Child Labour: They serve where others fear to tread
Yuba Nath Lamsal
The ongoing Maoist violence has caused security concerns for all. The social organizations are also not spared. Scared by the violence and conflict, many social organizations have limited their activities in the remote and rural hinterland and focused their activities on more secured and easily accessible areas close to the capital and district headquarters. However, there are some organizations that still are making the remote villages as their focal areas of humanitarian works.
The Concern for Children and Environment Nepal (CONCERN) is among a few social and non-governmental organizations that are serving the poor, needy and downtrodden section of the society in the rural areas, where others fear to go due to the threat of Maoists.
Supported by International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour-ILO, the CONCERN has working for health, education and alternative income generating scheme for the working children in Salandu Bagar of Kavre district.
Situated about 13 kilometers from Panauti, Salandu Bagar is one of the poorest areas of Kavre district, where the annual income from the traditional economic activities—agriculture—feeds the village population for hardly six months. This forces them to seek alternative source of income.
However, unskilled and uneducated villagers have little opportunities for alternative sources of income. As a result, most of the people crush stone and boulders into gravels as a source of supplementary income to support their families. Even small children-- as old as five -- are involved in this labour for their own survival or support their families.
According to a study conducted by the CONCERN, a child rights organisation, about 32,000 child workers were found in the stone quarries and stone crushing plants nationwide, which is almost 33 per cent of the total number of child workers in Nepal. As young as five year old children were found in the stone quarry child labour in Nepal. In terms of gender, the number of girls is slightly higher than the boys. The reason, as local people said, is that boys go to urban areas to work as porter and ‘khalasi’ (helper) in bus, truck and other sectors.
In course of its studies on the child labour in stone quarries nationwide in 2000-2002, the CONCERN found the situation of stone quarry child labour in the Salandu Bagar worse than that of other parts of the Kingdom. Based on the recommendations of the research, it launched an action programme for the child stone crushers in Saladu Bagar, which has, according to child workers and local social workers, benefited them to a large degree.
Radhika Tamang is a girl, who has been doing work of stone crushing for the last six years. She said she started this work when she was eight years old. Her parents, a homeless family, migrated here from nearby villages about seven years ago. According to her, she has benefited from the non-formal education and is also learning other skills like tailoring, knitting and sewing and screen-printing, which are being launched by CONCERN. Apart from this, stone crushers have started getting good price of their products, gravels, after CONCERN started its work here.
Due to poor economic condition and ignorance, parents take their children along with them to the stone quarries, where these kids learn and get used to stone crushing. For many children, stone crushing is their first job and the only skill they learn. It has not only deprived them of their rights to education but also caused serious health hazards. Although specific studies have not been conducted regarding the health hazards of stone crushers, CONCERN’s field workers, based on the finding in the Salandu Bagar, said that many of the stone crushers have suffered respiratory problems and asthma.
Raj Kumar Khadka, a boy of 12 years age From Salandu Bagar, said in an interaction between the journalists and stone crushing children, which was organized by the CONCERN sometimes ago, that he felt very bad to sit on the bank of rivulet and struggle with boulders and dust when other children of his age from the same village go to school and play.
He had always dreamt to go to school and become ‘thulo manche’ (big man). But his desire, though late, has come true as the CONCERN launched a non-formal education classes for the child workers in Salandu Bagar. He is regularly attending the non-formal education classes, as a result he now can read and write. RaJ Kumar now plans to enroll in the school. How he can manage to go to school when his parents do not support him, he said, “ I will work in the morning and evening and go to school during the day”.
Asked how he started the stone-crushing job, he said both of his parents are stone crushers, as they have no land to cultivate and know no other skill. Her mother used to bring him to stone crushing site from early morning and would stay there until dusk with parents and other children. “I live, eat and play with stone right from my early childhood and I saw my parents and others crushing the stone since when I was six months old”, he said. “ This is how I learn this job—and this is my first job I ever learnt”.
This is a common story of many poor families and children in Salandu Bagar. Of the total population, almost 60 per cent villagers in Salandu Bagar, one way or the other, are involved in stone crushing. About 40 per cent are believed to be totally dependent on stone crushing for their survival. Their children, too, are stone crushers, most of whom never went to school.
