Szilvia Nagy
MA in Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy
CU710014A
Goldsmiths College
University of London
2011
Child Labour in India
Table of contents
Introduction
p. 1-3.
1. Establishing the Universal Legal Framework:
Human Rights and Children’s Rights
p. 4.
1.1.Western and Non-Western Concepts of Child Labour, Childhood,
Family and Kinship
p. 5-7.
1.2.The Importance of Gender and Caste in the Domestic Sector
p. 7-9.
1.3.The Concepts of Family and Kinship in India
p. 10-11.
2. Neoliberal Capitalist Development and Globalization in India
p. 11-12.
2.1.Globalization in Disguise: Chronic Poverty, Debt Bondage
and Child Slavery
p. 12-15.
2.2.Globalization: A Pro-Poor Project?
p. 16.
3. Government Policy and Legal Regulations on Child Labour in India
p. 17.
3.1.Lack of Law Enforcement and Holes in the Government Policy
p. 17-20.
3.2. National Projects and Collaborations with International Institutions
p. 20-22.
4. Empowering the Disempowered
p. 23.
4.1. The Strategy of Quiet Encroachment
p. 22-25.
4.2. The Role of NGOs in Community Development
p. 26-28.
5. Case Study: I-India, an NGO for Working, Street and Destitute Children p. 29.
5.1.Mission, Philosophy and Strategy of I-India
p. 29-30.
5.2. Main Projects
p.31-32.
5.3. The Community-based Approach
p. 33-34.
5.4. The Right-based Approach
p. 34.
5.5. The Responsibility-based Approach
p. 35-36.
5.6. Education for All
p. 36-37.
5.7. Development as Freedom
p. 38-39.
6. Conclusion
p. 40-43.
Bibliography
p. 44-46.
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Introduction
Child labour is one of the most debated issues on the international development agenda
today. NGOs, international institutions, civil society groups and governments are facing a
global challenge as the number of child labourers across the globe is ever increasing.
Research and documentation on child labour is an evidence of the enforcement of Western
codes in the Third World. Developed nations approach the concern about child labourers in
Africa, Asia and Latin America from a predominantly Western perspective, ignoring the fact
that concepts of child work, childhood, family, kinship and gender in the Third World are not
based on Western norms. It is prudent to bear in mind the cultural, social, economic and
religious implications of the concept of childhoods in developing nations when dealing with
policy making, law enforcement and regulation on child labour and children’s rights.
Child labour is a highly complex and multifaceted subject, hence, the Global North is urged
to implement new strategies and policy initiatives that highlight the heterogeneity of
childhood experiences in the Global South. In this respect, it is imperative to reconsider the
concept of child labour and child work in Western literature and media which has long
underestimated the socio-cultural and politico-economic value of the work done by children
in the Third World where children are inseparable part of the family enterprise and domestic
work. Also, gender-bias and particular class systems, such as the caste system in India,
should be incorporated into the debates on poverty, child labour and the empowerment of
marginalised children. In today’s neoliberal capitalist society, the generally accepted opinion
is that child labour emerges from the uneven economic development as a result of
colonization and globalization that supports the economic exploitation of the global poor.
Chronic poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, social exclusion and lack of agency and
representation mark the every-day life of the dispossessed. Yet, the most powerful
international agencies such as the World Bank, ILO and the UN play a distinctive role when
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addressing the complex topic of international and sustainable development for socially
marginalised groups, such as child labourers, as the above mentioned organisations greatly
influence public opinion through campaigning, wide media coverage, data publication and
fund and awareness raising activities. These international institutions and nongovernmental
organizations can efficiently contribute to the understanding of the differences around the
notion of civil and political society in the discourse on agency, governmentality, welfare and
development in different cultures and societies of the Third World. Thus, the development of
democracy and agency in the developing world, especially in the case of India, does not
necessarily depend on the popular politics of citizenship and civil society but on the domain
of political society in which the marginalised demands and negotiates their entitlement with
the postcolonial based on the discourse of governmentality (Chatterjee, 2004). In the West,
the history of citizenship shifts from the institution of civic rights in civil society to political
rights within the fully developed nation-state, only then developing the techniques of
governmentality, whereas the very act of developing technologies of governmentality in the
developing world often predates the nation-state, showing a reversed order (ibid.).
The question arises how to approach the problem of development for developing nations
where regulations serve Western commercial interests and where corruption and lack of
agency occur on a daily basis? What can be done on the local, national and international level
for the improvement of the condition of child labourers and their families? What is the role of
NGOs, grassroots communities and social movements, when regulations need to be done
within a legal framework through cooperation with the state? What are the preferred
strategies of informal mobilisation of the subaltern? What is the role of family, kinship,
gender and class in Indian society and how do these concepts relate to the problem of child
labour? In what way does the Indian government contribute to education as one of the brick
stones of good governance? What is the prospective for working children in our neoliberal
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capitalist world? These are the main concerns and questions that this paper will focus on due
to limited time and space.
In order to provide a solid base for the argumentation, it is necessary to consider universal
concepts and rights as a base for democratic development on a holistic level. These rights and
regulations will be outlined in the first chapter with a focus on human and child rights. Major
differences between Western and non-western concepts of child labour, child work,
childhood, family and kinship will be introduced and further discussed. The second section
will deal with the consequences of neoliberal capitalist development and globalization which
relate to the wider problematic of chronic poverty, new slavery, dept bondage and similar
issues. In third chapter, outcomes of government policy and legal regulations on child labour
will be outlined. Furthermore, the struggle of the dispossessed for the redistribution of social
goods, opportunities and autonomy will be outlined. In this process, the strategy of quiet
encroachment will pay a crucial role, hence, this paper will reflect on how the informal
society can organise itself and what networks and tools are efficient in their struggle for
agency and freedom. On the basis of a case study of the NGO, I-India, based in Jaipur,
beneficial effects and results of social co-production between the local grassroots community,
the NGO and the state will be outlined. The goal is to provide an example for sufficient nongovernmental policy that seeks to pressure government and international institutions to adopt
new strategies that are based on the importance of empowerment in form of individual and
collective participation in decision-making, resulting in social welfare. The conclusion will
follow as a direct consequence of the above introduced topics, enhancing the difficulty of
implementing successful policies and regulations with the aim to resolve the problem of child
labour. Suggestions will be made for both, the dispossessed and for the elites as well, since
their relationship is a reciprocal one that affects the wellbeing of both the poor and the rich at
the same time.
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1. Establishing the Universal Legal Framework: Human Rights and Children’s
Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 established the universal legal
framework for the protection of the rights of all human beings. The idea was to create a
mechanism for generating accountability of states and scrutiny to citizens, agreed upon
national and international standards, however, one can question if these rights can be
universal as they are derived from Western cultural, philosophical and political values (Jones,
2005). Due to a wide range of complaints of cultural bias in Human Rights, revisionist
approaches occurred in the 1990s. The UDHR is based on principles of political pluralism
and non-discrimination, especially the rights of women and children, and individual claims
rather than collective responsibilities (ibid.). According to UNICEF (2006) real progress was
made in ‘realizing and protecting’ children’s rights in the 1990s, as a result of the
international adaption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989
(Lloyd-Evans, 1998). Since children are human, they are endowed with human rights just like
adults. However, the problem lies in the degree of enforcement of child labour standards as
the concept of child labour is culturally distinct. Yet, the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child is the main Human Rights instrument for children on the international agenda,
recognizing the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation (Article 32),
protecting children from illicit production and trafficking of drugs (Article 33), providing for
the right of children to be protected from sexual exploitation (Article 34), from trafficking
(Article 35), and from the use of children in armed conflict (Article 38). The document
includes several provisions that relate to slavery and slavery-like practices in respect of
children.1
1
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2007. Convention on the Rights of the
Child. Adopted and open for signature, ratification and accession by the General Assembly resolution 44/25 of
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1.1. Western and Non-western Concepts of Child Labour, Childhood, Family
and Kinship
In our globalized world, there is an ambivalent public opinion concerning the dialectic nature
of concepts of child labour, child work, child slavery and the experience of childhoods in
both the predominantly Western nations and in the traditionally non-western countries as
well. When protecting children’s rights at a global scale, one cannot avoid the socio-cultural
and politico-economical differences in the livelihoods of the Global South which seek to
disrupt the enforcement of Western codes and norms in non-western societies. To establish a
universally valid moral code and legal framework for the regulation of child labour around
the globe is a difficult and challenging task. Since child labour remains a product of the
neoliberal capitalist economy, the task to contribute to a different discourse on the issue
which respects non-western ideas of childhood, gender roles, family and kinship, makes the
mission more complex. Moreover, the majority of today’s publications on data concerning
developing nations are a construct of Western mainstream discourse, therefore, the question
whether child labour should be abolished or not is approached from a Western point of view,
maintaining the imbalance of power structure and uneven character of global development.
