Yesssss!
The BBC reports today that India has passed a new law banning employment of children (the article doesn't provide a definition by age) as domestic help, in tea shops, cycle shops etc.
BBC NEWS | South Asia | India bans child domestic labor
This was very common among middle class families in cities where I grew up. My own family was somehow very careful about it and we always had adults as maids if we had ones at all. (There were some old people employed, but that's for another day). Sexual harassment? If anything, they went to the other extreme. The youngest one to work in our family was this 17/18 yr old girl and she complained to my mom that I (then in 2nd class) was whistling while she worked. My mom promptly gave me one on the forearm with a really hot dosa spatula, burning a nice hole in the skin, leaving a permanent mark. Were you CRAZY, mom? I was all of six and a half and just trying to learn to whistle!!! Certainly not at HER! OK, it's cool. Just giving you a hard time. I know that you didn't realize it was hot. All forgiven. I love you, mom! My point is ... That was probably good education for the rest of my life :-) to treat women with respect and watch when/how/where you whistle.
Yes, there is that argument, "at least they get a place to sleep in and some food to eat....".
No, they should go to school and not have to work until the various lobes in their skulls fully fuse. Of course, the gov. that makes the law should (and does) also provide free education to the kids, including lunch.
A ban is a good place to start. Like most things in India, legislation is no guarantee. But at least, there will be a stigma attached to it and at least the middle class will stop doing it, at least in the cities. Eventually, it will go away.
Speculating.....what caused this change... people generally started having a conscience over time? I think not... I think this has to do with the increasing affluence in India. Money can do wonders...
BBC NEWS | South Asia | India bans child domestic labor
This was very common among middle class families in cities where I grew up. My own family was somehow very careful about it and we always had adults as maids if we had ones at all. (There were some old people employed, but that's for another day). Sexual harassment? If anything, they went to the other extreme. The youngest one to work in our family was this 17/18 yr old girl and she complained to my mom that I (then in 2nd class) was whistling while she worked. My mom promptly gave me one on the forearm with a really hot dosa spatula, burning a nice hole in the skin, leaving a permanent mark. Were you CRAZY, mom? I was all of six and a half and just trying to learn to whistle!!! Certainly not at HER! OK, it's cool. Just giving you a hard time. I know that you didn't realize it was hot. All forgiven. I love you, mom! My point is ... That was probably good education for the rest of my life :-) to treat women with respect and watch when/how/where you whistle.
Yes, there is that argument, "at least they get a place to sleep in and some food to eat....".
No, they should go to school and not have to work until the various lobes in their skulls fully fuse. Of course, the gov. that makes the law should (and does) also provide free education to the kids, including lunch.
A ban is a good place to start. Like most things in India, legislation is no guarantee. But at least, there will be a stigma attached to it and at least the middle class will stop doing it, at least in the cities. Eventually, it will go away.
Speculating.....what caused this change... people generally started having a conscience over time? I think not... I think this has to do with the increasing affluence in India. Money can do wonders...
posted by Kurma at 8/01/2006 09:33:00 PM
4 Comments:
You're right, I am glad they passed this law. the first place the law will affect will be middle class homes, the restaurants and chai shops of rural India will lag behind.
My concern is this, not much has improved for the lower classes that need to have their children work in order to support the family. Government schools have not improved (well, at least I haven't seen any indication of it), and universal education is still a pipe dream. so is this a law that points society in the direction it needs to go in, and waits as the society gets there? Does this mean these kids will actually go to school? Or will they be pushed underground into even shadier occupations?
The necessary companion for this law should have been a compulsory education goal coupled with a large injection of funding aimed at improving government schools, esp. in the North...
Gov. schools can be excellent (Kendriya and Navodaya vidyalayas) or shitty (esp. the ones where the high point of the day is the free egg with lunch. sattunavil muttai puttunarvu alaikkum) They are still a lot better than these kids working or getting into trouble.
Can't concur more. Nothing like compulsory education and nothing like funding.
More power to your mum, boy. That dosa ladle seemed to have more uses than the obvious!
The law might be a step in the right direction, but some families are so poor that they need at least one of their kids to work. For them it's a matter of living or starving to death. That is the reality.
On the otherhand there are families that are not so poor, quite well fed, but do not spend money to send their kids to school say past 6th grade, and have them instead running the family chai/limca stall because the family is content with what they have, and passing the business on to the child, who also is not inclined to study and is content to run the family stall for life.
I really don't see anything wrong in that.
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