India Home to 28 Million Child Labourers

India has time and again stated the need to abolish child labour and the right every child has to education. However the country still faces the anguish of children being employed and made to work in horrible conditions that poses threat to their lives. Caught in this situation are teenage miners in the ‘rathole’ mines in Meghalaya, as reported by Gardiner Harris for NY Times.

According to Unicef, 28 million children in India are working, even after the enactment of the 2010 law that has made it mandate for children between the ages of 6 and 14 to be in school. Chid labours are found in shops, kitchen, factories, farms and construction sites. No matter how many laws are formulated it hardly does much to solve India’s most blatant issue.

A child protection specialist at Unicef, Vandhana Kandhari said, “We have very good laws in this country. It’s our implementation that’s the problem,” as reported by NY Times.

Such is the case of teenage miners, who work due to poverty, rickety schools, corruption and insufficient teachers.

Like the 17 year old, Suresh Thapa who has been working in the mines since he was a child and expects his four younger brothers to follow the trend.

As per the Indian Mines Act of 1952, it prohibits anyone under the age of 18 from working in coal mines, however, the teenage worker feel that this law in turn harms their family, as they need the money to feed themselves, and there is no other job available than the ‘rathole’ mines which hire them illegally.

Suresh’s boss, Kumar Subba said throughout the region children are employed in mines, most children are orphans and made to work in dangerous conditions. He said, “People die all the time.” He also said that a state lawmaker owns his mines, as reported by NY Times.

Despite the laws, the police officers are not strict enough. They extract bribe from coal truckers instead of enforcing law.

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights chairwoman, Shantha Sinha said, “Child labor is allowed to continue in Meghalaya by those in positions of power and authority, as it is across India,”  reported NY Times.

A non-governmental organization based in Shillong, Meghalaya’s capital, Impulse, reported that 200 children, some as younger as 5 were found working in 10 local mines in 2010. An estimated 70,000 children were found by the group in about 5,000 mines the same year.

Even the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, research groups confirmed the presence of child workers in these mines.

During monsoon season when many mines are closed or barley functioning, the Tata group reported finding 343 children aged 15 years or younger, working in 401 mines and 7 coal depots.

Meghalaya’s deputy chief minister for mining and geology, Bindo M. Lanong, denied the findings, he said, “There is no child labor in Meghalaya. These allegations are totally absurd. They are not based on facts,” as reported by NY Times.

There are several mines which when checked had no ventilation and only one entrance, and did not follow any mining plan, no limestone was used to reduce explosion risks and had minimal roof supports. The bamboo staircases were unsafe to use and the miners walked sideways to avoid falling.

The job does offer high wage, but the mine managers have hard time finding enough workers in the area, informed the Tata report. This situation has led to children and other labourers being brought from Nepal and Bangladesh through informal networks, often referred as trafficking.

However, the high wage doesn’t remedy the condition of these workers as the mine operators charge large amount to deliver drinking water, food and other essentials to mining camps. This doesn’t allow many of them to send money home or save enough to leave.

As the immigrant children don’t understand local dialects they can’t join the few schools near the mining camps.

The children, who work in these mines, see it as a means to their end, a source to feed themselves and their family as long as they stay alive, working in the dangerous conditions, gambling with life, all for the bare necessities.