To give an insight into the Western understanding of child labour, one should point out the
main international documents and conventions on the subject matter. The ILO Child Labour
Convention provides the most specific legal framework concerning the exploitation of
children in terms of slavery and slavery-like practices, based on Western norms and codes
(Koojimans and Van de Glind, 2010). It condemns all forms of slavery or practices similar to
slavery, such as the sale or trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or
compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed
conflict (Convention No 182, Article 3). Other worst forms of child labour are further defined
20 Novermber 1989. Entry into force 2 September 1990, in accordance with article 49. [online] Available at:
<http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm> [Accessed on 5 July 2011].
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as the use of children in prostitution and illicit activities, trafficking of drugs, etc, and work
which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carries out, is likely to harm health,
safety or morals of children (ibid.). Child labour is seen as paid and exploitative, hazardous
work. However, not all types of child exploitation are understood as slavery or slavery-like
practices, as defined in Convention No 138, even though this activity is illegal (Koojimans
and Van de Glind, 2010). At this point, the recognition of the necessity of child labour as an
economic supply for poor family’s survival is of great value. This view has been supported
by Koojimans and Van de Glind (2010, p. 25.) who state that ‘children may have to resort to
child labour because of compelling conditions, such as poverty or social exclusion’.
Nonetheless, Article 3 a) defines child labour in terms of debt bondage, which is typical for
the Indian economy, where families below the poverty line are forced to exchange their
children for loan which they might never pay off. Furthermore, children in India are often
part of the family enterprise and perform various types of domestic work, yet these fields
remain excluded from universal conventions concerning the regulation of child labour
because this work is performed in the informal or invisible sector which are disregarded as
this work is of no or less economic value. However, the Indian tradition values the work of
children within family and their community, which fosters kin and social relations.
Community as such is greatly treasured in the Indian subcontinent, family and kin relations
are stretching out to the closer and wider kin ties, whereas, in the West, boundaries are
sharper because the concept of family and kinship are strictly based on blood relation.
Regulations and debates around the notion of children’s work and child labour have not
reached a more culturally and socially sensitive level, since the problem of child labour
remains restricted to a predominantly Western understanding of children’s work, which is
believed to happen in the waged employment of children. Indeed, Asia is one of the regions
with the largest incidence of children in forced labour according to the ILO 2002 global
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estimates on child labour (ILO, 2002b). The estimations carried out by ILO show that over
six million children worldwide are in slavery, including 5.7 million children in forced and
bonded labour (ibid). According to ILO Convention No 182, there are five key areas for
fighting the worst forms of child labour, first, the harmonisation of national laws; second,
government consultations and coordination; third, data gathering; fourth, civil society and the
media; fifth, child participation. A sixth reason for side-tracking attention away is corruption
and cultural assumption in India (Turner, McQuade and Restroy, 2010). India still shows
traces of a feudal system since many children are employed in form of debt bondage; hence,
it is extremely difficult to release them. Furthermore, Indian society is heavily gender-biased,
which results in a high percentage of female child employment, mainly in the domestic
sector, such as helping to provide the parents with child care, fetching water, supervising
younger siblings, assisting in domestic work, etc. Unlike in the West, in India, child domestic
work is a normal and necessary part of children’s life. These children receive important
training for their future and at the same time, it is inseparable part of their family and social
life. In this sense, it is crucial to highlight the nature of non-western traditions which provide
a different understanding of children’s role within the Indian family and other non-western
features of kinship, family, gender and childhood that are incorporated into the Indian
cultural heritage.
1.2 The Importance of Gender and Caste in the Domestic Sector
In the Indian context, one cannot presume that economic growth leads to an increase in
gender equity (Kapadia, 2002). The traditional Indian society is strictly hierarchic, based on
the caste system and gender bias. Women and the untouchables are traditionally less valuable
than men and people from higher castes. This distinction is based on socio-religious
rationales, according to which the former occur as inferior and impure beings. In the Hindu
tradition, women cannot attain moksha (salvation) until reborn as men, since the female body
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is impure (ibid). The female subaltern cannot speak, as she doesn’t have a voice, until she is
born a man. This view has been supported by Spivak (1988) as well. To be born as female
child is seen as a financial loss in most parts of India, here, the differences between North and
South India will not be taken into account, due to limited time and space. The roots of sonpreference in India are therefore based on socio-cultural, economic, political and religious
beliefs (Kapadia, 2002). Since a female child is predestined to be married off, her financial
and social value is less for the family since she will not support her parents after entering
marriage. Moreover, the tradition of dowry (gift), in form of an obligatory gift from the
bride’s family to the groom’s family supports the general view that the bride’s family is of
lower social status therefore the upward mobility of the bride through the marriage to a
higher caste man speaks for predetermined caste and gender disparities. The female child is
therefore a double loss, first, she is bond to born inferior in the spiritual and cultural context,
second, her family has to pay the dowry at the time of marriage, therefore, her existence is a
fundamental financial loss to her family as she will not stay with the family even after being
married, unlike the male child, who does provide for the parents. As a result of it, the female
child of low-income families is assigned inferior tasks, such as domestic work, often being
the one who is withdrawn from school. Once again, her lower status is justified upon cultural,
spiritual and economical base. The work she performs has less or often no economic value at
all. In India, sex-based discrimination is not an issue, since sex-based hierarchies remain
politically invisible, although several NGOs and social groups aim to promote and protect
women’s rights, yet, women’s rights is not a general issue, only caste discrimination appears
in the public debate (Kapadia, 2002). In contrast to the Western tradition, Indian society
considers girls’ work in the domestic sector as normal, more, beneficial for the girl’s future as
she is to be seen as a future wife and mother (Blagbrough, 2010). On the one hand, girls are
performing their duties as domestic workers, due to their lower socio-cultural and economic
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status. On the other hand, they are rewarded with the possibility of domestic work as it is
supporting them to perform their gender roles sufficiently; hence, domestic work is seen as a
few types of employment considered appropriate for a girl (ibid.).
Another reason for undertaking domestic work is poverty. It is often inevitable since the
family’s economic status requires girls to withdraw from school and support the family
through domestic work. Upper caste women are often highly educated, however, the focus is
on the rural poor’s female children, who are pushed and pulled into domestic work.
According to statistics, girls are forming about 90 % of all child domestic work (ILO-IPEC,
2004a). Since families below the poverty line cannot allow sending all their children to
formal schooling, it is usually the daughter who lacks education as domestic work is seen as
an alternate option through which they can gain skills and support the family at the same
time. Poverty only strengthens the argument that a woman’s task is within the household,
where her work has less economic value (Blagbrough, 2010). Girls often perform domestic
work outside their own household, as domestic servants at wealthier families, hoping to bring
beneficial opportunities to her own family. Mostly, this is not the case. On the contrary, these
children are often discriminated, or exploited. At this point, children are often victims of
abuse and their parents are often unaware of it. In this respect, it is important to protect
children from violation of their basic rights, yet, children performing work in the informal
sector remain excluded from legal protection. Nevertheless, Regulations have been
introduced in India on a national level with the aim to prohibit the employment of children
until a certain age upon the enforcement of human rights on the international level.
In India in 2006 employing children under 14 years (the legal minimum working age)
as domestic workers became illegal when the practice was added to the list of
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proscribed activities under India’ 1986 Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act
ad there is a national organisation campaigning for CDW rights.2
1.2 The Concept of Family and Kinship in India
As discussed above, Indian society approaches gender and caste-based discrimination in a
different way than Western societies do. Often, the term ‘discrimination’ is not even
acknowledged when girls are undertaking work in households, since children in India are
more inseparable from their family than in Western nations and the lower status of girls are
often justified and accepted as a normal and necessary condition. The idea of child labour and
child work therefore varies in these two worlds. In India, children learn at an early stage of
their lives to value their family and community. They are constantly encouraged to help their
parents in domestic work and family enterprises. Why is that so? On the one hand, subaltern
groups, especially those who live below poverty line, have nothing else to rely on but their
family and community. The state in India remains therefore secondary. On the other hand,
people are connected to their families, neighbours, residents of the village and other villages
through close and distant kin ties. The idea of family and kinship in India is imaginary; it is
not based on Western ideas of blood relation, bi-lineal descent, nuclear family, etc. Kinship
systems in India arose in pre-modern time when political and economic elites utilized cultural
institutions to establish a working natural state (Chakraborty, 2009). These elites used
religious and kinship institutions in order to establish norms, to define property rights and to
resolve problems and conflicts (Greif, 2004). Even though kinship has its origin in premodern India, it strongly influences the lives of modern Indians. Unlike in Western societies,
kinship in India and in other regions of Asia is based on patrilineal descent, the importance of
joint family, inability of women to inherit property, restrictions on widow remarriage, and
2
Blagbrough, J., Child Domestic Labour: A Global Concern. In: G. Craig, ed. 2010. Child Slavery Now. A
Contemporary Reader. Bristol: The Policy Press, University of Bristol. Ch.4.
