Child workers find a global voice; speak volumes about their world

From the age of seven, Jessica spent her time in school and “on the mountain”. “I worked as a scavenger. But I was always an honours student and my parents could never figure out how,” she says. “My mother suffered from asthma and all that my father earned was spent on her medicines. That is why I had to work. But now the Erda Foundation is helping us out and I don’t have to work anymore.”

Shaukat, who spent his early days in a masala factory on the outskirts of Delhi, talks confidently about his past and the future. “Both my parents should be working instead of making me work. There are less chances of them getting exploited and I willget a chance to enjoy my childhood,” Shaukat reasons.

Most of the children who are taking part in the Global March carry scars from the past. These children talk about how badly they were beaten, of the days they went without food and of the long suffering. All of them were either rescued in raids or with the help of the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS), founded by Kailash Satyarthi. But the present interests the children more. “You should see how well they get along.

We old people get tired, but they continue with their singing and dancing till late in the night. They are very bright, they picked up the song my husband wrote for the march in a day,” says Sumedha Kailash, Satyarthy’s wife and a participant at the Global March.