IQBAL Masih's assassination cannot be condoned. His crime:he dared to speak out against child labour. The 12-year-oldboy was riddled with bullets on April 16, Easter Sunday, whilecycling through his village near Lahore in Pakistan.
Born into the fate of millions of children around theworld, especially South Asia, Iqbal was sold to a carpet factoryat the age of 4. The Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF), aPakistani NGO, came across Iqbal 2 years ago and helped himescape. Iqbal joined a school run by the BLLF and was madepresident of the Bonded Child Carpet Workers' Association.
Last November, he hit headlines across the world when headdressed an international conference on labour inStockholm. The us was swept off its feet. Iqbal was given a"Youth in Action" award by the transnational shoe manufacturer, Reebok. Brandeis University granted him a scholarshipto study law once he finished school after 5 years.
And then Iqbal died. Human rightsactivists across Europe took up cudgels againstthe "ugly" fact of child labour. The cry wentaround: ban the sale of carpets made by children. The "solution" propounded reveals theabysmal knowledge Western do-gooders haveof conditions outside their world. Iqbal mighthave toiled 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, andin return, got paid the measly sum of a rupee aday. But for his family, it meant one less mouthto feed and one more rupee earned.
One agrees with those who wish to have nothing to do withthe products of child labour. But such bans will generate morepoverty. The issues are clearly economic. Increased globalisation and market competition sparks off the quest for cheaplabour and the enhanced exploitation of the weakest.
Child labour has to go. But for this to happen, Westernand Southern activists have to put their heads together insteadof crying themselves hoarse over bans.
Legr.lisation and regulation of child labour and ensuringthat they get wages at par with adults will be a first step in thedirection to eradicate child labour. In India, with unions ofchild labourers being considered outside the law, employersfind it easy to exploit the children, getting away with providingdeplorable work environments and measly salaries. Smallwonder then, that child labourers constitute 6 per cent of ourtotal population. Ironically, the number of adults unemI ployed, 55 million, is also the same.
India has a plethora of laws dealing with child labour, noless than 13. Article 24 of the Constitution stipulates that nochild below 14 shall be employed in any factory or mine, orengaged in any other hazardous industry. In 1986, another actwas passed which banned child labour in industries reliant onchild labour like carpet weaving and bidi-making and soughtto legalise and regulate them in others. Yet, no new regulatorymachinery was introduced to ensure its enforcement.
Pakistan banned bonded child labourers in 1992 but isambiguous about its 7.5 million child labourers, 6 per cent ofits total population of 118.12 million.
Legalisation must be accompanied with a cry for universalisation of education, by a fixed date. Sri Lanka passed in1979 the Comprehensive Child Development Act whichstressed enrollment and retention in primary schools. Today,92 per cent of its children are enrolled in school while theretention rate is 88 per cent. Although thereare still 90,000 child labourers, 0.5 per cent ofits total population, only 20,000 are full-timelabourers. Education is accessible to most, onlyabout 7,000 children remaining illiterate. Thishas been possible due to strict enforcement.Employers are penalised if they employ children who don't attend school, but the greaterresponsibility rests with the District EducationAuthority to ensure that children do. Lapseson their part are severely dealt with.
Given the prevalent levels of poverty in the developingcountries, parents have to be given adequate incentives to sendtheir children to school and not to work. Social welfare mea-sures like mid-day meals will go a long way.
It will take heads, hearts and hands to achieve all this.Money is going to be a necessity. The South does not wantcharity or conscience money.
Western NGOS and their Southern counterparts shouldtake a fresh look at their role in this whole process and howthey can pressure their governments to make the consumers ofproducts of child labour pay, through fiscal measures, the fullsocial costs of their consumption. This is especially true ofagricultural products, the sector which employs the largestnumber of children in countries like India. The next thing todo would be to work out mechanisms to transfer the money sorecovered to the Southern countries, in a transparent manner,so that the goal of universal education can be achieved.