Child Labour

Raja Vihar and Badli Industrial Areaare located in North-West district of Delhi, surrounded byRohini from three sides and Badli village from one side. There are 500 small and big industries located in this area mainly producing steel utensils, copper work, plastic, chemicals. There is huge number of poor families, living there working as daily labor. Every member of their family work to earn money for their survival in construction sector, as rickshaw pullers, Vendors, factory workers or Rag-pickers. Women are working  in Kothis (Villas) as domestic helps  They don’t have any social security from our Government along with the denial of basic working  conditions and security to the wages .Their monthly income is not more than Rs. 5000  which is quite insufficient to sustain along with the family members more than 7 in number. 90% of people are living in unauthorized /cluster areas with the absence of minimum basic facilities. This area is also marked with poor health related infrastructure and facilities with no hospital or dispensary along with the   irregularity of Auxiliary Nursing Midwife (ANM) in J.P camp, ASHA in such a big area. Due to this there are problems of safe deliveries, no proper immunization with no BRC  facility leading towards the multiplication of the problems such as anemic mothers giving birth to underweight children, premature birth , birth related complications etc.The target area of PAHAL Raja Vihar– a rag picker area which is a highly vulnerable and prone to child labor as the parents of the children are migrated from states like UP, Bihar, Rajasthan ,MP  etc. in search of livelihood. They have no identity proof due to which they are facing problems like denial of admission due to no documents, poor infrastructure, drop outs etc. Factors such as inaccessibility to the educational institutions, non-availability of the adequate infrastructure and facilities at schools, inapt teacher behavior, bad teacher-student ratio, absence of motivation serves as the basic hindrances towards the wholesome development of the children. Lack of protection for girl child becomes a major reason for the high dropout rate. For boys there is an additional factor which hurdles towards education is the bad peer company, parental pressure for earning as well as non-supportive environment at schools via teachers so as societal prejudices and negative motivation.

In the age group of 3-6 years, the widely prevalent issues are lack of early childhood care, absence of safety at home and outside, major health related issues due to malnutrition. In fact parents leave their kids alone or in the care of elder siblings depriving the children in the age group of 8-18 from the basic rights of appropriate exposure to the education and due playfulness of their age, and force them to take up smaller jobs such as rag picking, selling small goods, working as helpers at shops/factories/ dhabas and domestic work. Thus, very often children get involve in work at hazardous industries leaving them unsafe at all levels.

As regard to the Muslim community which consists of almost 30 % of the area population, there are multiple related problems. In this area the high dropout rate of girl child from school is strongly based on the religious beliefs of the minority community where according to them the education of girl child should be based on Madarsa pattern only. This community is suffering from the evil of child marriage as compare to the other sections of the society contributing to the deprivation of the girl child at all levels. This area is also inflicted with the migration related problems where admissions are denied to the children on the pretext of paper work by schools. Not being a central constituency of any of the political outfit leaves this area out from the infrastructure, basic amenities related benefits  ,paving way for the exclusion from almost  all the welfare schemes as well.  

Child physical abuse is one more related and majorly prevailing problem in this area. Some people are running small industries from homes and engage children in the labor work unnoticed or partly ignored by the Govt. and departments responsible for the eradication of child labour.  Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar/ Badli industrial area is also nearby ,attracts children as they get easy work there and are subjected to multiple abuses, different  kinds of harassments by employers, local people, police as well as the administration.

There is a dirty nexus between Labor Department, employers and officials who are responsible to stop the child labour. The children are employed openly but no action is being taken against any employer. The children rescued from the factories or other places of work are handed over back to the employers who approach the authorities faking as the relatives of the children. These children are reengaged in the work again. The rescue homes meant for the children are the worst places for their rehabilitation. The children are forced to live in an unhygienic, crowdedplaces and are treated like prisoners. Also, children gets involve in heinous crimes due to a non-supportive social pressure

Why We Are With Them:- 

Welfare of the society is the responsibility of the government and there are numbers of schemes and services running for the betterment of the weaker section of the society. The only problem arises is that either the schemes are not within the reach of the vulnerable children facing denial of rights or unequal distribution and implementation of services. So to bridge this gap between the haves and haves not, we are currently engaged with this community so that we can give our best to these people in collaboration with government bodies. 

Vision of Pahal

To seek child-labor free and safe environment for all children, aiming to ensure the holistic development and integration of deprived section into the mainstream of child rights.  

Objective of 10 years plan

  1. Essay accessibility of scheme for family.
  2. Decrease dropout number of in the age of 6-14.
  3. 3/4 chreches of the  age group 0-6.
  4. Essay accessibility of school.
  5. govt. identify and address the child rights.
  6.  society will be vocal on the issue of child rights.

This project supported by Child Rights and You (CRY)