[Apurv]

Here is a story of future pickpockets, thieves, drug peddlers and hardened criminals in the making, right under our noses.

Street children across various cities of India, between ages seven to thirteen years are working as 'bartenders' at several liquor shops of the city, wasting away their childhood through this stepping stone to graver criminal activity.

As the Child Labour Regulation and Juvenile Justice Acts have little teeth, social organizations and the administration find it unable to rescue and rehabilitate these children.

Consider this situation in the capital City of Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal. Picture an early evening scene in front of any of the Wine and Beer shops at Bhopal revelry hotspots Tinshed, 5 number market, Bittan Market or Manisha Market.

A car with a bunch of 20-somethings screeches to a halt in the public parking lot in front of the liquor shop with the intention of setting up a 'car-o-bar' (a drinking session inside the car).

One of the fifteen odd boys below fourteen years of age walks up to the front window, to be given a few hundred-rupee notes by the car occupants.

The boy understands the rest.

Within five minutes, he returns with bottles of whisky and beer, soda, disposable glasses and namkeen to boot.

As the youths inside the car indulge in their booze party, the boy waits outside for his cut: a share of the liquor, near-finished cigarette butts, the liquor bottle and maybe a tip.

The boy then consumes the liquor and smokes the cigarette butt off and puts the bottle in his gunny bag to be sold later to the scrap dealer for two rupees.

For the complete article and pictures go to the portal... http://www.pagalguy.com/index.php?ca...2_articleid=62

Author Apurv Pandit is a Correspondent with The Pioneer, Bhopal and operates an NGO 'Soochna Mitr' for IT content development in rural areas. He abortively contemplates appearing for CAT again approximately 37 times per annum.

[shalinshroff]

excellent article as usual..


My point only being that if children are discouraged from indulging in such activities ( which they should be), how will they take care of their day to day needs.. I have read many instances where a boy of 14 odd is the only earning member of the household.. What we can ensure, i feel is that there is no cruelty or exploitation of these children. I had read somewhere that a group by the name of Bhimsangh(dont remember exactly) was formed which basically comprised of such 14-16 yr olds. and together they would stand up against any exploitation..

As far as liquor and cigarette and narcotics are concerned, strict action must be taken.. But what about other forms of labour???

SO should such 'child employment be discouraged and education encouraged' at the cost of an earning member????


shalin.

[uRmad]

Originally Posted by shalinshroff

excellent article as usual..


My point only being that if children are discouraged from indulging in such activities ( which they should be), how will they take care of their day to day needs.. I have read many instances where a boy of 14 odd is the only earning member of the household.. What we can ensure, i feel is that there is no cruelty or exploitation of these children. I had read somewhere that a group by the name of Bhimsangh(dont remember exactly) was formed which basically comprised of such 14-16 yr olds. and together they would stand up against any exploitation..

As far as liquor and cigarette and narcotics are concerned, strict action must be taken.. But what about other forms of labour???

SO should such 'child employment be discouraged and education encouraged' at the cost of an earning member????


shalin.

You are not alone in your thinking on this.....This is called the classic poverty argument....And i quote ad verbatim from MVF's FAQ that can be found here

Is it not true that poor families need their children’s income in order to survive? What is wrong with this argument?

Ans: This is the classic " Poverty Argument". The answer to this question depends on how you frame it. If the question is, "Is it not true that if a family is extremely poor and is in desperate straits then the parents would need to send their child to work?" Then the answer of course is ‘YES’. However, if the question is "Are all families now sending their children to work so poor that they need their child’s income in order to survive?" the answer is an emphatic ‘NO’. The tragedy of the child labour situation in this country is that it is simply assumed that every labourer is working because it is an issue of survival for the family. This is the most insidious aspect of the Poverty Argument. Nothing could be farther from the truth.


The Poverty Argument for all its appearance of being logical is completely flawed. Interestingly enough it is not even easy to prove. If it were true then in every village the poorest should drop out from school first and enter the labour market. However, rural areas are full of examples of children belonging to very poor families who are in school while their relatively better off counterparts are working. A large number of factors that have nothing to do with the economics of the situation, such as tradition, ignorance of parents on account of illiteracy, lack of access to alternatives, insensitive administration and so on govern the decision of the family to send a child to work or to school. The Poverty Argument ignores all these aspects and views every thing as a purely economic decision.

Good article Apurv...That first pic was indeed very hard-hitting !!

Cheers

[P S Y C H O]

Count me in...

Its a question of short term v/s long term

Child labour is quick and easy ( no skills required......u have to work like a donkey.) compared to slogging at schools ..
Moreover u have company of smokers/drug addicts ..Its really fun

[uRmad]

Originally Posted by P S Y C H O

Count me in...

