NEW DELHI (PTI): Leaving behind their parents, brothers, sisters and friends, they run far away from their homes in their formative years to make it big in the Metropolis.
But, most often they end up serving at wayside restaurants tea stalls, railway stations or bus stands unable to fetch even one square meal and become Chhotus or “Munnas.”
Their daily routine, beginning from dawn to well past midnight often consists of back breaking hard work.
And yet most of them remember to send a substantial amount of their measly income every month back home to their parents. Kanjru, barely 12, had been away from home for the past five years. Several odd jobs later, he does not find much change in his lifestyle.
Hailing from the drought stricken Sundergarh district of Orissa and breaking the barriers of language and a hostile city life, he has plunged into the ocean of child laborers, estimated at 17 million.
A staggering 11 million of these are in bondage (BMM).
A recent survey by the Indian Council of Child Welfare CCW) has revealed that one lakh children are employed as domestic servants in the capital city Delhi alone. Tears swelled in the little eyes of Feeroz Ansari, 10, when he was asked about his native place and parents.
Amidst tears he recounts. “My father used to coerce me to cam money by working in the nearby brick kilns.
The load of mud used to be very heavy and proved beyond me. Hence, I decided to flee home.”
The African proverb “The world was not left to us by our parents. it was lent to us by our children” bears no significance.
India started celebrating children’s day on Novy,14,1957, This day, celebrated by adults for the deprived children, bears no, relevance to the working children, most of whom do not have the basic education.
The then president Rajendra Prasad said in his address that no program of social welfare is complete unless there is a place: for child welfare in it.
More than 45 years, several funds for child welfare and many children’s films later, they are still condemned to work for their living rather than acquire knowledge.
Article 39 (f) or the Indian constitution provides that the state should see to it that children are given opportunities and facilities in conditions of freedom and dignity and that they are protected against exploitation, moral and material abandonment.
This being a part of directive: principle serves only as a guide for the state while framing welfare measures and has no legal compulsion attached to it, Says prof Upendra Baxi.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 5, 1993