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severe restrictions on women’s behaviour, which all contributed to relatively weak autonomy
of women (Chakraborty, 2009). The traditional kinship system explains why son-preference
rather than daughter-preference is characteristic for the Indian society. Also, kin relations in
India are highly important for successful social interaction and interdependence. Kinship is
fictive, covering close- and far-kin groups, which are not based on blood relation but on the
fact that people in India are born into certain groups; families, clans, sub-castes, castes, and
religious communities, from which they are inseparable. The traditional kinship system is a
highly efficient social nexus that enables Indians to perform economic, social, spiritual,
cultural and personal roles and activities among each other, whereas in the West, financial
matters and activities often involve impersonal interactions. Kinship is encoded along case
lines, language, social and cultural behaviour as well. India remains still a hierarchic society
based on the value of kinship, despite the fact that it has been influenced by Western
modernism. Modernity in India is an ambivalent phenomenon as it appears as the
continuation of tradition while at the same time it embodies a new identity, the notion of
being self-made, enhanced by the dowry through which one can gain both capital accrual and
class mobility as well, challenging caste-based values and creating a new image of Indian
modernism (Kapadia, 2002). Thus, the dowry embodies this consumerist modernity. All these
reflexions should be considered when designing and implementing policy initiatives,
enforcing laws and encouraging debates around the notion of child labour in India, seeking to
enhance non-western norms and values when tackling poverty and improve conditions for
children in employment in a more efficient and culturally sensitive way.
2. Neoliberal Capitalist Development and Globalization in India
As outlined in the former section, modernity in India is not identical with Western modernity,
since the value of kin relations, the importance of tradition, religion, gender and class
hierarchy still influence assumptions of modern Indian society. Kapadia (2002, p. 152.) refers
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to modernity on the Indian subcontinent as ‘an uneven phenomenon’, encouraging the reader
to observe the shift to the free market system and to modern, capitalist structure as a
transformation on multiple levels. It is present on the individual level, through the formation
of a new, self-made man, which resembles to the Eurocentric notion of ‘enterprise man’, yet,
it differs from it as it is a continuation of the Indian tradition of the dowry. On the public
level, the role of media contributes to the collective triumph of Western consumerism,
enforcing new aspirations of subordinated groups, sending out powerful messages of
legitimate claims of rights to these inferior groups, encouraging them to further participate in
consumerism, which used to be unthinkable for them, based on their lower status which
prohibited them to use the same products as castes superior to them (Kapadia, 2002). On the
economic level, the very act of entering the free market has produced uneven labour relations
in India. Yet, the country still shows remains of feudal types of tied and attached labour, in
form of the employment of children in bonded labour. India is experiencing a great economic
boom, yet its society is greatly affected by economic injustice and exploitative cultural
premises. Neoliberal political economy is a zero-sum game, allowing the rich to acquire
social and financial capital on the cost of the poor (Venn, 2009). Neoliberal capitalist
development promotes the privatisation in the economy. It fuels on the idea of free market, at
the same time it requires security and competition in order to function efficiently.
Competition is to be seen as the main condition for the free market, yet, competition results in
inequality. Competition is a result of governmentality, based on the rules of the market
(Venn, 2002). Foucault (2008, p.121.) has advised to ‘govern for the market, rather than
because of the market’. Competition as a necessary condition for governmentality and
neoliberal capitalist development has its roots in the settlement of Westphalia which
inaugurated a new epoch in the history of the modern state, built on the recognition that
competition rather than rivalry shapes the relation between European states as Foucault states
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(2004, p.299.). Modern politics is based on the notion of nation-state. Thus, globalization and
neoliberal capitalist development in India today is unthinkable without the existence of the
nation-state, which sets the base for the accumulation of wealth, resulting in the zero-sum
game of systematic dispossession (Venn, 2002).
2.1 Globalization in Disguise: Chronic Poverty, Debt Bondage and Child Slavery
Neoliberal capitalist development produced undoubtedly threatening conditions for the
dispossessed on a global level. Although trade liberalization has positive features as well, yet,
it is feared by many rural producers as a new form of exploitation that pushes down the value
of their goods (Bebbington, 2007). In terms of bio-politics and bio-power, the dispossessed is
under the constant threat of political death (Foucault, 2004). The uneven accumulation of
capital resulted in the emergence of the new evil; chronic poverty. This phenomenon
characterises the every-day life of millions of Indians. It is not surprising that child labour has
such a high incidence in the Indian society. Children’s labour is essential for the family’s
survival, since adult unemployment has an overwhelmingly high percentage in India. Chronic
poverty is one of the major push-factors for child labour. According to the Chronic Poverty
Report, an estimated 300 to 420 million people live in chronic poverty (CRC, 2004). It can
have different forms such as long-term poverty experience by an individual or household for
such a long time that is very unlikely to change, it can also occur as intergenerational poverty,
inherited by children from their parents usually at an early stage of their childhood
(Shepherd, 2007:4). Many parents lack education, and employment, hence they are unable to
produce capital on their own. As a result of it, families below the poverty line tend to have
many children who can then provide for the parents through debt bondage.
Children are mortgaged to the Zamindars or money-lenders for small sums of money
borrowed for unproductive purposes such as consumption, social ceremonies (like
marriage, funeral, etc.), illness, etc, till such time the amount is cleared. The interest
rates are so exorbitant that this amount is seldom repaid by the poor farmer. The child
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remains in bonded labour for ever, working hard for no wages or for wages below the
minimum wages. This bondage is sometimes inter-generational.3
Uneven capitalist development leads to poverty, which results in a system of bonded labour
and child slavery because poor people are forced by necessity or even tricked into taking a
loan to pay for their basic needs or for social obligations. Bonded labour exists in Europe and
America as well, however, it is most prevalent in South Asia. ‘The practice has its roots in
South Asia’s caste system, and a disproportionate number are dalits (those on the bottom of
the caste hierarchy) and members of tribal groups’.4 They are charged high interest rates and
since they do not receive a minimum wage, the cycle of debt keeps them and the future
generations enslaved (ibid.). Most working children work in agriculture as bonded labourers.
Debt bondage has serious consequences for the enslaved child by seizing or selling him or
her into further debt bonds (Bales, 2000). The globalized economy feeds slavery and debt
bondage as the global market is always aiming for cheap labour and high profit. Since capital
is global, the logic of the global economy drives corporations across the globe, without any
limit or control. ‘As international business now seeks to buy labour at the lowest cost, often
through subcontractors, some of these contractors achieve the lowest cost by using slave
labour.’5 New slavery is a global business and the use of contracts, especially false contracts
is part of the globalization of slavery (ibid.). Slavery is illegal, hence contract slavery must
support concealment and the contract does indeed serve the function of making employment
or slavery look legal, however, when the worker is taken to the place of employment, he or
she finds that the contract was an enticement to trick the contract worker into slavery (ibid.).
In case of children, the process if even more simple, responsibility is avoided easily since
children are more vulnerable than adults, they are unaware of their rights and so their
3
Dak, T.M, ed. 2002. Child Labour in India. New Delhi: Serial Publications. p.24.
Beth, H., 2002. Slavery and Gender: Women’s Double Exploitation. In: R. Masika, ed. 2002. Gender,
Trafficking and Slavery. Oxford: Oxfam GB. pp. 50-55.
5
Bales, K., 2000. Disposable People. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. p.236.
4
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exploitation turns into an easy and invisible business. The issue of child labour holds more
tragic consequences in itself, as these children are not child labourers but child slaves. They
are more hidden, working for instance in sweatshops, producing for large-scale export but in
smaller-scale and therefore more isolated business. In addition to that, new slavery diffuses
slavery and ensures its invisible character through the interweaving network of contractors
and subcontractors so it is difficult to track where the enslaved children come from or to
know how their money is made (ibid.). Child slavery is the worst form of child labour.
Despite of international and national regulations, it is hard to eliminate forms of slavery due
to its invisibility and the contract-based employment of children, which is an enticement to
trick them into slavery. Their conditions are inhuman, since they are forced to work more
than 8 hours a day, mostly physically abused when complaining or making mistakes.
Furthermore, they are denied education; health care, social care and they do not have a
childhood unlike most children in the global North. Their basic rights are violated. In this
sense, chronic poverty is the ultimate denial of human rights.
