Abolition of Child Labour, Amaravathi

Background

Good Shepherd Sisters have been working in 23 villages of Amaravathi Mandal in Guntur District for more than 13 years. Most of the people living in these villages are agricultural labourers. Their daily income is so low and so insufficient to provide for their families that family life, health and more especially the children’s education is affected. Many children go and help their parents in the fields to supplement the family earnings rather than going to school. In 2005, the Sisters of Good Shepherd, in Amaravathi, identified  nearly 1,600 children who did not attend school and lived in difficult family situations. The Sisters began a program to address the implementation of what is actually a law in India and that is the Abolition of Child Labour. The years between 2004 and 2007 saw a dramatic increase in school attendance and a decrease in children working in the fields. The program has generated a level of awareness and motivation among the parents, the children, and the community. In 2007 the staff working with the Sisters of the Good Shepherd conducted a house to house survey in 20 of the villages of Amaravathi Mandal to assess the current situation. The survey results found that 692 children are still not attending school. Factors for this are their poor socio-economic situation, and the long standing political context of non-implementation of the law. 

Problem

Andhra Pradesh has the largest number of child labour after Uttar Pradesh as per 2001 Census. A majority of the working children are girls (source India Development Gateway). In 20 villages surrounding Amaravathi, the female literacy rate is 48.16%. Education is not a priority among the population for the following reasons:

• The parents are illiterate and think that educating a girl is pointless;
• The mentality states that the role of the girl/female is to stay at home, do the domestic chores, and look after the younger siblings;
• In the Dalit community, girls are merely objects for their parents or their husbands;
• Girls are forced to marry when very young as this saves her family money (dowry issues). 

90% of the working children work in rural areas as agricultural labourers, other ones work in nearby towns in factories or in hotels. They work long hours, are forced to carry heavy loads beyond their fragile growing frame;  they are exposed to harmful pesticides in the fields; and they are paid only 30 – 40 Rupees a day ( 62 to 82 $cents per day). As education is a very low priority in the villages, there are few schools and few teachers. These teachers come from outside of the village. They lack motivation and are not interested in the children’s education.  

Objectives

The Sisters of the Good Shepherd and staff have organised committees in these villages with the objective of fighting child labour on the local level. The purpose of the program is to prevent child exploitation of the working children and get them back to school.  

The specific objectives are:

• To give a high degree of  independence to each committee so that they can act quickly;
• To advise the committee members of all existing Acts, Laws and Schemes elaborated by the Indian Government and Child Rights Protection Forum;
• To enrol most of the 692 children of the 20 villages of the Amaravathi Mandal in schools and hostels;
• To create support groups with a facilitator and a councillor to help 50 families with alcohol addiction problems;
• To upgrade 10 schools in the villages so that the Community will be able to benefit from them;
• To create and strengthen Child Rights Protection Committees in each village so that they slowly take on the responsibility of sustaining the initiatives into the future, with the view of ensuring the rights of the children.
• To empower the Child Rights Protection Committee to approach the appropriate people, departments, in their work for the rights of children. 

Activities:

• To create Residential Bridge Schools for these child labourers so as to enable them to be mainstreamed into the regular schools;
• To offer expert help for the training and strengthening of the Child Right Protection Committees in the villages to enable capacity building of the staff and the community.
• To motivate and mobilize the people about the importance of education by exposing them to their tradition and culture through dramatization (e.g. the street play as a vehicle of consciousness raising).
• To train the Children Rights Protection Forum, at the local level, to function as the point of the service delivery system where the children’s rights are key.
• To ensure that this Forum will have access to the international, national, state and village level mechanisms to promote the rights of the children.
• To strengthen and extend the Children’s Parliament to all 20 villages since this forum has easy access to the child labourer with its child-to-child friendly approach.
• To ensure sustainability, through lobbying and advocacy related activities;
• To create a lasting impact on the children by their ownership of these important policies and programs;
• To organize seminars in these communities to ensure that the people know about the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme of Andhra Pradesh and Employment Guarantee Scheme. 

Expectations for the Future:

• The village communities will be sensitized to preventing children from working;
• Within a 2 year period all working children in the Mandal will be removed from environments where they experience exploitation and abuse and appropriate alternatives will be provided;
• The targeted children will be protected and will be  in regular residential schools. 

The Good Shepherd Sisters give special thanks to the following donors for their generosity in helping to fund this project: Harry Fraser Volunteers and Charity Foundation (U.S.A.)