DO NO HARM? THE FIGHT AGAINST CHILD LABOR IN MAHARASHTRA

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MUMBAI 002192

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: DO NO HARM? THE FIGHT AGAINST CHILD LABOR IN MAHARASHTRA

REF: MUMBAI 2093

SUMMARY
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1. (U) Following the rescue of thousands of underage children
from Mumbai workshops (reftel),some child welfare activists
debate whether the children are now better or worse off. The
Government of Maharashtra's (GOM) program "Education For All"
attempts to address gaps in educational facilities, but primary
schools for all children aged 6-14 are not yet available
throughout the state. Some politicians and social workers
advocate children learning a marketable trade in workshops along
with traditional schooling. All of our interlocutors argued,
however, that workshop conditions must be radically improved.
Others demand all children under 15 stop any type of employment
while using National Child Labor Projects and other NGO programs
to try to provide them an education. The GOM intends to enforce
current labor laws to bar employment for children under 15.
However, given the current lack of educational opportunities for
many child laborers, opinions in Mumbai differ on the best way
to help the targeted children. End Summary.

What Happens to Rescued Children?
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2. (U) Between June and September over 16,000 child laborers
were freed from workshops in Mumbai and sent to their homes.
The GOM Ministry of Industries, Education and Labor estimated
that 98 percent of the children hailed from poorer regions of
India such as Bihar, West Bengal, and Orissa. Although social
activists in Mumbai advocate an ultimate goal of universal
primary education for all children aged 6-14, all admit that
this will take time. Some of the children sent home from Mumbai
have become beneficiaries of NGO-sponsored assistance programs
(reftel),but current needs outweigh available funds. Some of
our interlocutors fear that a significant portion of the freed
children will face a life of poverty without education at home,
will return to uncontrolled sweatshops or become street
children.

Education for All?
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3. (U) The GOM recognizes that ultimately parents must have
alternatives for their children in their home villages if child
labor is ever to be tackled at its roots. Attitudes towards
child labor, which many poorer groups of Indian society see as
vocational training, must change, and parents must see that
primary education at home is a viable option to sending their
children to Mumbai or elsewhere to work. A GOM and Government
of India (GOI) sponsored program Maharashtra Prathamik Shikshan
Parishad (Education for All) aims to provide a quality education
for all children in the state by 2010. The GOM covers 25
percent and the GOI 75 percent of the program's 820 million
rupee (about $18 million) budget. Education for All provides
teacher training and covers the cost of books, school materials
and volunteer teacher salaries. Under the primary and upper
primary guarantee scheme, a volunteer teacher can offer classes
wherever needed in urban areas. Local school authorities
oversee the quality of these programs that run for 2-3 years
until children can be mainstreamed into public schools. In
rural villages the head of the local council can request that a
volunteer open a school provided there are a minimum of 15
children and the village provides space. In isolated areas,
Education for All will fund school supplies and a volunteer
teacher salary of 300-500 rupees (about $7-11) per month for as
few as one child lacking a nearby school.


4. (U) Bhau Gawande, State Project Coordinator for "Education
for All" is confident the state government will be able to offer
a primary school education to almost all children in Maharashtra
by 2010. He considers any child out of school to be a child
laborer in some capacity even if only working at home. He
claims the project helped enroll 300,000 children to date in
primary schools, and is still targeting a remaining 150,000
children in Maharashtra. He regrets that social forces and
resource constraints will prevent some learning disabled and
migrant children from benefiting from the project. He also
laments the lack of significant penalties to compel parents to
send children to school, citing an old law from the 1950s
setting a fine for this at 1 rupee (about 2 cents). Nilima
Mehta of the Child Welfare Committee agrees that all children
under 15 must be in school. She lauds the GOM's interpretation
of the 93rd Constitutional Amendment for free and compulsory
education to all children under 15 to mean that no child of that
age can be in an industrial training setting. "He has to be in
school and not in a workshop and that is non-negotiable," Mehta
told us.

Training without Exploitation?
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5. (SBU) Some child welfare activists advocate the creation of a
better monitoring system to allow younger children to learn a
marketable skill under humane working conditions. They feel
that removing children from the skilled trades without providing
universal primary education will "take them out of the frying
pan and into the fire." Nitin Kadam, a social activist with the
National Congress Party (NCP) from a south Mumbai district with
high concentrations of child laborers, feels that many of the
children rescued in the recent raids are now worse off
economically than before the raids. Many impoverished parents
cannot provide for their children until age 15, Kadam argued, so
they send them at a young age to workshops to learn a trade.
After 2-3 years of training and low-paid work, many become
journeymen earning about 2,000-3,000 rupees (about $44-67) per
month, well above their earning potential in their home
villages. Kadam suggests allowing underage children to work as
apprentices in non-hazardous industries. A government office or
NGO should register the working children, and ensure that the
children get humane living and working conditions and receive an
education. Kadam insisted that universal primary education for
all children must be the goal, but argued that India is still a
generation away from that goal. Until then a temporary solution
must be found for children with no hope of a formal education to
make a decent living, Kadam told us.


6. (SBU) Bhagawan Sahay, Maharashtra State Minister for
Industries, Labor and Energy also raised the fate of rescued
children in his conversation with us. He hopes to convene a
conference in January next year to focus on the current legal
and rehabilitation framework for child labor. The conference
goal would be to create a road map to amend existing laws,
improve enforcement mechanisms, or provide more vocational
training options, whatever is deemed to guarantee the best end
result for the children. He alluded to Mahatma Gandhi's idea of
the "New Curriculum" in which children were taught a trade along
with formal education to ensure their livelihoods. However,
Sahay insists the government will continue to remove children
under 15 from hazardous labor. He also praised the joint
USDOL-GOI funded INDUS project which helped set up special
schools to in suburban Mumbai and rural districts of
Maharashtra. Vipula Kadri, National Director for Save the
Children India, wishes to see a rehabilitation of Mumbai's once
extensive series of over 700 night schools where working youth
were able to get a formal education. A lack of funds and
difficulty recruiting teachers has decimated this educational
option for working children, Kadri told us.

Comment
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7. (SBU) The drive to eliminate child labor in Maharashtra is
underway on several fronts. Recent successes in removing
underage children from child labor in hazardous industries are
being complemented by improvements in education. Programs such
as "Education for All" will help guarantee primary schooling for
increasing numbers of children in Maharashtra in the coming
years. USDOL, GOI and other NGO-sponsored aid programs in
poorer source districts will continue to provide alternatives to
sweatshop labor for former child laborers as well. The lasting
impact of all such programs, however, will depend heavily on
continued funding and an institutionalization of the political
will that the GOM is clearly demonstrating at present. End
Comment.
OWEN