I am a jewellery manufacturer and new to the world of Blogging. I want to understand the reason for a ban on child labour specially in the jewellery industry.
From olden days there used to be a system of Gurukul where the children were sent to live with the guru and for many years live and learn various aspects of life and also get educated and learnt some or the other trade. Children of kings and warriors would learn the art of warfare while children of brahmins would learn about the shastras and mantras etc. With the advent of formal education this system lost out and presently is almost non extinct.
Presently the Government has banned child labour and i am an absolute firm believer that this is absolutely correct and perfect regulation and children should not be made to slave and work in subhuman conditions therby stunting their overall growth. Although let us accept that the government has done meager little for providing effective primary education at the village level and forget about secondary and higher education the general scenario is rather grim. In the absence of basic ammenities like education and primary health care what will a child for example in rural bengal learn or where does his future take him will he remain an uneducated and unskilled labourer all his life.
Please understand that we are studying an example of poor peasants who just cannot afford any sort of paid education and are solely dependent on the facilities granted by the government.
What does the parent who has dreams of seeing their child get education or atleast get some skill to enable him/her to earn more then they ever earned in their life. in the present scenario they can probably just fret and frown and watch their dreams slip out of their hands cause there is no education available at their village level and ofcourse they cannot afford to send their child to the town nor can they afford training etc for them. They just wait for the next natural disaster to probably end their life (sic!!! but they are probably too proud to end their lives in sucide).
They cannot even send their child to Mumbai to learn the art of making jewellery lest their child gets arrested by over zealous policeman who will follow the book to the "T" in case of this young child labourer.
Now please explain to me all you educated, socially aware, Human right Activists, and the so called learned fraternity what does the parent in that small Bengal village do.
Why cant his quest for eduacation i.e learning a trade be treated as education why should it be termed child labour. Is there any other option available to the child?? Is there any facility provided by the government who has imposed a ban on his education (it may be primitive, but are their lives in the village not primitive) say to learn or become effectively skilled??
And please trust me when i say that this is education, i belong to the jewellery community and am in close contact with various gold smiths (Babus) none of them ever brings any child or employs any child in his workshop to take advantage of the child all of them without exception employ or rather take the child on board only so that one day maybe in about 3 to 4 years he becomes a trained and fully skilled goldsmith earning atleast about 10000/- pm. With some entrepenual skills he may even become the next Babu and start earning as high as the sky.
Some times i get a Backache and the highly placed super specialist in my neighbourhood super speciality hospital advices me to sleep on the floor "Go back to your roots" he advices me and viola my Backache is cured. Do we need to sometimes in certain aspects go back to the primitive if its going to cure us of some aches. Turn your view point on its head and think but please lie on the floor close to mother earth and THINK.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
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Thank you for your comment on my blog. I've read your argument and I agree that you have more of an insider view than I do. In a perfect world a child would have access to a more varied education rather than being funneled at such a young age into a single profession. Giving these children just one option for their future may turn out not to benefit them in the long run. The jewelry industry is always changing, look at all the diamond cutters in Surat suddenly out of work.
ReplyDeleteI believe in apprenticeship and in vocational training but starting these children off at an early age in situations that may be dangerous to their health (using chemicals, straining their eyes over long hours of work) is not what's best for any country in the long run. I wonder if there is a way to balance this out so children get both a varied and a specific education.