Through wide media coverage, through globalization and free market economy (that brought
nation states closer to each other), the West has persistently promoted and universalised its
cultural norms to the detriments of traditional Indian values, affecting the most cherished
Indian cultural value: family life (Mukherjee, 2005). ‘Contemporary economical and cultural
globalization is defined as a new form of imperialism, Human Rights languages and logics
are disproportionately made to serve the multifarious needs and ends of rapidly evolving new
phases of global capitalism’.6 The problem with Human Rights is that it is a product of the
Euro-American repertoire, hence, it does not recognize cultural diversity; it rather enhances
the cultural monopoly of the West. As Edward Said (1978) has already declared in his work,
the West has universalized itself and so global norms, such as Human Rights and political
Baxi, U., 2006. Human Rights Learning. A People’s Report. [onilne] New York: PDHRE, People’s Movement
for Human Rights Learning. Available at: www.pdhre.org/pdhre-report-2006.pdf.[Accessed 1 August 2011].
6
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modernity, are based on Western philosophy and moral code, initially supported by the era of
Enlightenment. All this explains why Human Rights are to be seen as a paradoxical
phenomenon. Global norms and Human Rights are constantly disempowering Indian families
and children. They are to be seen in form of a cultural aggression which disregards and
disrespects cultural and religious diversity outside the Euro-American context (Baxi, 2006).
Human Rights are often represented as a saga of ‘Westoxification’, denying values, concepts
and traditions based on a non-western ideology (ibid.). Western norms have disrupted
communities, cultures and livelihoods of the poor in India. Yet, globalization has had
undoubtedly beneficial effects as well. On the one hand, it has allowed marginalised people
to claim their due rights, often in form of collective mobilisation against the loss of
livelihood, exploitation, class and caste discrimination, etc.
2.2. Globalization: A Pro-Poor Project?
Overall, one can argue that globalization has paradoxical effects. On the one hand, it has
helped the subaltern to formulate alliances for self-organisation, from their common
condition of marginalisation and exploitation; on the other hand, it has also affected the rich,
since it has further fragmented the bourgeoisie which is no longer unified but a sum of
conflicting interests groups within the neoliberal capitalist system (Sahoo, 2007). In the
name of development and under the constant spread of privatisation India started
withdrawing itself from the main sectors of social services and welfare assets (ibid). State
governments have reduced budgetary allocations for primary education, as a tragic
consequence of it 63 million children between the age of 6-14 years are out of school (ibid.).
The statistics is alarming and the current trend towards neoliberal capitalism on a global level
widens and deepens the problem of chronic poverty, yet, one should recognize poverty as a
structural problem rather than a technical problem. The rich should pay tax and the
government should ensure that children are provided with free education, adequate and
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quality teaching, access and transfer to schools in rural areas, and social care, at the same
time adults should be released from the vicious cycle of debt bondage and unemployment.
The abolition of child labour in India would not bring the long desired relief from chronic
poverty as the contribution which children make towards the total family earning is
significant due to the high incidence of adult unemployment. Ideally, children should attend
free and compulsory education and their parents should be compensated for unemployment of
for the income lost that the working child would otherwise bring to the family income, and
this can only be realised through institutionalization, as it is the government’s responsibility
to provide social services and security for each citizen. The inefficacy of protective
legislation for working children cannot be tolerated any longer (Myers, 1991). Globalization
has greatly contributed to the hegemony of the rich nations, slowing down development
projects for the global poor. Yet, even if development policies are targeted to the needs and
overall welfare of the urban poor as a pro-poor global project, the success of policy-initiatives
heavily depends on the global market in terms of funding and donor support, which again
serve the interest of the rich.
3. Government Policy and Legal Regulations on Child Labour in India
3.1. Lack of Law Enforcement and Holes in the Government Policy
The Indian legislation defines the minimum wage for admission to employment, and the
employment of children, yet, an affective system of inspection for covered industries has not
been secured, and legislation often excludes workshops, quasi family undertakings, petty
commerce, street trades and agriculture (Myers, 1991). Another problem of the unorganised
sector is that working children’s rights and claims cannot be addressed as they are not
organised in trade unions (ibid.) Working children are therefore the most vulnerable to
exploitation and violation of their Human Rights. The enforcement of legislation is
furthermore disrupted through the invisible sector, the domestic sector including family
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enterprises, where no inspection has been secured so far. Legal regulations are restricted to
the employment of children in factories and mines and other visible sectors. However, the
fight against exploitative and hazardous work undertaken by children is a difficult and a
complex one as employees show a major preference for cheap child labour. Children are
given demanding jobs since they are more active and obedient, less tired and more suitable
for certain jobs and more importantly, they cost less in terms of maintenance (ibid.).
Adequate government intervention is needed in order to regulate the working condition of
poor children in all sectors since there is a wide gap between law enforcement and practice.
Whereas the Constitution of India includes provisions relating to employment to and welfare
of children, realities of everyday life in terms of chronic poverty, large scale unemployment
have given a twist to the government policy (ibid.). It is important to point out how the
Constitution articulates the legal conditions for the problematic nature of children’s
employment. The Constitution of India provides the legal framework for children’s admission
to employment under certain conditions, and for free and compulsory education for all
children till a certain age. These regulations are formulated and published in the chapter on
Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy under Article 24, 39 and Article
45.
No child below the age of 14 years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine
or engaged in any other hazardous employment (Article 24).
The State shall direct its policy towards securing that the health and strength of
workers, men and women and the tender age of children are not abused and that they
are not forced by economic necessity to enter vocations unsuited to their age and
strength (Article 39-e).
Children shall be given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and
in conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth shall be protected
against moral and material abandonment (Article 39-f).
The State shall endeavour to provide within a period of 10 years from the
commencement of the Constitution for free and compulsory education for all children
until they complete the age of 14 years (Article 45).7
7
Constitution of India (1949) cited in Myers 1991, p.57.
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However, the complete elimination of child labour has not been considered as an ultimate
resolution. Policy planners have recognised the complexity of the problem and have added in
the Sixth plan that ‘total abolition of Child Labour with all its socio-economic ramifications
does not seem to be a feasible proposition in the near future’.8 After a series of debates, the
Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Bill has been passed in 1986 which prohibits the
employment of children below the age of 14 in 13 occupations. In non-hazardous
employment, the Act does not allow children to work for more than six hours a day which
includes the time of the rest, which is one hour, also, overtime or working at night between 7
p.m. and 8 a.m. is strictly prohibited (ibid.). The violation of this act has serious legal
consequences, resulting in a minimum imprisonment of 3 months, in some cases up to one
year, and a fine is to be paid as well. The Government of India seeks to address the problem
of child labour through the formation of a Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee
which reports to the government about hazardous occupations and is entitled to add other
processes or fields of employment to the list of hazardous occupations (ibid.). The Act does
not refer to the unregulated, unorganised and informal sectors; hence, it is restricted to the
Factories Act, 1948, which includes restrictions and prohibitions regarding child labour in the
urbanised factory. Yet, there has been one important judicial intervention against child labour
in form of the Supreme Court Order from 1996, which directs state governments and the
Union to implement one key element; quality education. Children withdrawn from hazardous
occupations ought to be provided with quality education. However, free education in India is
often of less quality as it is based on the tradition of rote reading, which has been criticised by
Spivak (2002). The education system is based on the postcolonial obedience of rote reading,
literal reading of the text, by limiting children instead of giving them the agency to think and
develop within their capacities. The government has acknowledged education in juridical
8
Ibid.
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terms, in form of The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act in order to
secure free and compulsory education to all children of the age six to fourteen years.
However, the majority of the children in slum areas and rural villages are excluded from
formal basic education. The Act states explicitly in Chapter II, 3. (1) that ‘Every child of the
age of six to fourteen years shall have a right to free and compulsory education in a
neighbouring school till completion of elementary education’.9 However, in case of many
slum areas and grassroots residential areas, there is no ‘neighbouring school’ nor is transfer to
other schools available for the children, hence the government fails in providing all children
with free and compulsory education. In Chapter III, 8.(a) (ii) Duties of Appropriate
Government, Local Authority and Parents, it is the government’s responsibility to ‘ensure
availability of a neighbourhood school’ and as declared in Chapter, III, 8.(c) the government
has to ‘ensure that the child belonging to weaker section and the child belonging to
disadvantaged group are not discriminated against and prevented from pursuing and
completing elementary education on any grounds.’10 Chapter III, 8(d) declares the
government should ‘provide infrastructure including school building, teaching stuff and
learning equipment.’11
Adequate development plans have to reach families of child labourers, in order to provide
them with anti-poverty programs, including compensations for their loss in earning when
children are withdrawn from work. State government must employ a large number of staff in
order to improve work conditions and educational status of children in employment,
moreover, the uneven distribution of wealth among Indians should be compensated through
development programs which empower marginalised children and their families as it is the
9
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009. (c.2,3), New Delhi: Ministry of Law and
Justice (Legislative Department).
10
11
Ibid.
Ibid.
