NGO: OVER 16,000 CHILD LABORERS RESCUED IN MAHARASHTRA

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MUMBAI 002093

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

DEPARTMENT FOR DRL/IL, G/TIP, INL AND SA/INS
DOL FOR ILAB: ROWEN, MEUGENIO, MMITTELHAUSER, SHALEY

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ELAB PHUM ECON KCRM KWMN EAID IN
SUBJECT: NGO: OVER 16,000 CHILD LABORERS RESCUED IN MAHARASHTRA
RAIDS

REF: A: MUMBAI 1339; B: NEW DELHI 5323

Summary
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1. (U) A dramatic upsurge in Government of Maharashtra (GOM)
attention to child labor issues and a series of coordinated
raids in Mumbai resulted in the rescue of over 16,000 children
working in hazardous industries in recent months. Police, in
coordination with the newly created child labor task force,
removed close to 2,000 children from workshops during a
prolonged series of raids between June 1 (Ref A) and July 17.
Workshop owners later released another 14,400 child workers
voluntarily in the face of high-level government attention to
child labor issues, according to the NGO PRATHAM. Although some
children have returned to workshops in Mumbai and elsewhere, NGO
representatives have tracked the return of several thousand
children to their homes, often in other states including Bihar,
Orissa, and West Bengal. Task force members learned from some
deficiencies of initial raids (Ref B) and began utilizing
volunteers as counselors and temporary parole officers to
minimize the victimization of the children. Other states have
sought to emulate Maharashtra's anti-child labor collaboration
between the government, NGOs and the police. However, the
process of rehabilitation for the child laborers is hindered by
legal and financial constraints. Due to a lack of educational
opportunities and extreme poverty in their home districts up to
an estimated 40 percent of the rescued children may return to
work in Mumbai or other cities. End Summary.

Voluntary Releases and Additional Raids?
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2. (U) Following the well publicized May death of a 12 year-old
boy caused by physical abuse in a embroidery (zari) sweatshop,
GOM Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil established a child labor
task force to eliminate child labor in hazardous industries.
The task force, consisting of GOM officials, NGO representatives
and police, cooperated to plan an unprecedented series of raids
on workshops employing children 14 and under in certain sectors
such as zari workshops, goldsmith workshops, and balloon making
units. The raids were conducted between June 1 (ref A) and July

17. Bhagwan Sahay, Maharashtra State Secretary of Industries,
Energy and Labor estimates that 1,920 children were rescued over
the course of 6 weeks. Of these only 2 percent of the children
were from Maharashtra with the rest coming from Orissa, W.
Bengal, Bihar, and Nepal. Sahay acknowledged there had been no
raids since July 17 due to the record monsoon flooding in Mumbai
followed by several large city-wide festivals. His Labor
Ministry served notice to workshop owners to send all children
under 15 home within six weeks. Dr. Farida Lambay, co-founder
of PRATHAM, told us that workshop owners voluntarily released
over 14,000 more children in the weeks following the raids.
Using their database of child laborers, PRATHAM tracked the
return home of most of these children to their home districts.


3. (SBU) The GOM announced in June its intention to remove all
children 14 and under from hazardous labor by November 14,
Nehru's birthday which is also celebrated as Children's Day in
India. According to Vikas Sawant, PRATHAM Child Labor Project
Coordinator and child labor task force member, the goal will not
be reached, but he praised the overall deterrent effect of the
raids so far. In the past approximately one raid had been
conducted per year, which had been seen by workshop owners as a
pro-forma affair. Concentrated government attention to the
issue has convinced many workshop owners that they now must
respect the law. He believes the task force will continue its
work in earnest and additional raids will likely be necessary to
convince "more politically connected" workshop owners to comply.


PRATHAM
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4. (SBU) PRATHAM has used its work helping child laborers to
gather substantial data on underage working children in Mumbai.
According to Lambay, PRATHAM was established with the goal of
providing quality primary education for all children after a
1994 survey showed 200,000 children out of school in Mumbai.
PRATHAM focused initially on pre-primary education and bridge
classes to help older children with no schooling and dropouts to
catch up and join formal schools. PRATHAM identified a
significant need among working children for educational
facilities. With the refusal of workshop owners to allow the
children to attend formal school, PRATHAM offered classes in the
workshops themselves. About 50 percent of the workshop owners
allowed PRATHAM to offer classes for 30 minutes at first
gradually going to three hours a day. The NGO pressured
employers to curb abuses and improve conditions and helped
children maintain contact with parents through letter writing.
Through this interaction PRATHAM was able to create an index
card database of 21,000 working children with names, locations,
birthdates, home addresses and often the name and signature of
the employers. This hard evidence of child labor helped PRATHAM
demonstrate the scope of the child labor problem to the GOM.
The child labor task force used the database to plan the raids.

