The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : A laudable effort to check child labour

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 23, 2006
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

A laudable effort to check child labour

Staff Reporter

Initiative has led residents of some apartments to stop employing children as domestic help

WORTH EMULATING: Residents of Tungabhadra Apartments at the National Games Village in Koramangala pasting posters against child labour on the walls. — Photo: K. Gopinathan

BANGALORE: Far away from the fanfare and publicity, a silent movement against child labour is on the city.

Thanks to the Domestic Child Labour Elimination project, being implemented in association with UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund), the Bangalore district administration has been successful in sensitising residents of a few apartments to child labour. As a result, the residents have voluntarily stopped employing children below the age of 14 as domestic help.

For the past two years, the district administration has been working in coordination with the NGOs — Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA), Paraspara and Stree Jagruti Samiti — asking the residents not to employ children below 14 years of age for domestic work, says the project coordinator G. Suchitra Rao. Till now, residents of nearly 200 apartments, including those from National Games Village at Koramangala, the largest apartment block in the city, have been approached, she says.

The district administration and the NGOs took up the task when there was no express ban on the use of children for domestic work. Deputy Commissioner (Bangalore Urban) M.A. Sadiq issued a circular to residents of apartment complexes on the basis of the April-2004 notification on minimum wage for domestic workers that asked people not to employ children below 14 years. "It was on the basis of this circular that we approached presidents of welfare associations of apartment blocks. Where this circular did not work we took a letter issued by the Deputy Commissioner to each apartment complex," Ms. Rao says.

Among the residential complexes where this sensitisation programme has been successful is the National Games Village, where nearly 2,500 people stay in 13 blocks. It was the team from APSA that worked here. "We involved presidents of all the blocks and held a series of meetings with the residents. There has been an encouraging response from them," says Varalakshmi of APSA.

"After our meetings with APSA, we convinced all the residents and passed a resolution on not using children below 14 years," S. Soama Sundara, vice-president of Tungabhadra Block. The residents of this block are not using any child for domestic work as well as other work such as transportation of mineral water. "We have even instructed our security man not to allow any children below 14 to enter the block for domestic work," he adds.

"We have been successful in convincing residents of other blocks. Ninety per cent of the residents have been convinced. In November, we will declare the National Games Village as child labour-free zone," says Ms. Varalakshmi.

Rehabilitation

Some of the residents of the upmarket complexes are not convinced about the effect of the sensitisation programme. "I may not employ a child for domestic work. But some other person will be ready to employ the child. There is no clear rehabilitation package for children rescued from houses," says a resident of a complex in Koramangala.

She says apart from the sensitisation programme, there is a need for a concrete rehabilitation programme that addresses the economic hardships of children from slums engaged in work. The Government should evolve a scheme to give children some pocket money apart from educating them.

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