Thursday, August 11, 2016
Sixteen years of solitude
She has not let anyone down. The people of India have let down Irom Sharmila
As she licked honey from a fingertip, she could not hold back her tears. It was the first time in 16 years that any food or water had entered Irom Sharmila’s mouth. This tiny dab of honey ended the most extraordinary non-violent battle against injustice that India has seen in the last half-century.
The premise of Gandhi’s satyagraha is to resist oppression by causing suffering not to one’s oppressor, but to oneself.
No one has chosen to voluntarily suffer as much and as long as Irom Sharmila in the pursuit of what she describes as “non-violence with love”, an instrument of battle she learnt from her “idol”, Gandhi. Gandhi believed, as does Irom Sharmila, that if one chose to suffer, this act of non-violence with love would awaken the conscience of the oppressor, and ultimately spur a change of heart.
The suffering that Sharmila chose to impose on herself was to refuse even a morsel of food or a drop of water for 16 long years. She continued to live only because the police and doctors force-fed her through a plastic tube. Her body organs degenerated irreversibly; her menstrual periods halted. The tube through which she was forcefully fed was continuously painful. To add to her suffering, the law of the land criminalised her protest as “attempted suicide”. She was incarcerated in a high security hospital ward in Imphal. The maximum penalty for the crime of attempting suicide is imprisonment for one year. Each year when she completed her solitary incarceration, she was released and immediately re-arrested.
The greater part of these 16 years she spent alone. In a rare interview, she admitted that what she missed most desperately was simply being with people. I met her once at the hospital ward and this is what she said to me. She missed talking to people other than her police guards and nurses, she missed friends, she missed being with someone she had come to love. She did not meet her mother even once these 16 years: Her pact with her unlettered mother was that they would see each other only after she achieved her political goal.
She chose to endure all of this as an act of political resistance through non-violent self-suffering that is unparalleled in the world. Her resolve was that she would not eat or drink until the government of India withdrew the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 from the state of Manipur, which she believed had enabled men in uniform to rape, abduct and kill civilians with impunity. The law was enacted in 1958 with the official objective of enabling Indian security forces to more effectively quell armed rebellion in Nagaland. The law permits security personnel to fire at and even kill civilians, and arrest, enter and search any premises without warrant. It was extended to Manipur in 1980. The impunity which the law extends to the men in khaki and olive green has indeed resulted in a long and shameful trail of extra-judicial killings (which continue even today), forced disappearances, rape, torture and extortion.
On November 1 2000, the paramilitary Assam Rifles gunned down 10 innocent civilians awaiting a bus in the town Malom in the Manipur valley. These included a teenage boy and an old woman. The gruesome pictures of their bodies riddled with bullets filled the next day’s newspapers. Among those who saw these was Sharmila, then a 28-year-old rights activist, journalist and poet. The Assam Rifles claimed that its soldiers were defending themselves from a bomb attack on their convoy, and the civilians were killed in cross-fire. The incensed people in the valley were unconvinced, and demanded an independent magisterial enquiry. This was not allowed because the Assam Rifles was protected by their right to open fire under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. Sharmila then made a quiet resolve that she must fight to free her people from the oppression of this law. She would use her own body as her weapon. There was no other way for her. She took the blessings of her mother and quietly began her fast on November 4, 2000.
Sixteen years later, the law persists, unchanged. There is little evidence that this indomitable young woman’s extraordinary, even superhuman, self-imposed suffering has touched any hearts in India’s political establishment. The government of India appointed in 2004 a commission headed by a former Supreme Court judge, Jeevan Reddy, to enquire whether the law needed to be amended or repealed in order to conform to the government’s obligations to human rights. The commission in 2005 recommended repeal of the law (even as it suggested that many of its provisions be incorporated in other laws). But successive governments of India chose to not act in accordance even with the commission’s conservative counsel.
Sharmila, ever since she launched on her epic fast, became a symbol of resistance and courage for the people of the troubled valley. Since 2008, every day some seven to 10 women fasted from sunrise to sundown in solidarity with Sharmila. I met the silver-haired matrons who ran this protest in a tent in Imphal city. They rarely returned home to their children and grandchildren, and slept in the tent. They felt a larger purpose in organising this unbroken chain of solidarity with their heroine Sharmila, and her struggle for peace and justice in their homeland.