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state’s responsibility and duty to provide for them. Yet, Indian population is disrupted. The
constant flow of international aid is greatly affected by state corruption. The problem is more
complex if one bears in mind the high density of the Indian population which makes progress
slow. A significant change in the Indian society would therefore be realistically achieved only
as a long-term project.
3.2. National Projects and Collaborations with International Institutions
Initially, development programs and regulations concerning child labour have been industry
specific; hence, these aims remained restricted to traditional child labour endemic industries
and so the progress remained slow. Later on, the government launched an increased number
of National Child Labour Projects across the country with the aim to rehabilitate children
working in hazardous industry (ILO, 2004). In addition to that, the government has increased
its budgetary allocation of Rs. 2.5 billion (about US$131 million) and several national
institutions such as V.V. Giri National Labour Institute and the National Institute of Rural
Development and state level institutions contributed to training and capacity building of
government functionaries, factory inspectors, National Child Labour Project directors, and
heads of NGOs (ibid.). However, government policy and collaboration with other national or
international organisations focus on the symptoms of the problem instead of the root causes
(Myers, 1991). So far, the first phase of development has been encouraged in terms of raising
awareness, conducting surveys, establishing a legal framework, employing inspectors and
building up a network of supporters on the national and international level. However,
sustainable development requires more. India needs to learn to help itself as the Western idea
of child labour is a product of Western philosophy which disregards Indian values, norms,
and concepts of childhood up today. India needs to address these cultural differences between
policy makers from the Global North and the Global South, and it should seek to implement
an adequate national policy which does not strictly aim to abolish child labour but to provide
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alternate solutions which do not serve Western consumer interests. The financial, social and
cultural assistance to the marginalised poor has not reached the desired level. It is mainly the
combined effort of NGOs, civil societies, grassroots communities, international and some
state institutions that contributed to the promotion and protection of children’s right. Ideally,
a satisfying resolution should be found on the nation-state level as it is the state’s
responsibility and duty to provide for all citizens. Since, this has been insufficient so far,
NGOs, guardians of civil societies, are constantly taking over this role, implying the urgency
of the matter. It is true, that NGOs can pressure government to implement labour laws in a
proper way and to design, implement and evaluate programmes of rehabilitation for working
children and urge the government to compensate for the loss of income when children are
withdrawn from hazardous work. Yet, one should further reflect on the role of NGOs and
international agencies when the marginalised poor need agency and adequate strategic action
in order to be mobilised in a sufficient way.
What are the options and strategies left for the poor and the uneducated when seeking to
claim their rights and their social services that are nonexistent in a society that barely carries
the key elements of good governance? How can the powerless and marginalised poor reach
out to the public? How do they mobilise themselves and what results can they achieve
through collective action on the nation-state level? How can they protect themselves against
exploitation? At this stage, the focus is on social coproduction which provides for a mutually
beneficial relationship between the NGO, the community, and in an ideal case, the
cooperation is enhanced on the nation-state level as well. Marginalised people share the
common experience of suffering, exploitation and powerlessness; hence, they form a
common identity, which creates a solid base for the mobilisation of the entire community.
They learned to understand that they need to be organised in order to break the culture of
silence and their colonial past which was lacking the potential to practice self-help.
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4. Empowering the Disempowered
4.1. The Strategy of Quiet Encroachment
Within the framework of good governance and civil society, measures for social and political
development, strict adherence to certain labour standards in employment, income and
education are to be achieved on the nation-state level. (Dak, 2002). In contrast to that, the
uncivil or informal society, consisting of the disempowered marginalised poor, tends to be
more effective in implementing strategies outside the state, through freeform activism (Bayat,
1997). The dispossessed favours a community-based strategy, the so-called quiet
encroachment which offers an alternative way for the entire informal society to take part and
influence decision making. The participants are gradually engaging in collective action, since
the government has moved away from the role of provider, leaving now alternate solution but
self-help. They lack institutionalised mechanisms that could build a base for their claims and
help them to resolve their problem on the state-level. Therefore, grassroots communities have
no choice but to find alternative expressions for true participation which are more effective
than conventional institutions (Desai, 1995). The marginalised is being mobilised against the
elitist project of globalization through the new politics of the governed, which is expressed
through class coalition, subaltern mobilisation and new social movements (Sahoo, 2007). One
can argue that the notion of quiet encroachment is a feature of undemocratic political systems
and cultures as well, giving platform to alternative civic associations and social movements
(Bayat, 1997). As a result of the uneven distribution of wealth and privatisation people in
civil society are now responsible for their own social reproduction.
The tendency today shows that those who were initially passive citizens and subjects of
government welfare programs are now being transformed into rights-bearing citizens, and the
disempowered is therefore demanding their due rights, acquiring political power (ibid.). The
disempowered is now politicised only because the people affected in the process are
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confronted by a threat to their gains, hence their passive network automatically turns into an
active network and collective action through which they become political individuals (ibid.).
The subaltern participates in grassroots mobilisation with an increasing and unified power as
a result of being excluded from the elitist socio-political and economic word. They lacked
agency because they were unable to compete with those who possess social and economic
capital. The mobilisation of the urban poor is a response to the accumulation of capital
through dispossession. Disempowered people of India are now seeking social justice as they
are breaking the habit of colonial obedience, seeking to be recognised. What they want is
entitlements, rights and power, just like any other citizen.
One of their preferred methods is the strategy of quiet encroachment. Bayat (2004) defines
quiet encroachment as the strategy of informal mobilisation of the urban poor without clear
leadership or structured organization through which they expand their space by winning new
positions to move on and to access public space: the streets. The ultimate goal is to attain
autonomy through individual direct participation. They seek cultural, political and social
security which comes from the state surveillance (ibid.). Hence, this strategy is to be
understood as a counter-hegemonic process which challenges the notion of order and the
modern urban city in which the ideal man is well adjusted and fully integrated at society.
Using quiet encroachment on a collective level, subaltern groups mobilise themselves against
caste discrimination, tribal displacement, environmental degradation, loss of livelihood,
exploitation of gender and children (Bayat, 1997). On a more holistic level, one can argue
that they are denying the democratic state as such which has violated their rights in the name
of development (ibid.) Chatterjee (2004) defines this type of struggle for empowerment as the
‘politics of the governed’ which articulates itself in the fight for social justice, citizen rights,
aiming to redefine the nature of both civil and political society as well.
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Even if social movements are directed at society and culture, it is difficult to achieve results
outside the state. Regardless their collective goal, such as challenging constitutions, land
laws, mining regulations, etc, significant long-term changes can be achieved only on the state
level (Bebbington, 2007). However, one can organize groups and their leaders among nongovernmental organizations to pressure the state to contribute to social welfare through
chronic poverty reduction policies. Another aim is to hold government to account once new
programs have been implemented. The ultimate goal is to change the relation between
authorities and collective populace. Often the conflict between state interest and collective
interest of the underrepresented dispossessed in the political arena emerges in the collective
public use of the streets as political space (Bayat, 1997). Without the need for active
networking, the very physical and social character of the streets allows the people to socialise
through a passive network (ibid.). Quiet encroachment (in terms of street politics) challenges
the government’s control over public place.
However, as the state remains the main controller of local life, it is this moment of threat and
omnipresent control that turns the passive network of the local groups into an active one,
through which they emerge as political subjects. Some movements prefer strategies of
negotiation between the community leader and the state, while others prefer confrontation
and direct action. In some cases, negotiations are state-initiated, encouraging the need for
community-based development as an element of good governance. The community-initiated
bottom-up approach is more successful when emphasising the need for direct participatory in
decision making.
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4.2. The Role of NGOs in Community Development
In India, several constructive collaborations between grassroots communities and NGOs have
been established over the last decades. Through alliances for self-organisation the
dispossessed gives voice to their claims and needs. Their mobilisation appeals to the politics
of the self-respected through which they can rely on their shared identity and overcome
collective problems (ibid.). They have two main goals; to attain cultural and political
autonomy from the state, and to achieve the redistribution of social goods and opportunities
(Bayat, 1997). NGOs can play an important role in increasing unity and solidarity and they
can foster co-optation and clientelism as mechanisms of the government promoting the need
for active participation in community-based development (Desai, 1995). Social movements
help to make visible those social and political processes that keep people in poverty. People
need to be involved and mobilised and at this point NGOs emerge offering a platform for the
empowerment of the subaltern. Poverty reduction and the regulation of child labour do not
only require good government policy but also the capacity of impoverished people to
influence those that make policy; the rich.
How do these movements emerge and what role do NGOs and social movement
organisations play in this process?
