.pndt.gov.in with the facility to file a complaint online against doctors, maternity homes and clinics. The organizations like Sonological Society of India are also supporting the government initiatives.