Today many of these women feel profoundly let down by Sharmila’s decision to withdraw her 16 year-old fast. I hope desperately that they relent and open their hearts to accept the decision of their heroine to fight against AFSPA through the ballot instead of fasting. To recognise that although Sharmila is one of the tallest living Indians for her voluntary choice of incredible self-suffering of 16 years, she is still human. That she has not let them down; it is the political and security establishments, but ultimately the people of India, who have let down Irom Sharmila
From her lonely hospital ward, she wrote: Free my feet from the shackles/ Like bangles made of thorn/ Confined inside a narrow room/ My fault lies in being incarcerated Like a bird…Let us celebrate that Sharmila can at last taste food again, and quench her thirst with water which pours down her throat. That she walks free at last. But remember that the battle she fought for the people of Manipur for a peace founded on justice and the dignity of democratic freedoms is still to be won. May we stand with her and the people of Manipur in that battle. Let Irom Sharmila’s suffering not be in vain.
Mander is a human rights worker and writer.
Source; Indian Express, 11-08-2016
A question of human rights
In the debate on abortion, let us not lose sight of the basic right of women: the right to autonomy and to decide what to do with their own bodies.
We are a group of persons from across the country working with women over several decades around issues of their rights and health. In response to the article,“A tricky debate on abortion” (Aug. 3, 2016), we would like to contest from the perspective of women’s rights the arguments made by the author.
Worldwide, it is estimated that 46 million women seek abortion every year and the World Health Organisation estimates that close to half of these happen in unsafe conditions. In India, around 20 million women seek to terminate an unwanted pregnancy every year. Even today, due to the stigma around women’s sexuality and abortion itself, a woman dies every two hours of an unsafe abortion. What makes this statistic even more tragic is that in our country, as the article points out, we have had a law permitting abortion access under certain conditions since 1971; however, this has not ensured widespread access to safe abortion services.
Right to bodily integrity
This is one of the reasons that over the last three decades, international human rights bodies, including those of the UN, have paid attention to the issue of abortion and have called upon states to remove barriers to access to safe abortion. Internationally accepted human rights law supports the right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy or not within the framework of the right to life, right to health, and right to autonomy and bodily integrity. There is enough evidence that non-availability of safe abortion kills — where abortion laws are not restrictive, morbidity and mortality due to unsafe abortion are much lower.
This is one of the reasons that over the last three decades, international human rights bodies, including those of the UN, have paid attention to the issue of abortion and have called upon states to remove barriers to access to safe abortion. Internationally accepted human rights law supports the right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy or not within the framework of the right to life, right to health, and right to autonomy and bodily integrity. There is enough evidence that non-availability of safe abortion kills — where abortion laws are not restrictive, morbidity and mortality due to unsafe abortion are much lower.
A woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy is not a frivolous one. Abortion is often the only way out of a very difficult situation — pregnancy resulting from coerced or non-consensual sex, ignorance that pregnancy may result even from the first sexual intercourse, inability to use a method of contraception due to a husband’s (or other’s) objection, fear of side effects, not receiving information and counselling at the appropriate time, wrong use of methods, discontinuities in use because of various reasons including not receiving supplies regularly, and, of course, method failure. An abortion is a carefully considered decision taken by a woman who fears that the welfare of the children she already has, and of other members of the household that she is obliged to care for with limited financial and other resources, may be compromised by the birth of another child. These are decisions taken by responsible women who have few other options; they are women who would ideally have preferred to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, but are unable to do so. We have reported this in the many studies published by us. And if the pregnancy was the result of sexual violence and the woman does not want to continue with the pregnancy, then forcing her to do so represents a violation of the woman’s bodily integrity and aggravates her mental trauma, impeding her healing and recovery from violence.
The question of ethics
The article refers to “strong ethical objections to abortion per se”. It is worth mentioning here that abortion is permitted for social or economic reasons in 80 per cent of developed countries, as compared with only 16 per cent of developing countries. According to international human rights law, a person is vested with human rights only at birth; an unborn foetus is not an entity with human rights. The ethical issues here are not just of the rights of the foetus. The foetus is not an independent entity and depends completely on the welfare of the woman. Without her well-being, one cannot talk about the well-being of the foetus. We also need to consider the fact that the woman herself is a living human being in the here and now — the pregnancy takes place within her body and has profound effects on her health, mental well-being and life. Thus, how she wants to deal with this pregnancy must be a decision she and she alone can make.