Ever since CONCERN started non-formal education and other activities like personal safety, health care and environment related awareness and due wages and adequate price for their products (pebbles), the condition of these socially and economically deprived and secluded stone crushers in general and children in particular has improved.
Executive director of CONCERN Bijaya Sainju said that his organisation has formed 4 child clubs of working children to address the causes and consequences of child labour in Salandu Bagar. “The children themselves have developed an action plan that has guided our activities and similar activities are also conducted by the adult workers’ groups to identify and undertake actions for sustainable elimination of child labour in stone quarries in this area”, he said. According to Sainju, significant achievements have been made on formation of a union and a Consumer cum Production co-operative of the workers to enable them to yield better return from their products.
So for, 234 children have received non-formal Education classes while 100 have been supported and mainstreamed to formal education. Another 43 children (14-16 yrs) have received skill development training.
Child labour has been accepted as a serious social problem. It is rampant everywhere in the production and service sector in Nepal. There is hardly any sector, where child labour has not been used and exploited
From farming to factories and transportation to trade, child labour exists and has flourished. Of 23.4 million population of Nepal, 10.7 million are children under 16 years of age, which is almost 44 per cent of total population. According to a nationwide study conducted in 1999 by the Tribhuvan University, 2.6 million children - more than 27 per cent - are working children. This has been a matter of serious concern for governments, international community, and social and human rights workers.
The pervasive existence of child labour is attributed to acute poverty, unemployment and our social and cultural structure. Child labour is, of course, linked with the social and economic deprivation. But poverty is not the lone cause of child labour. It can be other way round, too. Child labour can be a cause of poverty, underdevelopment and social and economic malaise
The International Labour Organisation has classified mine child labour as one of the worst forms of child labour. Stone quarry was not in the list of most hazardous and worst form of child labour until last year. Now stone quarry child labour has also been included in the mine child labour category. Thus, the child labour in the stone quarry has also been classified as the worst form of child labour. It can now be expected that more focus would be given to stone quarry child labour and work for the rights and welfare of the children working in the stone quarries, which is, of course, one of most hazardous sectors of child labor.
The ongoing Maoist violence has caused security concerns for all. The social organizations are also not spared. Scared by the violence and conflict, many social organizations have limited their activities in the remote and rural hinterland and focused their activities on more secured and easily accessible areas close to the capital and district headquarters. However, there are some organizations that still are making the remote villages as their focal areas of humanitarian works.
The Concern for Children and Environment Nepal (CONCERN) is among a few social and non-governmental organizations that are serving the poor, needy and downtrodden section of the society in the rural areas, where others fear to go due to the threat of Maoists.
Supported by International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour-ILO, the CONCERN has working for health, education and alternative income generating scheme for the working children in Salandu Bagar of Kavre district.
Situated about 13 kilometers from Panauti, Salandu Bagar is one of the poorest areas of Kavre district, where the annual income from the traditional economic activities—agriculture—feeds the village population for hardly six months. This forces them to seek alternative source of income.
However, unskilled and uneducated villagers have little opportunities for alternative sources of income. As a result, most of the people crush stone and boulders into gravels as a source of supplementary income to support their families. Even small children-- as old as five -- are involved in this labour for their own survival or support their families.
According to a study conducted by the CONCERN, a child rights organisation, about 32,000 child workers were found in the stone quarries and stone crushing plants nationwide, which is almost 33 per cent of the total number of child workers in Nepal. As young as five year old children were found in the stone quarry child labour in Nepal. In terms of gender, the number of girls is slightly higher than the boys. The reason, as local people said, is that boys go to urban areas to work as porter and ‘khalasi’ (helper) in bus, truck and other sectors.
In course of its studies on the child labour in stone quarries nationwide in 2000-2002, the CONCERN found the situation of stone quarry child labour in the Salandu Bagar worse than that of other parts of the Kingdom. Based on the recommendations of the research, it launched an action programme for the child stone crushers in Saladu Bagar, which has, according to child workers and local social workers, benefited them to a large degree.
