World Day against Child labor 2009

World Day against Child labor 2009

FAMOUS ENGLISH poet William Wordsworth once said, “The Child is the father of the Man.” With the time, the quote lost its significance and now hardly anyone cares about the saying of Wordsworth. Gruesome fact is that today the wealth of parents decide the fortune of the children whether they will enjoy the luxurious amenities or work from the childhood to earn bread. Nowadays children have been used for domestic work, mining, agriculture and other hard works. Besides, millions of children work for long hours in factories, mostly in dangerous conditions. These children are unaware about the liberty of childhood and suffer from the cruel trend generated by civilised society.

For those unlucky children living in misery, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has declared June 12 as World Day Against Child Labour, which is observed across the world. Sadly the day is not popular as Valentine Day, Friendship Day or other celebrated day, but the concerned people across the world give importance to this day and observe with great enthusiasm. Non-government organisations, human right activists and other social welfare organisations work at their best to spread awareness among common people related to child labour.

According the ILO estimate, about 165 million children between the ages of five and 14 are involved in child labour across the world. Usually each year on World Day Against Child Labour, the ILO focusses on one of the ’Worst Forms of Child labour’ listed in Convention No 182. Like many countries in the world, child labour condition is also very bad in India. World’s second largest most populated country, India has the highest number of child labour of the world. Despite the strict laws, the child labour is increasing day-by-day in India. A number of reasons are behind the huge number of child labour in India. Poverty and illiteracy are the main reasons behind the increasing number of child labours in India. Generally poor parents encourage their children to earn money by working instead of sending them to school. Traditionally, girls suffer more from boys, as parents prefer the boys to send school and send girls to work for household works. At the same time, rich people and owners of factories never think about the health and freedom of the children

Seeing the continuous growth in the number of child labour across the world the United Nations (UN) and the broader international community have set up the Millennium Development Goals. The community has set the target that by the year 2015, all boys and girls will complete a full course of primary education with gender parity. However, these targets cannot be fulfilled unless the factors that generate child labour and prevent poor families from sending their children to school are addressed.

Significant In 2009

The World Day this year marks the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the landmark ILO Convention No. 182, which addresses the need for action to tackle the worst forms of child labour. Whilst celebrating progress made during the past ten years, the World Day will highlight the continuing challenges, with a focus on exploitation of girls in child labour.

Around the world, an estimated 100 million girls are involved in child labour. Many of these girls undertake similar types of work as boys, but often also endure additional hardships and face extra risks. Moreover, girls are all too often exposed to some of the worst forms of child labour, often in hidden work situations.

On this World Day call for:

• Policy responses to address the causes of child labour, paying particular attention to the situation of girls.
• Urgent action to tackle the worst forms of child labour.
• Greater attention to the education and skills training needs of adolescent girls - a key action point in tackling child labour and providing a pathway for girls to gain Decent Work as adults.

Girls and Child labor

Large numbers of young girls labour in agriculture and in the manufacturing sector, frequently working in dangerous conditions. A major sector of employment for young girls is domestic work in third party households. Oftentimes this work is hidden from the public eye, leading to particular dangers and risks. The extreme exploitation of girls in the worst forms of child labour includes slavery, bonded labour, prostitution and pornography.

Girls face multiple disadvantages

Most child labour is rooted in poverty, often associated with multiple disadvantage. Socio-economic inequalities based on language, race, disability and rural-urban differences remain deeply entrenched. Girls can face particular disadvantages due to discrimination and practices which allocate certain forms of work to girls. Many girls take on unpaid household work for their families, usually more so than boys. This work may include childcare, cooking, cleaning, and fetching water and fuel. Girls often also have to combine long hours of household chores with some form of economic activity outside the household presenting girls with a “double burden”. This can have a negative impact on any opportunity for school attendance and can present a physical danger to girls.

Girls still disadvantaged in education

Millennium Development Goal 2 calls for all children to complete a full course of primary education by 2015. Millennium Development Goal 3 has a target of eliminating gender disparity both in primary and secondary education. However globally some 75 million children are still not enrolled in primary school. For every 100 boys in school, there are only 94 girls and girls in rural areas are particularly disadvantaged. Gross enrolment at secondary level in developing countries is 61% for boys and 57% for girls. In least developed countries the figures are 32% for boys and 26% for girls. It is clear that in much of the developing world huge numbers of girls are failing to access education at post primary level.

Girls may often be the last to be enrolled and the first to be withdrawn from schools if a family has to make a choice between sending a boy or girl to school. Girls’ access to education may also be limited by other factors, for example the safety of the journey to school or lack of adequate water and sanitation facilities.

Without access to quality education, girls drift into the labour force at an early age well below the minimum age of employment. It is therefore vital to extend secondary education and skills training for girls and to ensure that children from poor and rural households can access this provision.