The article also juxtaposes women’s choice to continue or terminate a pregnancy with the right of a disabled person to live. We would like to present the grim reality that adult women and young girls face when they are pregnant against their wishes or when a wanted pregnancy can become difficult to continue if the foetus is diagnosed as having serious abnormalities. The state does not offer any special relief for parents of disabled children and the entire burden of medical care, education, daily care and future security falls on the individuals alone. It is also not true that most serious foetal abnormalities can be diagnosed before 20 weeks — abortion for serious foetal anomaly often is needed after 20 weeks as tests are mostly done at 18 weeks and results can take three or more weeks.
We would like to state that upholding the rights of the disabled does not conflict with upholding women’s reproductive rights. Many disability rights activists are pro-abortion rights and those who uphold reproductive rights are also supportive of the rights of persons with disability to make reproductive choices, to not have to face coerced sterilisation and/or abortion.
A basic right
Perhaps the time has come for us to discuss whether women in India are indeed equal citizens and whether the right to control their own body and fertility and motherhood choices are primary to their empowerment. The judiciary and lawmakers need to maintain a secular outlook and strive to ensure that the women citizens of this country have equal citizenship rights in consonance with the Constitution and with accepted international covenants on human rights. These include a right to life for the woman, as also a right to dignity and a right to benefit from scientific progress. Religion and other traditional frameworks are inherently imbued with patriarchy and cannot be used by a secular state to direct its laws and policies.
Perhaps the time has come for us to discuss whether women in India are indeed equal citizens and whether the right to control their own body and fertility and motherhood choices are primary to their empowerment. The judiciary and lawmakers need to maintain a secular outlook and strive to ensure that the women citizens of this country have equal citizenship rights in consonance with the Constitution and with accepted international covenants on human rights. These include a right to life for the woman, as also a right to dignity and a right to benefit from scientific progress. Religion and other traditional frameworks are inherently imbued with patriarchy and cannot be used by a secular state to direct its laws and policies.
Let us not lose sight of the basic right of women: the right to autonomy and to decide what to do with their own bodies, including whether or not to get pregnant and stay pregnant.
Suchitra Dalvie, Sundari Ravindran, Subha Sri B., Renu Khanna (CommonHealth); Jashodhara Dasgupta (National Alliance for Maternal Health and Human Rights); Sana Contractor (Centre for Health and Social Justice); Rupsa Mallik (CREA); Padma Deosthali (CEHAT); Sarojini N., Deepa V. (SAMA).
Keywords: Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, abortions, Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India, Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971
Source: The Hindu, 11-08-2016
Only Prayer Can't Help You Achieve Success
Swami Dayananda Saraswati
|
Traditionally, both teacher and student pray together before beginning the study of any Upa nishad. Every Upanishad has a shantipatha, a prayer invoking peace, in the beginning. Any new undertaking whether building a house, writing a book or studying a text begins with a prayer. A prayer is said to invoke Divine Grace and to overcome obstacles.The success of an undertaking requires three factors prayatna, kala and daiva. Prayatna is well-directed, adequate effort, your commitment to the pursuit. You must persevere and continue to be with the pursuit until it is accomplished. This perseverance is prayatna. Kala is time, an important factor in the successful completion of an undertaking because everything does not happen instantly .
The third factor is daiva, an unknown factor. Unlike prayatna and kala you have no control over daiva. An undertaking does not succeed just because you put in effort and time.There could be many obstacles in the way of accomplishing the goal; you may not be able to totally overcome all of them. Our knowledge is very limited. You cannot visualise all possible obstacles to be avoided. Even if you do, you either do not have the power to overcome these obstacles, or the power you have is not adequate. The result of an undertaking is not predictable.This is daiva. You may call it law of karma, chance, luck, God or whatever, but you recognise that there is an unknown factor that makes the difference between success and failure.
Daiva may be called chance, something you cannot control. If you can control it, then it is not chance; it is a manageable fact. Though you cannot control chance, you can take it into account and do something to make it favourable, in which case you are not that helpless; you can be hopeful. This hope has a basis. Hope is not based on your knowledge of what is happe ning or what will happen and so on; it is based on prayer. It is prayerful hope to avoid hel plessness. If you acknowledge the existence of this factor, then you are objective; otherwise you are in a helpless situation. You are in for disappointment.
