1. You allegories of comparsion of child labour with teachers' strike or alcoholism..etc. has no relevance to the topic under discussion. 2.So long as you are unable to provide two square meals to the child and educational infrastructure needed, you cannot ensure keeping away the children from doing some work, albeit you might throw them on the streets to become anti-socials. Come to realities. 3. You do not provide basic necessities for the child, food, clothing and in some cases even a roof over his head, and demand that he should not earn his living by some miscellaneous work? You want him to starve to death or turn an anti-social to resort to pickpocketing or stealing? It is good to emulate the developed Countries' ideology and shout from housetops "abolish child labour". While in developed Countries allowances are given for the children with attention from the date of conception, follow up and delivery, and until they need the allowances are disbursed to the parents? Are we capable of doing it in India? Do we have funds to spend on the millions of poor children ignored by their parents? It is utopian to talk of "Abolish Child labour". Once you catch them from the wayside restaurants or carpet making units..etc. and detain them, what happens later? They idle in rehabilitation centres for a few months and let off-go back to their profession or loiter around without work? Come with practical solutions other than evangelisation, which the missionaries are aiming at by projecting a poor image of India abroad and getting over US$336 million in past year for conversions of these poor children, a precondition for rehabilitating them? Can't you have orphanages without evangelisation or conversions? Have we funds to start orphanages/ schools for all children? Do not compare kidney donations and the like. Give a detailed programme you would do with the children- millions of them abandoned by their parents and straying in the ghetto-s.
--- On Fri, 7/4/08, anindita dey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: anindita dey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [ =>> Jharkhand <<= ] An Invitation to One and All on World Day Against Child Labour To: [email protected] Date: Friday, July 4, 2008, 11:51 AM Sorry that I have taken a bit of a while to get back to you on the issue of child labour for two reasons: firstly, my pressing schedule and secondly, which is more important one, I wondered whether Mr. Kumar have had any time left to respond to other issues than to spew venom and twisting the issue of "Social battle against corruption' altogether. I have a few questions to Dr. Kumar: Why we are always up in arms against the striking teachers when we can’t ensure their demand? It’s because we don’t want our children to emulate their striking-attitude. Alcohol is said to bring peace of mind to those who are in distress--then what is wrong in alcoholism when we can’t ensure peace to alcoholic? It’s simply because it does more harm than good to the society, more so for the individual concern. What is wrong with organ trafficking, say kidney? This is simply because the poor donors are hardly compensated and dispossessed of post surgical needs. Look Mr. Kumar, I can put a hundred more, but the issue remains the same. In all the above cases the poor are at the receiving end. And so is the case of child labour. Perpetuating the no- wrong idea with child labour is outright backward--because by subscribing to that idea, we will not be able to eradicate the vice ever. The only way to stop is to frame legal huddles and create awareness about these vices. And until we do so, the fates of those children who, instead of going to school, need to engage themselves in hard toil from dawn to dusk for making less than a square meal will remain miserably entangled. Come on! We should have united voice to curb this vice. By studying the other side of the coin, we may forget the chapter of the study on the whole! --- On Fri, 13/6/08, S kumar <[EMAIL PROTECTED] com> wrote: From: S kumar <[EMAIL PROTECTED] com> Subject: Re: [ =>> Jharkhand <<= ] An Invitation to One and All on World Day Against Child Labour To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ps.co.in Date: Friday, 13 June, 2008, 11:31 AM 1. Indeed Child labour is to be totally abolished as a social obligation and as per ILO resolution, since 12 years. 2. Has anyone studied the other side of the coin? How many hapless children are left on the roads to fend for themselves? These children fall into the hands of anti-socials who at times maim them and make them sit on City footpaths to beg, the collections taken by the thugs. Many children resort to stealing and pickpocketing to keep away the hunger. go to any ghetto-s esp. poorer classes of any faith, you find children searching the left overs from restaurants or garbages, for any food they could collect? The several Govts. which have come during the 60 years after Country's independence, have done little in poverty alleviation, except slogans like "Garibi Hatao" during Indira's time which actually led to "Garibonko Hatao" in practice, by clearing of slums and hutments where they live. 3. Under such circumstances, if children- often the sole earning member of a widowed/sick/ disabled mother, try to do odd jobs as helpers in wayside hotels or domestic helps out of sheer necessity to exist. They cannot afford to study unless alternative sources are made available to keep the hunger away- like midday meal schemes. 4. Several poverty alleviation programmes are more on paper. Rajiv Gandhi himself confessed bthat only 10% of allocated funds reach the beneficiaries. Distbution of foodgrains under PDS too is fraught with so much corrution that it was found over 80% of the foodgrains find their way to the open market!! 5. Another category of child labour are the children/ relatives of a mason, cobbler, carpenter or blacksmith or any skilled self employed, being trained in the traditional skills of the family down the generations. The children here are not child labour. They are getting trained in the skills of their seniors to take over from them when coming of age. If they abandon such training and do only academic studies, would the Govt. assure jobs for him without skills? Moreover, in any Country, it is the duty of the parents to pass down the generations, the skill they attained traditionally! ! Even politicians have now adopted the tradit to get their siblings like Pilot or Rahul? 6. So before condemning"child labour" as an evil and taking action against the employers, the Govt./ Society should ensure alternative sources of income for such needy families, keeping in view the above observations. Otherwise, if the working children are taken away from their workplaces, by law, it would be creating more of anti-socials as these children are likely to be devoured by criminals in Society. anindita dey <[EMAIL PROTECTED] co.in> wrote: An Invitation to One and All on World Day Against Child Labour Mrs. Anindita Dey On 12th day of June each year we observe the World Day Against Child Labour, focusing on the elimination of one of the nasty menace of humankind, that is the child labour. This we are doing since 2002, when the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted 12th June as ‘World Day Against Child Labour’. According to ILO, one out of six children is a child labour who works in hazardous conditions. This year is different when ILO urges us to focus on creating awareness about the main precursor of human development, the child education. However, we need to understand the situation under which the poor parents actively put their tender ones on hardship of workplace. If by some way, the income accrued from the labour of their children is not substituted, the poor families can hardly be encouraged to put their children in education. Hence, ILO proposed to bring in the mechanism of "income transfer programs" to counterbalance lost earnings of the families. A concerted effort involving all walks of society is required to kill the monster. Today is the day and this is the time- I invite everybody to spread the slogan chosen for this year’s World Day Against Child Labour “Education: the right response to child labour� and let us practice it for all days to come till the last child labour gets freedom, gets education! Jharkhand Network | Jharkhand.org. in/network