On this important day, we should at least think about the possible ways to stop the child labour and save the children who are future of nation. We should create awareness among the parents that children need a good quality education and proper training for acquiring the skills necessary to succeed in the labour market. Last but not the least, those who hire children for work should think whether they will allow their children to do the same work. If such thinking will develop in the society then the evil of child labour can be removed from the world.

Dial 1098 to help rescue Delhi’s child beggars

New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) The next time an innocent little face peers through your car window at a traffic intersection in the capital, begging for alms, reach for your cell phone and dial the welfare helpline number 1098.It’s a Delhi government initiative to rescue child beggars. There are nearly 58,000 beggars in the city, the majority of whom are children accompanied by their parents.

“This practice (of children begging) is a disease,” said Social Welfare and Labour Minister Mangat Ram Singhal. Talking about the helpline, he said the caller would be expected to provide details about the location of the child beggar and continue on his or her way.

The number 1098 was actually started in 1998 as a child helpline, but from February it will be used to draw attention to the problem of child beggars. It will be manned by NGO workers spread over five zones.

Unlike the police helpline, officials would not appear immediately at the place from where a person calls. “Children who are regular offenders would be identified at permanent locations, then the ‘beggar squad’ would pick them up,” Singhal told IANS.

“We hope that eventually we will give more speedy solutions. This is not a permanent solution,” he added.

“We have an adequate number of officials on our beggar squad who can identify the children. If they are orphans, the children will be taken to our child homes or other government institutions where they can avail themselves of hostel and technical education facilities.”

Rules state that a child cannot be separated from the parent, but the department seems to have found a way out as far as child beggars are concerned.

“I am responsible not only for social welfare but also the labour department now…The parents too would be identified and booked under child labour laws,” said Singhal. Begging is illegal in the capital but is widely prevalent.

The government is also planning an exhaustive awareness drive about the helpline to “allow citizens to be directly involved in the project”. The campaign will be popularised through advertisements and radio jingles soon.

Task force formed to abolish child labour in Bihar

PATNA - A task force has been formed by the Bihar government to abolish child labour in the state, a minister said.

‘The state government has constituted a force named ‘Sramik Chetna Sainik’ to help the child labourers employed in the unorganised sector,’ state Minister for Labour Resources Awadesh Narayan Singh told IANS by phone.

He said the task force, comprising NGOs and child welfare department officials, will spread awareness and rescue and rehabilitate any child found working in the state. The step aims to abolish child labour completely from the state.

In October, Labour and Employment Minister Oscar Fernandes informed Parliament that Uttar Pradesh tops in child labour prevention, followed by Rajasthan and Bihar. Maximum number of children in the age group of 5-14 years were rescued and rehabilitated by the states.

According to the 2001 census, 12.7 million children in the age group of 5-14 years were working. About 540,000 children were ‘main workers’, who worked for over six months, while 580,000 were ‘marginal workers’, who worked for less than six months.

Bihar accounts for 8.9 percent of child labour in India.

Bonded child labour

Slave labour or bonded labour is one of the worst forms of labour not only for children but also for adults. In India, bonded labour has been illegal since 1976 when Parliament enacted the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act. However, the practice is still widespread. Even conservative estimates suggest that there are at least 10 million adult bonded labourers in India. 89 percent of adults in debt bondage belong to scheduled castes and tribes and 89 percent of those who control them are agricultural landlords. Most of the work carried out by bonded labourers is hard manual labour in the fields or brick kilns. Children or adults are bonded in order to pay off debts that they or members of their families have incurred. They toil all their lives and endure physical attacks that often amount to torture.
There are thousands of bonded child labourers in India. They are also mostly the children of parents who belong to scheduled castes and tribes. Young children are sold to employers by their parents to pay back small loans that they have borrowed. Such children are made to work for many hours a day over several years. According to one study, there are about 10 million bonded child labourers working as house servants in Indian families. Varandani recently estimated that there were nearly 55 million children in India working as bonded labourers in agriculture, mining, brick-kilns, construction work, fishing activities, carpet weaving, fireworks, matches, glass moulding, bidi-making (cigarettes), gem-cutting and polishing work, electroplating, dyeing, washing and domestic work. About 20 percent of these bonded child labourers were sold to cover some small debts obtained by their parents, usually for some social celebration like a wedding in the .
One of the most notorious forms of bonded-labour is found in the carpet industry of India. A study undertaken in Kashmir shows that over 80 percent of child labourers in carpet making work as bonded labourers. These young labourers, many of them 8 or 9 years old, are made to work for 20 hours a day without a break. They have to crouch on their toes from dawn to dusk which stunts their physical growth. Some of the children start to work when they are only 5-6 years of age, and by the time they are 20 they are burnt out.. They are physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted so that they are no longer able to work and are doomed to unemployment even in cases when employment is available. The vicious cycle restarts when they want their children to work for them.