You would call yourself a failure saying, “I am defeated all and smothered by situations. I the time and smothered by situations. I have no control over anything.“ By being objective you discover strength within.
The objectivity here is, “I have some resources, talents and knowledge. With all these, i plan for a particular thing to happen, but there is always one factor over which i have no control. I say a prayer to have that factor in my favour.“
When you say a prayer you are pragmatic. You know that you cannot call all the shots. When you do not call all the shots, naturally , you take into account the daiva factor and say a prayer to help control hidden variables.
This prayer, meaningful for the occasion, is a specific prayer. When you pray in general, without a specific purpose, it is a broad-spectrum prayer.There are specific prayers too, for every season, problem and disease, for instance. But like the intake of medicine, mere prayer does not do the job. Prayer is to make daiva favourable. You have to make adequate effort for a length of time to make the undertaking successful.
The third factor is daiva, an unknown factor. Unlike prayatna and kala you have no control over daiva. An undertaking does not succeed just because you put in effort and time.There could be many obstacles in the way of accomplishing the goal; you may not be able to totally overcome all of them. Our knowledge is very limited. You cannot visualise all possible obstacles to be avoided. Even if you do, you either do not have the power to overcome these obstacles, or the power you have is not adequate. The result of an undertaking is not predictable.This is daiva. You may call it law of karma, chance, luck, God or whatever, but you recognise that there is an unknown factor that makes the difference between success and failure.
Daiva may be called chance, something you cannot control. If you can control it, then it is not chance; it is a manageable fact. Though you cannot control chance, you can take it into account and do something to make it favourable, in which case you are not that helpless; you can be hopeful. This hope has a basis. Hope is not based on your knowledge of what is happe ning or what will happen and so on; it is based on prayer. It is prayerful hope to avoid hel plessness. If you acknowledge the existence of this factor, then you are objective; otherwise you are in a helpless situation. You are in for disappointment.
You would call yourself a failure saying, “I am defeated all and smothered by situations. I the time and smothered by situations. I have no control over anything.“ By being objective you discover strength within.
The objectivity here is, “I have some resources, talents and knowledge. With all these, i plan for a particular thing to happen, but there is always one factor over which i have no control. I say a prayer to have that factor in my favour.“
When you say a prayer you are pragmatic. You know that you cannot call all the shots. When you do not call all the shots, naturally , you take into account the daiva factor and say a prayer to help control hidden variables.
This prayer, meaningful for the occasion, is a specific prayer. When you pray in general, without a specific purpose, it is a broad-spectrum prayer.There are specific prayers too, for every season, problem and disease, for instance. But like the intake of medicine, mere prayer does not do the job. Prayer is to make daiva favourable. You have to make adequate effort for a length of time to make the undertaking successful.
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
UNIFORMED NATIONALISM
Samhita Barooah
PhD Scholar
TISS Guwahati
PhD Scholar
TISS Guwahati
The term ‘we’ has become very controversial in the current era of being a Nationalist. Who are ‘we’? Why are we ‘we’? How can we become ‘we’? There seems to be urgency in collectivising, connecting, networking and associating as ‘we’. Every community whether they are belonging to a normative parameter or they remain outside such parameters seems to be relating to the idea of ‘we’. Sometimes I wonder if the ‘we’ gets more pronounced when one is bereft of any form of comfort zone. That is why sometimes when we move out of our native place, our connection with anything that formulates the ‘we’ becomes very blatant. In the current regime of everything ‘right’ belonging to the ‘we’ or not belonging to that ‘we’ has become extremely critical. ‘We’ used to be such an affirmative assertion of belongingness during our formative years of social work education. The concepts of teams, groups and communities are rooted in this complex understanding and application of ‘we’. ‘We’ can unite and the same ‘we’ can divide as well. It is this politics of ‘we’ that is currently defining the tenets of majority. In a world filled with individual assertion and collective consciousness, it becomes very complex to identify with the mono-cultured ‘we’ concept which is only a one-size fit-all form of democracy. When one tries to understand who are ‘we’? One finds a blurred vision of a mass consciousness which is concerned about their livelihoods, resources, gender specific relationships, disabilities, authorities, power sharing, well being and equitable access. Initially ‘we’ used to be a complex yet a composite whole where people identify with each other on the basis of the larger picture of belongingness but in the changing times, ‘we’ needs to be understood from the context specific concerns of the ‘I’ within that ‘we’. Accepting the differences and distancing from assimilation might work well for the concept of I-focused ‘we’. Sometimes masses means a mob where the ‘we’ becomes a weapon of annihilation. Such ‘we’ can be engineered through legislations, authority and assimilation.
