Category: Child Labour

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SARTHI: Feedback from pupils and teachers in Bihar, India

The team at SARTHI has continued to work with the children of migrant workers in Patna. Originally, eleven girls and nine boys aged six to sixteen were targeted for readmission to Bhawani Tola school but eventually thirty-six children were enrolled. Schools are currently closed again but lockdown is easing week by week. Schools may reopen in mid-July but this has yet to be confirmed.

Staff from SARTHI asked the children and their teachers to give feedback about the impact of the project on their life and work.

Puja (16 years of age) says that before Covid-19 she was going to school regularly but due to the pandemic her father lost his job in Delhi and returned to their village. After a while, her family had financial problems and she stopped going to school and had to work to help sustain the family. Later on, Puja’s father was offered the opportunity for her to have an arranged marriage and this is when she came into contact with SARTHI because she was being put under a lot of pressure from her parents to accept the proposal. “I am very thankful to the team at SARTHI because after several meetings with them as well as further counselling and support for our family, my marriage did not go ahead. Family life has improved considerably and I am much happier both at home and at school.”

Sunny (15 years of age) was studying in the 9th Grade at school but due to lockdown, schools had to close and there was a financial crisis in the family. His father suggested that he could help by leaving school and looking for casual work. Sunny felt under pressure and it was during this period that he came into contact with the team from SARTHI, who then assessed the situation on his behalf. “After some family counselling sessions, my father agreed that I could continue my studies as soon as schools reopen.”

Raju K. (Teacher) “SARTHI has helped to protect these children by strengthening family relationships and encouraging parents to send them back to our school.”

Usha K. (Teacher) “Without the support of the team at SARTHI, we could not have got these children readmitted to our school and their parents would have sent them out to work at a young age. Many of the girls would have got married too. I heartily appreciate the work of SARTHI because they have been able to minimise the level of exploitation within families.”

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Sustaining School in Tamil Nadu, India

Photo of young boy working making metal plates in Tamil Nadu

Staff of the Social Development Education Trust support many children in school in the poor communities in the Taluk of Srivilliputhur where they work. Child Labour is one of the biggest, and most insidious, hurdles for them to overcome; families are so poor they cannot see their way to providing the next meal for the whole family. Children as young as 5 and 6 often find themselves having to stop school to go out into the fields for a day’s work, or to serve in a gas station or spend a week cleaning tables in a restaurant to help the family, only to find they can’t keep up when they go back to class, and the slippery slope to child labour is established. The social workers that form the SDET Child Labour Prevention team can relate many stories of situations in which they have intervened – almost always successfully in ensuring children go to school and families find ways of supporting their regular attendance. But child labour is not a simple problem and kidnapping children for transporting to other states for work is common.

This is Gopal’s story: 

Gopal’s parents were approached by a broker who said that if Gopal came with him he would get him a good job in a nearby town and he would be able to earn money for the family. The broker offered an advance on Gopal’s earnings which convinced Gopal’s parents that this was genuine, and as they were desperate for money they allowed Gopal to be taken away. However soon after the parents lost contact with Gopal and became distraught. They contacted SDET and staff immediately informed the police who traced Gopal to Andhra Pradesh – one of many children taken to work in the cotton plantations and successfully returned Gopal to his parents. Now the family liaise regularly with SDET staff who make sure that they have learned of the predatory adults who seek children to exploit them, and that naivety will make their children doubly vulnerable. Gopal now is back in school and his parents are being helped to raise income through the SDET small income generation scheme.