Child Labour is a Crime

IPC section 374

According to this section that whoever unlawfully compels any person to labour against the will of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year or with fine or both.
The Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986

The act prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 in factories, mines and in other forms of hazardous employment (including domestic labour and service industry), and regulates the working conditions of children in other employment.
Government servants are prohibited from employing children as domestic servants. Through the recent notification effective from 10 October 2006, the government has imposed these restrictions on everyone.
Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000

Under this act any person responsible for abuse assault and neglect or causing physical or mental suffering can be punished for up to 6 months and/or fined। Also any person who procure a juvenile or the child for hazardous work, keeps him in bondage and withholds the child's earnings or uses them for his own purpose is liable for imprisonment up to 3 years and also a fine.
Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976

Under this act any kind of forced labour including child labour is a punishable offence. There are many incidences where judiciary has acted for elimination of child labour and has dealt with it as forced labour or bonded labour.
Supreme Court Directions on Child LabourThe Supreme Court of India, 1996 has given certain directions regarding the manner in which children working in the hazardous occupations are to be withdrawn from work and rehabilitated, and the manner in which the working conditions of children working in non-hazardous occupations are to be regulated and improved.
The judgment of the Supreme Court envisages:
Withdrawal of children working in hazardous industries and ensuring their education in appropriate institutions;
Contribution of Rs.20,000 per child to be paid by the offending employers of children to a welfare fund to be established for this purpose;
Employment to one adult member of the family of the child so withdrawn from work, and if that is not possible a contribution of Rs.5000 to the welfare fund to be made by the State Government;
Financial assistance to the families of the children so withdrawn to be paid out of the interest earnings on the corpus of Rs. 20,000 or Rs. 25,000 deposited in the welfare fund as long as the child is actually sent to the schools.
In a nutshell, the recent notification regarding child labour simply means that any body employing children of 14 years of age, can be prosecuted as a criminal. It also means that government is accountable to deal with child domestic labour as a crime, and should make all efforts for its control and elimination. It should also make arrangements to provide justice, compensation and rehabilitation to the victim

HISTORY OF CHILDLINE

CHILDLINE began on June 20th. 1996 in Mumbai as a field action project of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) after four years of planning with MTNL, NGOs and street youth and children of Mumbai.

In 1998, the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment organized a workshop to determine the need for national phone service for children. It was then decided that the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment would support the replication of CHILDLINE across India in a phased manner. Now CHILDLINE today is operational in 68 cities. CHILDLINE thus became national with an identity a common logo, number and color across the country.


CHILDLINE INDIA FOUNDATION (CIF) INITIATIVES :

In May,1999, CHILDLINE was registered as a project of the Ministry of SJ and CHILDLINE INDIA FOUNDATION was appointed as the nodal agency to anchor and support the development of childline services across the country. It acts as a link between the Governing Board and the NGOs running the CHILDLINE service at the city level. CIF reports directly to the Governing Board and implements all decisions taken by the Board. The foundation not only sets up the service and facilitates the effective functioning of the CHILDLINE service across the country but also works towards sensitizing the community to child rights issues. It also scrutinizes applications for funds, conducts follow-up with the Ministry, and ensures disbursal to the CHILDLINE cities. The CIF advocates for changes in policy and the law on issues related to children. The key functions of the CIF include : Facilitation & Networking, Research & Documentation, Awareness & Advocacy & Policy & Law. The primary function of the CIF is to ensure efficient service delivery by CHILDLINE throughout the country.

HPVHA INITIATIVES:

CIF visited Shimla on 22nd. and in meeting on 24th. March,2006, from CIF Mumbai, HPVHA has been appointed as a collaborative organization for setting up of CHILDLINE project at district Shimla only and P.R.C. (Population Research Centre) of H.P. University appointed as a Nodal organization, which is headed by Mr. S.K. Sharma. The toll free No. 1098 has been installed in HPVHA on 31st. March,2006.

THE CONCEPT :

CHILDLINE is providing a phone based emergency services through 1098……. A phone number that spells hope for millions of children across Shimla District. CHILDLINE is India’s first 24 hour, free emergency phone service for children in need of aid and assistance. Any concerned adult or a child in need of help can dial 1098, the toll free number to access our services. CHILDLINE not only respond to the emergency needs of Children but also link them to the services for their long-term care and rehabilitation. CHILDLINE staff member respond to calls effectively, and refers the cases to the relevant organization. Maintain the documents related to record of calls and processes related to CHILDLINE. Proper maintenance of documentation will help CHILDLINE FUNCTION better.