In recent times, uniformed ‘we’ have become a norm and anybody outside that uniform has been accused of being a deviant, traitor and an anti-national. It is a convenient space for all conformists of such an enlarged identity of ‘we’. Some also find solace and respite from the constant battles of being rootless and resource less when they are included within the larger mass of a superficial ‘we’. But currently ‘we’ needs to be cloned, conformed and compulsively uniformed. If someone begs to differ from the grand narratives, then such thought process is stifled with force, exclusion and alienation. Social and gender redistributive inclusion is hardly a reality in today’s context. Today’s uniforms are socially secure, financially lucrative and emotionally indifferent. Hence such uniforms are much sought after be it in any service, industrial, judicial, sports, medical, IT, construction or corporate sectors. Even in the context of rural development, agriculture, forestry or animal husbandry, uniformed livelihoods are much more preferred by youth.
Uniformed nationalism is not only limited to the idea of the nation within the territorial boundary but it transcends to all other nations where Indian origin persons are located. Such nationalism limits the possibilities for people to be global citizens whose humanism supersedes their insular nationalism. But in the current context, people are much more comfortable to identify with the value driven identities of being foreign educated, trained or returned in an attempt to find instant social acceptance within the territorial identity of a nation. These days even popular cinema is projecting the celebration of a uniformed nationalism through the films like Airlift, Dishoom, Dabaang, Sultan, Bajrangi Bhaijan, Rustom, Baby, Madari where the protagonist can be rewarded with impunity when his actions are meant for the nation. People also appreciate such roles and remains averse to criticism of their favourite actors. But when a film is focusing on the scars of the same nation, such films like Water, Udta Punjab, Earth, Fire, I Am, P.K., are either censored to the core or banned from usual publicity stunts.
In today’s context the uniformed nationalism is also translated through uniformed masculinity within armed groups. Wearing a uniform increases the credibility, social mobility and powerful influence of the uniform bearer in every social and cultural forum. Uniform becomes the second skin and endorses an egoistic display of pride for the person wearing such a uniform. Most women find security either as a uniform bearer or being an intimate partner to a uniform bearer. It is an assertion of being protected under the veil of a uniform which apparently protects women. Uniformed women have a sense of authority, duty bounded assertion of power and a gender transformative role towards delivering gender justice and social inclusion. But such women also tend to be oppressors within the expected dispositions of power and influence under the veil of the uniform. At the same breath uniformed women tend to be grossly problematic within their domestic domains where they are viewed as deviants from their stereotyped performative roles. The way society celebrates acts of valour for uniformed men; such acts are hardly recognised for women in uniforms. Women’s status does not transform with or without a uniform. Uniforms are a form of discipline which either includes or excludes women from realising their essence.
Nationalism is a superficial sensation of post colonial domination which does not exist within the diverse nuances of a multi-ethnic, gender fluid, fragmented and fragile network of organised parts. Even though it remains a composed whole yet all the parts are actually collective wholes which does not endorse the idea of an over-arching nationalistic image. Hence the only way such nationalism can be engineered is through the discourse of uniformity which is imposed compulsively rather than churning it through consensus, consultation and cooperation. Uniformed nationalism is a chauvinistic display of masculinity which does not have space for dissent, deviation and diversity. In the spirit of freedom, it is the livelihoods attached to such uniformed nationalism which determines the contours of the nation. This month celebrates the rising of the free nations from the grip of colonial constructs whether it is India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Myanmar and such celebrations rests on the heavy shoulders of the uniformed nationalists not necessarily on liberal critics whose existence is shrinking with every passing day.
Source: Morung Express, 7-08-2016
A law that allows child labour
The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016 suffers from several flaws.
At first glance, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016, passed last month in Parliament, seems progressive. It prohibits “the engagement of children in all occupations and of adolescents in hazardous occupations and processes” wherein adolescents refers to those under 18 years; children to those under 14. The Act also imposes a fine on anyone who employs or permits adolescents to work. However, on careful reading, the new Act suffers from many problems. One, it has slashed the list of hazardous occupations for children from 83 to include just mining, explosives, and occupations mentioned in the Factory Act. This means that work in chemical mixing units, cotton farms, battery recycling units, and brick kilns, among others, have been dropped. Further, even the the ones listed as hazardous can be removed, according to Section 4 — not by Parliament but by government authorities at their own discretion.
