Let it be martyrdom, not murder

IQBAL Masih's assassination cannot be condoned. His crime: he dared to speak out against child labour. The 12-year-old boy was riddled with bullets on April 16, Easter Sunday, while cycling through his village near Lahore in Pakistan.

Born into the fate of millions of children around the world, especially South Asia, Iqbal was sold to a carpet factory at the age of 4. The Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF), a Pakistani NGO, came across Iqbal 2 years ago and helped him escape. Iqbal joined a school run by the BLLF and was made president of the Bonded Child Carpet Workers' Association.

Last November, he hit headlines across the world when he addressed an international conference on labour in Stockholm. 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 scholarship to study law once he finished school after 5 years.

And then Iqbal died. Human rights activists across Europe took up cudgels against the "ugly" fact of child labour. The cry went around: ban the sale of carpets made by children. The "solution" propounded reveals the abysmal knowledge Western do-gooders have of conditions outside their world. Iqbal might have toiled 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, and in return, got paid the measly sum of a rupee a day. But for his family, it meant one less mouth to feed and one more rupee earned.

One agrees with those who wish to have nothing to do with the products of child labour. But such bans will generate more poverty. The issues are clearly economic. Increased globalisation and market competition sparks off the quest for cheap labour and the enhanced exploitation of the weakest.

Child labour has to go. But for this to happen, Western and Southern activists have to put their heads together instead of crying themselves hoarse over bans.

Legr.lisation and regulation of child labour and ensuring that they get wages at par with adults will be a first step in the direction to eradicate child labour. In India, with unions of child labourers being considered outside the law, employers find it easy to exploit the children, getting away with providing deplorable work environments and measly salaries. Small wonder then, that child labourers constitute 6 per cent of our total population. Ironically, the number of adults unemI ployed, 55 million, is also the same.

India has a plethora of laws dealing with child labour, no less than 13. Article 24 of the Constitution stipulates that no child below 14 shall be employed in any factory or mine, or engaged in any other hazardous industry. In 1986, another act was passed which banned child labour in industries reliant on child labour like carpet weaving and bidi-making and sought to legalise and regulate them in others. Yet, no new regulatory machinery was introduced to ensure its enforcement.

Pakistan banned bonded child labourers in 1992 but is ambiguous about its 7.5 million child labourers, 6 per cent of its total population of 118.12 million.

Legalisation must be accompanied with a cry for universalisation of education, by a fixed date. Sri Lanka passed in 1979 the Comprehensive Child Development Act which stressed enrollment and retention in primary schools. Today, 92 per cent of its children are enrolled in school while the retention rate is 88 per cent. Although there are still 90,000 child labourers, 0.5 per cent of its total population, only 20,000 are full-time labourers. Education is accessible to most, only about 7,000 children remaining illiterate. This has been possible due to strict enforcement. Employers are penalised if they employ children who don't attend school, but the greater responsibility rests with the District Education Authority to ensure that children do. Lapses on their part are severely dealt with.

Given the prevalent levels of poverty in the developing countries, parents have to be given adequate incentives to send their 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 want charity or conscience money.

Western NGOS and their Southern counterparts should take a fresh look at their role in this whole process and how they can pressure their governments to make the consumers of products of child labour pay, through fiscal measures, the full social costs of their consumption. This is especially true of agricultural products, the sector which employs the largest number of children in countries like India. The next thing to do would be to work out mechanisms to transfer the money so recovered to the Southern countries, in a transparent manner, so that the goal of universal education can be achieved.

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