There is a constant need for strategic and organised action when mobilising people. Even if it
is not pursued within institutional frameworks, informal networks are unable to mobilise
without adequate resources; therefore, they heavily rely on formal social movement
organisations, NGOS, peasant association, serving as public faces of movements
(Bebbington, 2007). The strategy of quiet encroachment combined with the capacity of
NGOs to pressure the government is an alternate way of fostering a change in the uneven
distribution of wealth and power. Poverty, including child labour and other abusive and
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inhuman forms of exploitation, has been seen as a lack of resource, which means it has been
understood as an economic problem rather than a political problem, as an absence of
entitlements (ibid.). At this point NGOs support a shift in the public opinion about how
poverty has been understood so far. They work closely with local communities, allowing
them to express how they feel about their threatened livelihood and about their collective
struggle for entitlements and social security. As the informal community functions outside
the boundaries of the state, NGOs can take on an important role based on the fact that they
are connected with both civil and uncivil society as well. NGOs can assist informal
communities when local and global issues must be addressed to the wider public seeking to
dispatch them on a semi-state level or state-level. ‘Livelihood security and social protections
have to be prioritized alongside growth, material and human assets need to be redistributed so
that the chronically poor can take up opportunities (...) ’.12 The grassroots community is
therefore a counter-hegemonic force within civil society as it challenges ideologies and
policies around the notion of poverty and power relations through free form activism and
through collaborations with NGOs that report the collective aims of the marginalised poor to
the state. ‘The subaltern’s desire for social justice has thus translated the submissive language
of mass alienation (passive welfare) into assertive mass mobilization, demanding their due
rights’.13 NGOs can further foster the implementation of ideals of the dispossessed,
promoting a more authentic form than the state (Desai, 1995). People in the informal sector
have survived economic crisis as they learned to rely on their community, working on their
own account, basing their relationships on reciprocity, kin relations, trust and negotiations
rather than the modern notion of individual self-interest, fixed rules and contracts (Bayat,
1997). Even if they opt for self-employment and networking outside the state’s authority,
they do not necessarily represent the anti-modern. They choose the informal sector because
12
Shepherd, 2007:2, citing the Chronic Poverty Report.
Saoo, S., 2007. Globalization and “the Politics of the Governed”: Redefining Governance in Liberalized
India. Singapore: Department of Sociology. p.13.
13
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their conditions of their existence compel them to seek informal ways of life as modernity is a
costly enterprise. In fact, their employment and existence in the informal community is a
logical consequence of the state’s inability and unwillingness to respond to their immediate
concerns in an efficient and effective way (ibid.). Their attitude towards the state might seem
ambivalent as the disempowered seeks to challenge social relationships and outside the state
in the informal sector. The exploitation of the poor created a common consciousness which
transformed the subaltern identity from a “class-in-itself” to a “class-for-itself” and provided greater
capability for self-organisation (Sahov, p. 12.).
Yet, the process of informal mobilisation of the dispossessed aims to transfer society on the
nation-state level because problems such as unemployment, lack of education and social
services can only be changed formally through the state. Thus, the state is understood as
source and solution of exclusion and inequity at the same time (Bebbington, 2007). NGOs
also depend on the central government. In India many NGOs are directly linked to the
government, unlike some Western NGOs. Often, NGOs are funded by the Government of
India or the government of a particular state within India with the aim to maximize their
impact. However, state-influence is omnipresent at this stage and projects and aids can be cut
in case they are not in balance with the interest of state. Although NGOs can be charitable
and service providing, yet, their leaders might be often unwilling to respond to new ideas as
they feel their authority is being threatened. This is usually typical for large-scale NGOs,
while some local, small-scale NGOs can be more effective in their socially responsible and
well-targeted support for local, service-providing projects which are concerned with welfare
and development on the grassroots level. The growth of the NGO sector also confirms the
need for transparency in society. NGOs have become a vocal platform for civil rights and
there the number of collaboration with both governments and aid agencies, promoting the key
role of NGOs in the processes of democratization (Desai, 1995). Grassroots communities
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wish to accomplish citizenship rights in the true sense of the word and at this point NGOs
function as messengers as they are implicated in civil society. Since child labour reinforces
poverty in many cases, NGOs act as strategic partners for filling the gaps in service provision
and seeking alternate options for rehabilitation, recreation, employment and education. Often
social mobilisation might be less attractive to donors as they often prefer service delivery to
social mobilisation (ibid.). In India, certain small-scale local NGOs are still highly attractive
to international donors and can function effectively and efficiently even in close collaboration
with the state and members of local grassroots communities. They can survive better than
large-scale NGOs as they are less integrated in the global economy and enjoy relative
freedom when designing and implementing development projects.
5. Case Study: I-India, an NGO for Working, Street and Destitute Children
5.1. Mission, Philosophy and Strategy of I-India
I-India is a fully registered, nongovernmental, non-profit organisation in Jaipur, Rajasthan. It
helps street, working, abused and destitute children. The NGO was established in 1993 and
has ever since been helping over 3000 children daily through mobile and street schools,
vocational training, shelters, health care, nutrition and rehabilitation. I-India is funded by
UNICEF, Finland, Norway, UK, the Government of India, among others, and has an annual
budget of $200,000. On the base of my personal involvement as a volunteer at this particular
NGO, I will point out how a small-scale NGO in the global South can foster collaboration
between the affected group; working and abused children, the NGO, including staff, donors,
interns, and the government. This triangle shows how the combined effort of all three groups
can improve the conditions of socially marginalised children. In the name of social coproduction, the NGO promotes its projects in the field of vocational training as an alternate
solution for those opting for child labour. Its projects are financed from foreign aid as well as
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from local funds by the Government of India and the Government of Rajasthan. Although it
is supported by UNICEF, an international aid provider from the West, the NGO has enjoyed
relative freedom and independency to design and implement its policy based on non-western
values and social norms in order to ‘create a comprehensive system of services to fulfil
children’s long term needs for education, skills, and emotional support, as well as their shortterm needs for nutrition, health and shelter’.14
As a social worker at I-India, I learned to value that pre-given Western concepts of
childhood, children’s work, family, kinship and such, cannot be implemented but need to be
remodelled and tailored to the needs of the affected children. The mission, philosophy and
strategy of the NGO are in complete balance with this concept, maximising the impact of the
system through integrating programs which are often unavailable in terms of a Eurocentric
approach as it prefers to abolish child labour through the withdrawal of children from child
labour rather than offering them alternate options to recreate, reintegrate at society. Offering
a safe and welcoming community for these abused and working children is one of the key
elements of sustainable development at the grassroots level as Indian society cherishes the
value of community itself. The statistics prove how much the NGO stresses and appreciates
community-based development as only 4% of the budget goes to administration; the
remainder is for program expenditure, keeping salaries modest while stretching funds to
maximise their impact (ibid.). Moreover, I-India knows to appreciate mass media when
promoting and protecting children’s right which is crucial to transform the current public
opinion concerning the need to abolish child labour or to regulate it in order to serve mere
Western capitalist interests. Interviews and documentaries are often encouraged in order to
reach out to the West, promoting the need for socially responsible tourism in India.
14
I-India Overwiew. [online] Available at: < http://www.i-indiaonline.com/abt_ii_mission.htm > [Accessed 17
August 2011].
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The NGO is unique because it provides not only for the local grassroots community but also
for other remote communities and children in need who suffer from impoverishment. I-India
reaches out to over 3000 children nationwide with the help of the Child Line, a 24-hour
hotline service which allows children to turn to the NGO directly, knowing that counselling
and transfer to the local shelters will be granted once establishing the first contact with IIndia. Moreover, the organisation promotes its projects and aims on the international level as
well, in form of collaborations with representatives of foreign mass media companies, such as
BBC UK, which has recently made arrangements for the production of a film on the NGO’s
impact on the livelihood of disadvantaged children in India.
5.2. Main Projects
I-India’s ultimate goal is to improve conditions of exploited and abused children by offering a
variety of services and entitlements, such as free education, health care, shelter, nutrition,
vocational training, financial support, repatriation to families, rehabilitation and counselling,
which used to be unthinkable for these children. Amartya Sen (1999, p. 35.) defines
‘development as a process of expanding the real personal freedoms that people might enjoy’.
The NGO aims to change the ways in which society understands and approaches child labour
and poverty. ‘Despite being citizens of the same country, these children live in a different
world than the children of the emerging middle class. Taken as a separate nation, they
represent one of the neediest peoples on the planet’.15 The goal is to prepare these children
for a decent life, providing them with their basic needs and rights through which they can be
integrated at the larger society once they are ready to leave the shelter. The main activities
and projects include the Child Line, an advice help line for children in need nationwide,
numerous permanent and temporary shelters, medical care, nutrition, informal education,
15
I-India Overwiew. [online] Available at: < http://www.i-indiaonline.com/abt_ii_mission.htm > [Accessed 17
August 2011].
