Labour survey lets children down

SURAT, Nov 10: One-and-a-half years after a government survey declared there were only three child labourers in Surat, the lot of the hundre...

SURAT, Nov 10: One-and-a-half years after a government survey declared there were only three child labourers in Surat, the lot of the hundreds of underage workers in the city8217;s hazardous industries shows no sign of changing for the better.

Not even one of those three children8217;s employers have been pulled up for violating the law; let alone the employers of more than 5,000 child labourers discovered to be working in the Ved Road-Katargam-Ashwinikumar Road area in a 1996 survey carried out by a non-governmental organisation.

Even as social scientists, child labour activists and academics engage in brain-storming sessions in the city once identified by the Supreme Court as one with 8220;high incidence of child labour8221;, the fate of the children continues to hang in balance.

Of the 350 and 28 children determined initially by the survey team to be employed in hazardous and non-hazardous establishments respectively, 158 were let off after their employers produced certificates stating they were above 14 years of age and hence outside the purview of the Child Labour prohibition and regulation Act, 1986.

The employers of only three of the remaining 220 child workers have submitted the Rs 20,000 ordained by the Supreme Court as the businesses8217; contribution towards the child8217;s welfare.The district administration was to add Rs 5,000 to the sum and keep it as a fixed deposit, whose interest paid for the child8217;s education and rehabilitation, while the employer was prosecuted.

But all that has happened is that 170 cases 8212; involving 141 establishments, all of which have been issued notices to pay Rs 20,000 each 8212; are pending in the JFMC court for the past couple of months. Even the labour department knows that the administration is finding a losing battle. 8220;We are sure not even a single employer will be prosecuted,8221; says a labour department officer, indicating the mockery the survey has turned out to be.