Sauntering through the lanes of a marketplace in Noida, you might miss them in the crowd. Doggedly carrying out their chores at roadside dhabas or pestering female customers to buy aluminium foil, they don’t even attract our attention any more, forget raise eyebrows.
Right outside a roadside eatery, on an extended raised wooden platform stands 15-year-old Ram Kumar, trying to make a living by selling banta (locally made carbonated drink). Hailing from Motihari, Bihar, Ram came to Delhi five years ago, having studied till class 1. It’s the struggle to make up to Rs 3000 per month that explains why he is not going to school like other kids.
If it’s the vivacity of Ram that baffles you, it’s the rather subdued demeanour of another banta-seller, Mukesh that is pretty unsettling. Under the watchful eyes of one of his uncles who sat just a short distance away from us, Mukesh was simply scared to have any conversation.
Pop one question to him and instead of giving a reply, his gaze would drift swiftly to the man (supposed to be his mama), thereafter choosing not to answer any of our questions at all.
The very sight of these children should jolt each one of us for they tell a sordid tale of how the system has failed them in every sense.
Marred by economic aberrations at their homes, these children are pushed into the alleys of big cities and towns to eke out a living, their own dreams and aspirations vanishing like a whiff of smoke.
It’s easy to tutor a kid and make him slog , for instance the boy selling aluminium foil, carrying seven big packets, each containing six bundles of foil. He’s been given a target to sell a total of 50 throughout the day, at a smart price of “100 ke 4” as we would let you believe. It’s a target only a pushy salesman can endure, not 12-14 year old kids.
As Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi rightly pointed out in his acceptance speech last year,
There is no greater violence than to deny the dreams of our children.
— Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi
Where is the Right to Education for these children? Which government agency will extend a lending hand to these kids and ensure that they are literate enough to at least save themselves from being exploited by their employers?
The central government in May this year passed a slew of amendments to the Child Labour Act. The law was tweaked in terms of making the provisions related to more stringent punishment and the government justifying its partial ban on child labour. Children below the age of 14 were allowed to work in non-hazardous family enterprises; perhaps the mandarins didn’t realise the fate befalling upon these not-so-fortunate ones.
Activists had raised a big hue and cry then saying how the garb of family enterprise will come back to haunt the regime, the children getting no relief from being victimised.
Irony fails no one in connecting the dots, that of child labourers being brought to cities by middlemen who happen to be distant relatives. Lal Bahadur, aged 12, from Patna, Bihar is one such example. He sells books right outside a metro station in a posh locality in South Delhi.
Managing to get barely Rs 20 for every book (that are pirated by the way, simple photocopy of the best-selling authors) Lal Bahadur says he came to Delhi six months ago with one of his ‘bhaiyas’ (brother), having studied till class 3. Ask him if he wishes to study further, “time kahan hai madam”, (where is the time) comes the pat reply.
(With inputs from Malkeet Singh)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)