Some Lessons Learned
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5. (U) Several NGOs noticed deficiencies in the initial raids
(Ref B) and took steps to mitigate the victimization of the
children rescued from the workshops. To prevent children
themselves from feeling like offenders, PRATHAM organized school
buses for the children for transport as opposed to police vans.
After being rescued, the children were brought to remand homes
which provided no physical separation between the child laborers
and other juvenile offenders. NGOs sent volunteers to the homes
to provide educational activities and entertainment to the
children. Initially, workshop owners brought the parents of
released workers or persons posing as parents to the remand
homes to get the children. These parents often turned over the
children to the workshop owners immediately after gaining their
release from the remand homes. To stop such practices, PRATHAM
and other NGOs sent voluntary parole officers to do case studies
on each child. The Child Welfare Committee responsible for
acting in the interest of the rescued children began arranging
transport for the children to their home districts.
Responsibility for assuring the continuing welfare for these
children was assumed by the magistrates and Child Welfare
Committees in the children's home districts.

Some Children Returned and More Steps Needed
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6. (U) Some of the rescued children have returned to work due to
extreme poverty at home and their parents' desire for them to
learn a skilled trade. In the slum area Madanpura in Mumbai
PRATHAM had a record of 4,224 child laborers before the raids,
whereas the number now working there is 198. However, until
authorities in the source districts for immigration to Mumbai
are better able to provide education and economic alternatives,
there is no way of knowing whether children would be sent back
to work in other places. Dr. Nilima Mehta of the Mumbai Child
Welfare Committee estimated that up to 40 percent of rescued
children may go back to work elsewhere. Some children from
Bihar became beneficiaries of NGO sponsored educational programs
in the state. Lambay explained that some children with release
certificates received 5,000 rupees (about $111) and one acre of
land. Other children, whose parents promised in writing not to
return them to child labor, were eligible for a 3,000 rupee
(about $66) National Savings Certificate to be bought by the
ex-employer. However, overall economic prospects in the home
districts for the many of the children are bleak.


7. (U) Lambay hopes some prosecutions of workshop owners will
provide a major disincentive to hire children 14 and under.
However, she laments the slow judicial process, difficulties in
applying several conflicting pieces of legislation relating to
child labor, and the inefficient collection process of child
labor related fines. She advocates harmonizing anti-child labor
legislation to ensure conformity and facilitate successful
prosecutions. According to State Labor Minister Sahay the
government will seek jail time for the workshop owners arrested
in the raids and try to ensure the owners pay the 20,000 rupees
(about $444) fine per child. Sahay claims to have met with
workshop owners to explain the need to provide proof that all
their employees are 15 or older, either through school records
or medical tests. Workshop conditions must be improved in line
with the Factories Act.
National Impact/Sharing the Model
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8. (U) The Maharashtra model of government, NGO, and police
cooperation in data sharing and planning raids received national
attention. Other state governments learned about the initiative
in a recent chief ministers' conference in New Delhi and now
other state administrators appear to be emulating the model.
According to PRATHAM's Vikas Sawant, the model was used in Surat
in Gujurat to target child labor in textile packing units. His
organization worked with government authorities and police in
Surat in southern Gujarat to conduct 2 separate raids in August.
He estimates that 176 underage children were rescued in the two
raids. Most of the children had been brought to Surat from
Rajasthan to work long hours packing saris in textile markets.

Comment
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9. (SBU) The overall effect so far of the workshop raids and the
GOM's high level attention to child labor issues has been
positive. However, a long term solution to the problem will
require sustained support for the work of the task force and a
push to impose full criminal penalties and fines for violators
of the law. Significant legal and resource constraints need to
be addressed to facilitate the successful prosecution of
violators and ensure a victim-friendly rehabilitation and
reintegration process. Given the absence of universal primary
education facilities in all states, the ultimate fate of the
children rescued and sent home still troubles many practitioners
working to prevent child labor in Mumbai. However, the GOM
should be credited for taking an initial but significant step
forward to meeting its commitments to combat child labor in
hazardous industries. End Comment.

OWEN