The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Declaration on child labour mandatory

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 14, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Declaration on child labour mandatory

Special Correspondent

Children less than 14 years cannot participate in hazardous agricultural activity

.— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Children’s cause: Principal Secretary Agriculture and Horticulture A. Ramaswamy (left); National Project Coordinator, ILO Karnataka Child Labour Project, Sanjeev Kumar (centre); and Head of the Department of Decentralisation, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Rajshekar, at a workshop in Bangalore on Thursday

Bangalore: A farmer seeking agriculture subsidy in Karnataka will have to henceforth sign a declaration that he will not employ children aged less than 14 for any “hazardous agricultural activity”. This will include not only children employed for wages but also the farmers’ own children.

Workshop

Speaking to presspersons on the sidelines of a workshop organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for officers of the Agricultural Department, Rajneesh Goel, Commissioner for Agriculture, said that it would apply to all levels of subsidies starting with those for purchase of seeds and implements.

Child labour

Dr. Goel said that elimination of child labour from agriculture would boost agri-produce exports as well, considering that countries in the European Union and the United States shun products that use children in the production process.

Pressure from the export market had enforced a ban in carpet weaving industry, he pointed out.

Society

Dr. Rajashekhar from the Centre for Decentralisation and Development, Institute for Social and Economic Change, spoke about the social conditions that push children to work on the fields in his keynote address.

Quoting from a study in Bidar and Chamarajanagar districts, Dr. Rajashekhar said 49 per cent of child labourers in Bidar and 42 per cent of those in Chamarajanagar are involved in agricultural labour.

Girl child

Nearly 80 per cent of girl child labourers in Bidar and 52 per cent of such children in Chamarajanagar were agricultural labourers.

The study found that a significant number of children employed in agriculture were paying off their parents’ debts.

Typically, the parents were themselves landless labourers and belonged to oppressed castes and minority communities, the study said.

Sanjay Kumar, National Project Coordinator, ILO, spoke on the occasion. The officers who participated in the workshop will prepare an action plan on the elimination of child labour in agriculture.

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