Radhika Tamang is a girl, who has been doing work of stone crushing for the last six years. She said she started this work when she was eight years old. Her parents, a homeless family, migrated here from nearby villages about seven years ago. According to her, she has benefited from the non-formal education and is also learning other skills like tailoring, knitting and sewing and screen-printing, which are being launched by CONCERN. Apart from this, stone crushers have started getting good price of their products, gravels, after CONCERN started its work here.
Due to poor economic condition and ignorance, parents take their children along with them to the stone quarries, where these kids learn and get used to stone crushing. For many children, stone crushing is their first job and the only skill they learn. It has not only deprived them of their rights to education but also caused serious health hazards. Although specific studies have not been conducted regarding the health hazards of stone crushers, CONCERN’s field workers, based on the finding in the Salandu Bagar, said that many of the stone crushers have suffered respiratory problems and asthma.
Raj Kumar Khadka, a boy of 12 years age From Salandu Bagar, said in an interaction between the journalists and stone crushing children, which was organized by the CONCERN sometimes ago, that he felt very bad to sit on the bank of rivulet and struggle with boulders and dust when other children of his age from the same village go to school and play.
He had always dreamt to go to school and become ‘thulo manche’ (big man). But his desire, though late, has come true as the CONCERN launched a non-formal education classes for the child workers in Salandu Bagar. He is regularly attending the non-formal education classes, as a result he now can read and write. RaJ Kumar now plans to enroll in the school. How he can manage to go to school when his parents do not support him, he said, “ I will work in the morning and evening and go to school during the day”.
Asked how he started the stone-crushing job, he said both of his parents are stone crushers, as they have no land to cultivate and know no other skill. Her mother used to bring him to stone crushing site from early morning and would stay there until dusk with parents and other children. “I live, eat and play with stone right from my early childhood and I saw my parents and others crushing the stone since when I was six months old”, he said. “ This is how I learn this job—and this is my first job I ever learnt”.
This is a common story of many poor families and children in Salandu Bagar. Of the total population, almost 60 per cent villagers in Salandu Bagar, one way or the other, are involved in stone crushing. About 40 per cent are believed to be totally dependent on stone crushing for their survival. Their children, too, are stone crushers, most of whom never went to school.
Ever since CONCERN started non-formal education and other activities like personal safety, health care and environment related awareness and due wages and adequate price for their products (pebbles), the condition of these socially and economically deprived and secluded stone crushers in general and children in particular has improved.
Executive director of CONCERN Bijaya Sainju said that his organisation has formed 4 child clubs of working children to address the causes and consequences of child labour in Salandu Bagar. “The children themselves have developed an action plan that has guided our activities and similar activities are also conducted by the adult workers’ groups to identify and undertake actions for sustainable elimination of child labour in stone quarries in this area”, he said. According to Sainju, significant achievements have been made on formation of a union and a Consumer cum Production co-operative of the workers to enable them to yield better return from their products.
So for, 234 children have received non-formal Education classes while 100 have been supported and mainstreamed to formal education. Another 43 children (14-16 yrs) have received skill development training.
Child labour has been accepted as a serious social problem. It is rampant everywhere in the production and service sector in Nepal. There is hardly any sector, where child labour has not been used and exploited
From farming to factories and transportation to trade, child labour exists and has flourished. Of 23.4 million population of Nepal, 10.7 million are children under 16 years of age, which is almost 44 per cent of total population. According to a nationwide study conducted in 1999 by the Tribhuvan University, 2.6 million children - more than 27 per cent - are working children. This has been a matter of serious concern for governments, international community, and social and human rights workers.
The pervasive existence of child labour is attributed to acute poverty, unemployment and our social and cultural structure. Child labour is, of course, linked with the social and economic deprivation. But poverty is not the lone cause of child labour. It can be other way round, too. Child labour can be a cause of poverty, underdevelopment and social and economic malaise
The International Labour Organisation has classified mine child labour as one of the worst forms of child labour. Stone quarry was not in the list of most hazardous and worst form of child labour until last year. Now stone quarry child labour has also been included in the mine child labour category. Thus, the child labour in the stone quarry has also been classified as the worst form of child labour. It can now be expected that more focus would be given to stone quarry child labour and work for the rights and welfare of the children working in the stone quarries, which is, of course, one of most hazardous sectors of child labor.
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