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Ladli vocational training centre where the children learn skills, such as jewellery making,
design and tailoring, so that they can be integrated at society, find a job or even aim for
higher education. The NGO provides emotional support and rehabilitation for children who
have undergone psychological trauma and or physical abuse. It runs a Shower Bus project to
provide children in slums with shower and clear water twice a week via mobile water trucks
as the government does not provide enough help in securing piped water for rural
communities. Moreover, the organisation has recently finalized the construction of a complex
called Jhag Children’s Village. This campus is located 40 km away from Jaipur in a semidesert area where children have hardly any access to formal schools. Here children below the
poverty line enjoy the beneficial effect of education, nutrition, health care and shelter. At the
same time, other members of the neighbouring rural areas can attend free evening classes at
Jhag Children’s Village. I-India greatly values education and supports working children in
their breaks to receive basic education. The School on Wheels project is designed for children
in different rural areas and slums where they are unable to attend formal school because they
have to work. I-India has set up this project in terms of mobile schooling, using vans to
transfer teachers and assistant teachers to rural areas where they conduct classes for children
belonging to the caste of the untouchable. These children are usually rag-pickers and
education for them used to be luxury, they are eager to learn and enjoy being surrounded by
other children in a safe and warm environment where they develop a sense of belonging and
identity. While many NGOs are run by elected members who have no direct connections to
the local poor and have not personally experienced social exclusion, I-India represents a
distinct group of NGOs as its founder and director himself was a former street child who
managed to climb up the social ladder. Being a victim of social exclusion and poverty, he is
extremely sufficient in his contribution to sustainable development and social welfare for
child labourers, abused, orphaned and destitute children based on his personal experience of
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what it means to be a marginalised child, combined with his solid academic background in
sociology. The idea behind free, informal education is that knowledge is to be seen as a social
good rather than a privilege of the elite. I-India has educated marginalised children on
primary level and on secondary level as well, moreover, some of the children managed to
enrol at college. Some of the children interviewed wish to pursue a career as a social worker
or teacher, seeking to help others to practice self-help.
5.3. The Community-based Approach
I-India works with local people who function as PR persons as they visit the local slums and
rural areas on a regular basis, inquiring about the most urgent needs and aims from members
of the grassroots community, assessing project efficiency, keeping record of results and
providing feedback on a regular basis. Whereas in the majority of the cases NGOs based in
the Global North do not allow direct participation in decision-making for the affected society,
here the Eurocentric approach in terms of Human Rights, responsibility and empowerment
remains limited, opening up space for local involvement and commitment. Yet, on a global
level, the subaltern is still silenced even when NGOs promote empowerment and liberation.
As Spivak (1992, p. 91.) has critically pointed out ‘talk about participation is just that-talk.
There is no genuine effort on the part of anyone to ask the rural poor what they think or
want’. The community-based approach is highly important in I-India’s contribution to
sustainable development on the grassroots level. Most of the employees are local people and
many of their family members work for the NGO. They represent the beneficial aspect of kin
relations inside and outside the organisation as well, ensuring that informal networking is
taking place through close and far away kin relations, promoting the constant need for
community support on a wider scale. Networking, accountability and transparency are
simultaneously strengthened through interaction and interference with local people who
might provide information on the children’s family. Maintaining a social matrix for the local
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community is inevitable. Many NGOs ignore the possibility of repatriation of children to
their families, relying on the myth that unemployed and illiterate parents would not
encourage their children to attend school and their relocation to their families would be rather
harmful. In reality, education is desirable for children and numerous peasant families support
their children’s education despite their poor economic condition. Often, these children come
from broken families and are willing to return to their parents at some point. This is a highly
relevant service as peasant people are often dislocated by the government when settling on
privately-owned land. Thus, they are constantly moving and it is therefore difficult to locate
them. Passive networking on the local grassroots level is therefore a great service to
development and human welfare.
5.4. The Right-based Approach
I-India does not seek to subdue the state. Indeed, the NGO collaborates with the government
in order to maximise its impact. The organisation fosters a rights-based approach; therefore,
dialogues with government representatives take place on a regular basis with the ultimate
goal to recognise and provide the right to free education, health care, nutrition and social
services as even socially excluded children have the right to a decent life. When introducing
new education plans, designing and building new vocational training centres, the NGO works
with government representatives and community leaders in order to ensure that the rights and
needs of the target group are granted and met on the juridical level as well. I-India
acknowledges peasant people’s potential in mass empowerment through active and direct
participation in form of a bottom-up approach. The motor of development lies in the
combined effort of pressuring the government from both below, letting the local community
access the public sphere in order to claim its rights, and from above, through international aid
and support from the Global North (Spivak, 2002).
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5.5. The Responsibility-based Approach
I-India supports the notion of responsibility (Spivak, 1992) encouraging the West to
contribute to development in an ethical way. ‘We must recall that Development is the
dominant global denomination of Responsibility: the story is that the rich nations collectively
hear the call of the ethical and collect to help the poor nations by giving skill and money’.16
Volunteers, social workers, representatives of social enterprises and advocates of Human
Rights have established an ethical dialogue between the West and the subaltern through
educational projects with working, street, abused and orphaned children at I-India. The
projects require from both partners the willingness and ability to sustain a mutually beneficial
cross-cultural exchange which proves the need for those coming from the West to make
efforts to learn a subaltern language, at least on basic or conversational level while teaching
the subaltern English language skills. Educational programs at I-India are highly promoted as
it serves human development. However, often informal schooling remains the only
alternative even though formal education is one of the universal rights of children on the base
of the Declaration of Human Rghts by the United Nations in 1948. I-India is a significant
educational actor, reaching poor communities affected by child labour, poverty, illiteracy,
unemployment, lack of social services, gender and caste discrimination. The Ladli project,
(Ladli in Hindi means loving girl) supports girls only, proving the need for equal
opportunities for the underrepresented female gender. The NGO provides these socially
marginalised girls with informal education, vocational training (jewellery making which is a
valuable tradition and source of income in Jaipur), health care, nutrition and shelter. This
project is the most efficient and effective when promoting children’s right to education and
vocational training among Western visitors who come to join the program in the name of
socially responsible tourism. Through this ethical and responsible approach, tourists,
Spivak, G.C., 1992. Responsibility – 1992: Testing Theory in the Plains. In: Spivak, G.C., ed. Other Asias.
Oxford: Blackwell. p. 85.
16
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volunteers and donors from developed countries contribute to grassroots development
through direct participation, gaining insight into the real, every-day life and main problems of
the subaltern woman in India. Thus, this project enhances the need to respond to the subaltern
in a responsible way (Spivak, 1992) not on the base of a Eurocentric approach but in balance
with the subaltern values, traditions and needs, in a highly ethical way, by listening to it,
understanding it and establishing a reciprocity that creates the base for cross-cultural
relations. This way, the postcolonial subject becomes liberated in the true sense of the word.
However, Spivak (1988) remains sceptical about the female subaltern’s ability to be heard
due to the fact that India is a male-dominated society where women are still required to
perform certain rituals (such as the sati) as part of their gender role. I-India seeks to influence
the cultural and social isolation of girls and women within the framework of grassroots
development and socially responsible tourism for all members of the Ladli project. Socially
responsible tourism promotes the need to give back to the local community while recruiting
tourists and volunteers, researchers and advocates of Human Rights from the West in order to
experience grassroots development at first hand, through direct interaction with the local
people, fostering cultural exchange and ethical tourism.
5.6. Education for All
On the wider scale, I-India seeks to promote the right of children to education through its
commitment to the project Education For All (EFA). The South Asian perspective on
Education For All was first adapted at the World Conference on Education For All in
Jomtien, 1991, and later reaffirmed in Dakar in 2000 (Dyer, 2005). This project has been part
of universal primary education plan as the second Millennium Development Goal, which is to
be achieved by 2015 (ibid.). I-India acknowledges that child labour cannot be abolished.
Instead it offers alternate informal schooling at times when working children are not at work
during the day. Therefore the project Mobile School is crucial for those child labourers who
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cannot be withdrawn from child labour as they are the main source of income. The project
offers 2 hours of education each day combined with free meals and health care to encourage
children to benefit from informal education. According to the neoclassical approach,
schooling is the best antidote to child labour; nevertheless, children’s work, as above
mentioned, can often be combined with education without causing disruption in the working
and socio-economic environment of these children. It might be surprising that in some cases,
children work not only to support their families but to defray fast-rising costs of schooling
(Niewenhuys, 1996). I-India therefore allows children to work and receive education
simultaneously, supporting a tailor-made solution, recognizing the need of poor children to
contribute to their own upkeep. Fortunately, NGOs have been gaining support from the ILO
in their effort to ensure children are able to work and attend school at the same time (ibid.).
This has long been prohibited by legislation as paid work was condemned and seen as a
source of illiteracy because children often dropped out of school due to physical and mental
exhaustion. While education is mandatory in India, government policies are insufficient in
reaching out to those in rural areas or coming from low-income families. Working, abused,
orphaned, and street children are the most vulnerable in this sense as they are often rejected
on the base of their social status; hence, to attend school is unthinkable for them. However,
they do have the right to human interference, which is much promoted and valued by I-India.