Two, section 3 in Clause 5 allows child labour in “family or family enterprises” or allows the child to be “an artist in an audio-visual entertainment industry”. Since most of India’s child labour is caste-based work, with poor families trapped in intergenerational debt bondage, this refers to most of the country’s child labourers. The clause is also dangerous as it does not define the hours of work; it simply states that children may work after school hours or during vacations. Think of the plight of a 12-year-old coming home from school and then helping her mother sow umpteen collars on shirts to meet the production deadline of a contractor. When will she do her homework? How will she have the stamina to get up the next morning for school?
Previous laws
India has passed a number of laws on child labour since Independence. Article 24 of the Constitution prohibits employment of children below the age of 14 in factories, mines, and other hazardous employment. Article 21A and Article 45 promise to provide free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of 6 and 14. In 2009, India passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE). But the amendments in the new law make it practically impossible to implement the RTE. Its clauses put such a burden on poor low-caste families that instead of promoting education, the Act actually increases the potential for dropouts. And parents, scared of the huge fines that they may have to pay for employing their children, are likely to lie about school attendance and may unwillingly comply with contractors in employing them.
A number of laws have also addressed what to include and omit in the list of hazardous occupations. In 1986, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act had prohibited the employment of children below the age of 14 in hazardous occupations identified in a list by the law. After much discussion and expansion, the list included 83 occupations. The National Policy on Child Labour of 1987, implemented in 1988, adopted a gradual approach that combined the strict enforcement of laws on child labour with development programmes to address the root causes of child labour like caste and poverty. It focussed on the rehabilitation of children working in hazardous occupations. The Central government provided a Rs.6 billion fund for implementing the policy. Unfortunately, this budget has been cut massively in education (28 per cent) and for women and children (50 per cent) in the last two years alone, leading to the the closure of 42,000 schools. The Education for All initiative and the Mahila Samakhya programmes have also been downsized, leading to reports of increased trafficking of tribal and minority girls from Odisha and Jharkhand. Taxes charged for the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaigns have reportedly been misused. The only funds for the rehabilitation of children are through monies and assets seized from convicted employers.
Reversing gains
Not only do the new amendments reverse the gains of the 1986 Act, but actually contradict the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) of Children Act of 2000 that makes it punishable for anyone to procure or employ a child in a hazardous occupation. They also contravene the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Minimum Age Convention and UNICEF’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which India is a signatory. According to UNICEF, a child is involved in child labour if he or she is between 5 and 11 years, does at least one hour of economic activity, or at least 28 hours of domestic work in a week. And in case of children aged between 12 and 14, 14 hours of economic activity or at least 42 hours of economic activity and domestic work per week is considered child labour.
Not only do the new amendments reverse the gains of the 1986 Act, but actually contradict the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) of Children Act of 2000 that makes it punishable for anyone to procure or employ a child in a hazardous occupation. They also contravene the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Minimum Age Convention and UNICEF’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which India is a signatory. According to UNICEF, a child is involved in child labour if he or she is between 5 and 11 years, does at least one hour of economic activity, or at least 28 hours of domestic work in a week. And in case of children aged between 12 and 14, 14 hours of economic activity or at least 42 hours of economic activity and domestic work per week is considered child labour.
The devastating health consequences of the new Act may be the worst blow on India’s poor yet. There are 33 million child labourers in India, according to UNICEF. As per the 2011 census, 80 per cent of them are Dalits, 20 per cent are from the Backward Classes. This law will restrict these children to traditional caste-based occupations for generations.
If the amendments intended to preserve Indian art and craft by enabling parents with traditional skills to pass them on to their children, this should be done through reform and investment in education. Slashed budgets should be restored; mid-day meals should re-instituted; and secure housing should be provided through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan boarding schools to homeless children. Artisans should be hired as teachers to pass on traditional knowledge and skills to the next generation.
Ruchira Gupta is an anti-trafficking activist, founder of Apne Aap Women Worldwide and has worked in UNICEF in US, Iran, and Kosovo.
Keywords: Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016, Parliament, Article 24, child labour
Source: The Hindu, 10-08-2016
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)