Its a question of short term v/s long term

Child labour is quick and easy ( no skills required......u have to work like a donkey.) compared to slogging at schools ..
Moreover u have company of smokers/drug addicts ..Its really fun

What dya mean when ya say "count me in" ???? ...Pray, clarify !!

[P S Y C H O]

count me in the club of ppl who want to help children to see there long term goals rather than be short sighted.

[maximus_maven]

Originally Posted by uRmad

You are not alone in your thinking on this.....This is called the classic poverty argument....And i quote ad verbatim from MVF's FAQ that can be found here





Good article Apurv...That first pic was indeed very hard-hitting !!

Cheers

The article clearly shows the actual state of our country ,what ever the so called power holders of our country might say about India Shining etc ,the actual fact is we still are a third world country and will be one unless and until we play our part in uplifting these children.This was just a case in Bhopal and I am pretty much sure that this is rampant all over India. I think such cases happen mostly because of the rising capitalism in our country ,the poorer section of the society tries to imitate the affluent ones and end up in losses which they wont recover from unless they have an extra source of income and thus force their children to do things which they themselves would not have done in the first place.

[sid_sid4]

A wonderful article apurv...for a long time i have been thinking of writing on it but somehow something would stop me writing on this topic because of the sensitivity of the issue involved..but its good that you have touched those finer points and i would like to add my points on it.....

In a country like india where still 30% of the people live below the poverty line, the things u have discussed above happens in every part of the country where the children below age 14 are exploited in one form or the other.

first of all we need to take into consideration as to what is the motive behind doing all those things:

1...survival

i know this boy named gopal,13 years of age being the sole bread earner for the family and is supporting a family of four with a sister who is too small,mother who cant work,crippled father....is it wrong for that guy to work with no other way out for him...he is a live example and i meet this guy every day.i have been to his place because i objected him to work but he gave me rteasons as to why he is working and even took me to his place and asked me what would have i done had i been i his shoes.. i couldnt answer that... i was zapped seeing the courage that guy has and his intentions being honest.....but from then on my mind hasnt stopped churning as to what can be done so that the problem of this guy can be solved and not just this guy but the problem which most of the children living below the poverty line faces in one form or the other............if ui have a solution i would love to hear an answer..i will help this guy and evrybody who can associate him or her with this guy can help one child liek this i guess that can make a difference..

2....living a lavish life

as one of my friends above has rightly said that theres is this class of people who try to imitate these affluent people and end up no where but a deep whole.we have got to ma them understand that it is just a short sighted goal that they are looking at and we should help them visualise a long term goal but how do u coney this thing to a boy....pretty difficult....because what they see is the limelight of money and that appears like glitters to their eyes and rather than trusting us for good they trust those glittering things because they can see it.

its just not a problem for specifically bhopal but the whole of india so it would be nice if u can come up with some good suggestions as to what can be done to curb these things and even they can have a bright future ahead of them which is the right of each and every individual...so do come up with some sugestions and remember we as an individual can do a lot of good for a country provided we have the zeal to do it.....its not something which u are born with but u have got to develop it.


kapil

[darshana681]

everyday in our lives we come across many such incidences. but we remain mere spectators. you have gone a step ahead and showed what can be done if we come across same incidencs. kuddos.
keep it up..

[diva_2005]

firstly, congrats apurv for writing such a good article n that too on social issues..

a lot has been said about prevailing child labour in india n lot has also been promised about its eradication.. every other political party makes claims to abolish child labour massively n make educaton availaible to all, atleast at primary level.. but the catch here is not govt.'s policies.. a lot of children are either forced into this thingby there parents sothat they cud earn living for the family.. or the harsh truth is that even sometimes, the children do this delibarately so asto avoid studies.. may sound very absurd but when children are young, they are told by there parents to work n earn, by whatever means.. this way kids even may end up doin things like pick pocketing or stealing..

but here the concern is child labour.. a large proportion of the child labourers are massively abused, physically n mentally, by their parents if they dnt earn enough money or by there employers to give more productivity n yield higher output n profits..

but this is not all..at times the working conditions are also hazardous for the kids.. take the most infamous example of "firecracker factory" or "beedi factories".. it has been a well known fact that these factories employ children largely, n pay them realtively lesser wages, in economic terms not even equal to the marginal revenue product of labour(ideally wages = VMP of labour). this is sheer exploitatation n has also got ill-effects on children's health. they are exposed to harmful chemicals, which leadsto long term health problems ranging about anything..

even if we look around in our society or even in our own household, how many of us have children or teenagers employed as housemaid/servents or delievering milk, newspaper or fruit vendors? or working in dhabas n grossery shops? think about it.... the child labour has became a part of our society.. a perilious n poisonous part, which everybody wants to remove, but again it requires lot of dangers, determination, strong will n at times for the starving families.. pain...
p.S. hope didnt write too badly.. was my first attempt at writing on a social n serious issue..