These children are absolute victims, they suffer under inhuman repression. Education is seen
as one of the potential ways of overcoming social deficits, illiteracy, disempowerment,
unemployment and lack of agency in India. I-India also aspires to break with the tradition of
postcolonial obedience, encouraging grassroots communities to turn to NGOs in order to be
provided with knowledge and skills. Education is a basic Human Right; hence, it must be a
public good, regardless children’s social and financial background. If formal education is a
privilege of those more fortunate and of higher social status, then those who are less fortunate
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and possess less social and economic capital, should be compensated for their loss through
informal education.
5.7. Development as Freedom
Development of freedom (Sen, 1999) has a particularly strong resonance. Sen argues that it is
necessary for society’s development to grant substantive freedoms, such as education, health
care, social insurance based on a capital-centred approach that gives priority to ‘providing
social services that (...) enhance the quality of life’.17 He recommends investing in capability
expansion through substantive freedoms in order to make developing countries, such as India,
more self-sufficient by relying of their own national capabilities. He supports the idea of
participatory democracy ‘so that people can directly exercise power themselves’.18 This idea
relates to the notion of informal mobilisation or the strategy of quiet encroachment which has
been outlined in the previous chapters in terms of development for and through the informal
sector itself with the aim to live the lives they have reason to value as the raison d’être of
human effort (ibid). However utopian this approach might seem, the project of human and
sustainable development has been urged through non-governmental policies which pushed
the ethics on the international agenda. Even Spivak (2002) acknowledged the need to affect
state practice by carefully defining it as a ‘long-term hope’, signifying that it can only turn
into reality when Europe learns to represent responsibility not in its own way, but through
changing his mind-set, opening up to the subaltern’s needs and claims (ibid). She further
analysed the Eurocentric character of Human Rights which again remain unresponsive to the
claims and issues of the global South, creating a cultural rift between the two worlds.
Development policy should support the reciprocity between the two worlds, through
education from below and through cross-cultural experiences that are based on direct
17
18
Sen, A., 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 46-47.
Ibid., p. 157.
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participation and self-empowerment. In our postcolonial world, the West needs to assist the
developing world in how to attain self-help for all members of society. It is highly
recommended to operate in terms of an ‘altered normality’:
Colonialism was committed to the education of a certain class. It was interested in the
seemingly permanent operation of an altered normality. Paradoxically, Human Rights
and ‘development’ today cannot claim this self-empowerment that high colonialism
could. Yet, it is some of the best products of high colonialism, descendants of the
colonial middle class, who became human rights advocates in the countries of the
South.19
Development can only underpin self-empowerment if it is based on local experience, just like
in case of I-India’s involvement with the affected group of children in Jaipur. Donors,
supporters and volunteers are recruited in order to foster the project of socially and morally
responsible development, allowing them to experience grassroots development at first hand.
A multi-pronged approach is required for the improvement of conditions in the developing
world. The National Policy on Child Labour in India provides for industry and area-specific
pilot projects in order to establish the basis for a larger national programme of action
(Bequele, 1991). The first step is to establish contact with the local grassroots community, the
second is to design nongovernmental policies and strategies in accordance with the need and
claims of the target group; the third is to facilitate implementation of policy initiatives on the
national and state level as well. The grassroots community is a political entity, yet, it can be
integrated within civil society if the government is pressured adequately by NGOs. It is the
government’s duty to secure income and employment-generating schemes, expanding formal
and non-formal education, promoting school enrolment through various inducements such as
the payment of stipends, provide protected work environment for children through national
projects and adequate law enforcement (ibid.).
Spivak, G.C., 2002. Righting Wrongs – 2002: Accessing Democracy Among the Aboriginals. In: Spivak,
G.C., ed. Other Asias. Oxford: Blackwell. p.15.
19
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6. Conclusion
As long as child labour, chronic poverty, underdevelopment, the uneven global trade and
economy are reinforced as a condition for many Euro-American organisations for
outsourcing of their work in favour of cheap labour in places like India, development as
freedom and its many ramifications remain an unfinished project. Even if the notion of global
civil society reaffirms the need of empowerment for the urban poor in the social sector as
well as in the political one, citizenship, civil and human rights remain opaque and
ambivalent. NGOs often seek to imprint the semantics of citizenship in the name of
development and empowerment, yet, one should be aware of the fact that some members of
the urban poor do not want to aspire to be citizens (Mukhopadhyay, 2006). They often
occupy land illegally and employ themselves on their own initiatives within the informal
sector, outside the margins of metropolitan civility as the state has neither provided for them
nor protected them in an efficient and effective way. National and international policies often
go hand in hand, maintaining capital’s constant flow through foreign investments which
enormously affect urban culture and politics. The project of urban cleansing severely affects
socially excluded children who work or live on the streets. Their political culture of survival,
of solidarity, of being in common is under threat (ibid.). The very base of their existence is
therefore endangered from all sides, the national and the transnational sphere as well.
How can child labour, one of the issues connected to the livelihood of the urban poor, be
resolved if it is not only affected by the state’s authority and omnipresence but also by the
global market which is now replacing the state? Even if we wish to regulate child labour on
the nation-state level, it remains a business project as the market shapes ethics, rules, laws,
power relations and government interests in our globalized age. On a practical level, it is
recommended to adopt new government policies in order to reduce and prevent
unemployment, promote and secure social services, education, health care and financial
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compensation for the withdrawal of children from their work place. These services have long
been pushed and urged by NGOs to reduce if not to reconcile the uneven global economy.
Taxes are still higher in the rural areas and tax heavens still protect the self-interest of the
rich. Being aware of this situation, I-India has made efforts to seek a more secure future for
socially and financially disadvantaged children. It has set up personalised bank accounts for
each of the children supported by the NGO, knowing that the money saved up for these
children will be needed when they leave the shelter as they live in a neoliberal capitalist
society where capital is both means and ends.
Corruption is the enemy of development; yet, it is the engine of it, creating the basis for
survival strategies for the urban poor, winning space and agency within the grassroots
community, creating a platform for their collective gains and transforming society in a visible
way. Ideally, the complex problem of child labour, chronic poverty and the uneven
distribution of wealth should be addressed in careful and wide-reaching investigation among
representatives of the local grassroots-community, the NGO and the state. Results of the
case-study on I-India show that this cooperation, the so-called social co-production can be
highly efficient and effective in reducing exploitation, illiteracy, unemployment, gender and
caste discrimination, and long-term consequences of psychological trauma and social
isolation.
Overall, one can claim that education is one of the basic elements of human and social
welfare as it leads to quality of life, opening up the possibility to practice self-help and selfempowerment on the individual and on the wider collective level as well. Even if formal
education exists in India, it is often not of decent quality when it is for free; therefore, some
children have to work in order to enjoy their right to education. Moreover, children of the
urban poor have no access to formal education as they are not provided with transfer to
schools as rural areas lack facilities and enough qualified teachers. At this point, they can
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only be educated informally with the help of NGOs. Education is generally seen as a value. IIndia has proved it is achievable. Many of the children supported and educated by the NGO
have managed to access higher education apart from primary education. The mere withdrawal
of children from their work place is not a realistic and wise decision as pointed out
throughout the essay, instead, one should combine informal schooling with child work if
necessary, allowing them to contribute to their own and their family’s financial and social
welfare. Certainly, hazardous work is not to be supported as it severely damages children’s
mental, physical and emotional well-being.
Nevertheless, misconceptions concerning child labour and an ideal childhood based on
Western norms have to be reduced as not all form of child work is child labour. Working
children in India differ from working children in the West. Their performance in the domestic
field, in the family enterprise or family farm supports their social role in terms of children’s
understanding and appreciation of family and community. Their work often enables them
with useful skills while at the same time it allows them to connect to each other and prepare
for life. However invisible children’s work in the informal sector might seem they are still
visible as they are tied together through bonds with kinship, family and the urban space itself.
The major shift in Western documentation and in the global debate on child labour can only
be expected when it is based on real-life experiences in the Indian context, rejecting preconstructed Western models of child labour, childhood, gender roles, family and kinship. To
combat poverty and to improve financial stability of working and street children can only be
accomplished through a holistic approach which no longer supports mere Western capitalist
interests and norms. The involvement of the target groups into decision-making and
development projects is the key to sustainable development. The root causes of child labour
are not tackled effectively.
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To offer housing, health and financial support might enable working children and their
families to enjoy a better quality of life temporarily, as they can only be released from
poverty, once they have been empowered and released from their subaltern past, not only
through their financial but also through their political and social inclusion into the rest of the
world which remains a long-term hope and business.
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