CHILDLINE also provide a phone-based emergency service :-

robust outreach programs (especially in disturbed, conflict-prone and natural calamity hit areas).
a child-centered community development model (with focus on the preventive approach) especially in rural areas.
initiatives to develop new services, organization and leaders in the Child Rights Systems in areas where none exist.

OBJECTIVES :

To respond to children in emergency situations.
To provide the telephonic counseling.
To respond to children undergoing any sort of exploitation like child labour, street children, child victims of the flesh trade, children in institutions etc.
To intervene the cases and match the available resources according to case requirement.
To provide needful facilities like shelter homes, education, medical assistance, repartriation, emotional support and guidance etc.
To create a structure and environment which ensures the protection of the rights of child as mentioned or ratified in the UN convention on the Rights of the child and Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Act, 2000.
To provide a platform for networking amongst organization and also create a child friendly relation.
To create awareness among masses about Child Rights & about the activities of Childline.
To being together Govt. & Voluntary Organization for making the environment & System to work according to the need of time and direct the nation builders toward a more secured path.

CHILDLINE STRUCTURE :

Role of the Organisations :

1. Nodal Organisation.
2. Collaborative Organisation.
3. Support Organisation.

Role of Nodal Organisation : P.R.C. (Population Research Centre) of H.P. University is authorized to work as a Nodal Organisation. It’s a basically an academic institution. Nodal organization provides training facilities to the Childline team members, volunteers etc. It comprises of one member i.e. the city coordination. Its main function is networking and liasoning with Allied System, documentation, research work, weekly visits to the collaborative and support organizations, carries out case follow-up and keep a check on the problems related to connectivity of 1098 service.

Role of Collaborative Organisation : H.P.V.H.A. in New Shimla is known as collaborative organization and works in coordination with Nodal, Supportive agencies, NGOs and the Allied System. All phone calls received by our organization. Major functions of this organization include case intervention and follow-up referral documentation with other NGOs, handling the administration and finances, phone testing, outreach/ awareness and conduct open-house sessions.

Support Organisation : It receives calls from the collaborative organization and provides follow-up on a call, based on its area of operation. The support organization assists in publicity and testing of phones in the City, training research and documentation. The primary eligibility criteria for the support organizations include :

- Extensive outreach with children.
- 24 hours Shelter or Drop in Centre.
- Infrastructure of the organization in terms of transport facilities, staff and services for children.

Training for Allied Systems : The Police, Health Care System, Judicial System,
Education System, Labour Department Media, Department of Tele-communications, Corporate Sector.

Outreach Programmes : Outreach/Awareness programme twice in a week to
strengthen its network and improve the quality of services.

Open-house programme : Once in a month CHILDLINE conducts open-house programme. The important focus of open-house is streets and colonies of the city.

NGO meet : CHILDLINE Shimla organizes district level NGO meet once in a week.

INTERVENTION :

There are some common basic steps to remember while responding to calls. Every child or concerned adult calling 1098 places their trust in CHILDLINE by asking for assistance. The need to ensure that the response to these calls promptly, effectively and also need to actively follow-up on each call.




Intervention Assistance Calls :
These calls require active response and follow-up. These are as follows :-

- Medical.
- Shelter.
- Repartriation.
- Emotional Support and Guidance.
- Death related calls.
- Abuse/Rescue.
- Sponsorship.
- Missing Children.
- Information and referral to services.

Information about CHILDLINE and Volunteers Other Calls :

- Silent calls.
- Phone Testing Calls.
- Administrative Calls.
- Blank Calls.
- Crank/Fun/Abusive Calls.
- Follow-up Calls.
- Wrong Numbers.

Every Child/ Caller dialing 1098 wants to say something would like CHILDLINE to do something. Having put their trust in CHILDLINE, need to respect that trust by effectively responding to calls.

EXISTING STATUS OF CHILDLING SHIMLA :

CHILDLINE Shimla actively participating in Childline project being approved by the Ministry of Women & Child Development. CIF Mumbai team visited Shimla on 16th. June,2006 to give an In-house training for sound perusal of Childline activities at Shimla District.

At the beginning of Childline Shimla will be operating from morning 10:00 a.m to 8.00 p.m. We proceed on with the following schedule in near future :-

Preparation of all awareness material.
Visit to : - Schools
- PCO
- Shelter Homes
- Public Places
- Slums
- Concerned Adults
- Police


Networking with Allied Systems.
Going for 24 hrs. telephonic services to its earliest.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where even a child with a secure family is not safe enough from abuse and breach of rights. Street children, with no shelter, no family, and no protection are especially vulnerable. And when their rights are denied, which happens quite often, they have no one to complain to, or to help them. There were a large number of services that aimed at protecting children’s rights, but they either remained untapped or were not popularized well enough for the street children to start using them.

CHILDLINE Shimla will definitely work for the immediate problems of Children in difficult circumstances and make arrangements for long term rehabilitation and better quality of life.