My views on Child labour:
Child Labour: I have seen this phrase very commonly mentioned each time Diwali is around by some so called individuals who pride themselves by not bursting crackers saying they are doing this to show their anger or emotion agains child labour.
Now, I have seen this and i have did this plenty of times. Couple fo times while I was in school I had also signed this so called Child labour things and have not bursted crackers which I found very later that do nothing against these things.
Now again the topic had come back to haunt me and I recall one incident or correlated incidents which made me change my ideas on child labour.
My profession is Granite export and at times in factories I have seen guys aged 10 or 11 doing work. I have also mentioned to the owners that this is against law and he should not work over here but study. Because of my dad's links once I had the opportunity to goto a Cracker manufacturing unit in Sivakasi. Its a mid sized unit with exports and so the owner had employed all kinds of labourers including Child labourers. I had the opportunity to chat with him in the evening at his house.
I slowly discussed the child labour found in his firm and told him this is against law and human nature and blah. He listened intently and then put forth his part of the deal.
Brother, I don't intend to have child labour in my company but yes I do the same for economical reasons. Many here if removed from work would find it hard to have a good meal which I could promise them in my capacity atleast once in a day. I also do help some relatively good students who come here to work for various reasons to study. Mostly, many here don't ask them to come and take up these jobs but there are always negative thoughts and masked faces too. I am not supporting them but the truth is we are helping them live.
Ya you can say they should goto school, study and have better living but if they could afford all these they won't be working here. No one is forced to work here. Many do care about them. The movies, the society and those people who play the social service trump cards and the communists play this effectively and pictorise as if we are doing a big wrong. But in reality it is a different thing. Atleast most of the guys and gals here turn on to be responsible citizens because they work and earn and keep their mindset on work but in reality if you goto school and study its a good possibility their poor surroundings and helplessness lead to self pity and self destruction. Especially in our area it is rampant. And for those communists who talk about all tehse here should go and have a look at China. Their the labourers are under paid and work for 12 hours a day 7 days a week withotu holiday with their lunch next to their machine or table. (My dad has also told me this plenty of times which according to him helps keep the Chinese production cost very much below our norms)
I am not trying to justify the child labour as such but I am talking about the other side. There is also a good side. Atleast 75% to 80% of these men adn women will grow on to be responsible citizens. Atleast one in a hundred may make it fairly well. I blame it on the society to wrongly point out fingers without knowing the entire fact. Many people over here pay their employees good salary ranging from hundred to hundred and ten a day to start with. Why does the good deeds of us dont get a mention is somethign which I don't understand. You are welcome to visit my unit to ascertain these facts. And last but not the least I have two sons and a daughter all below 20 and all those who work are like my children.
I left his home with a heavy heart. We all look at this cracker units at a negative way. Though not all are bad some are really bad too. We always get hyped about certain things and get into a kind of small circle where the realities are shut from our eyes. I didn't goto his factory to ascertain these facts then but I did have the opportunity to visit a year later where I found to my dismay what he mentioned was indeed right. Many a men and women there have many a sad stories to tell. Many are forced to work because of various other factors.
I asked one guy if he wanted to study and his reply was will ur studies make me eat well tonight? I don't know. Our buying of crackers in large numbers does make atleast some families happy. I bought 15 gift packs for my official employees adn friends and brought it back with me. Not because the owner is my dad's friend but because I know the young guy over there will have a happier Diwali this time.
Sometimes, the distant greeny tomorrow is much more distant and a big dream than the present dark today. Its better if we learn to live and move on rather than thinking and saying to others Tomorrow will be green.
At times Truth is stranger than fiction.
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3 comments:
some serious writing hmm.. prasie way to go
Hai Machang,
Interesting Take on it - I agree with you.
As for Deepavalai ;-) I don't celebrate it.
Hi,
Interesting perspective. I have a slightly different take on this because what you said is exactly what most people who employ child labour would say - that they are helping the kids earn two square meals a day and that without this work, they would starve.
I feel that the employers could employ the elders in the family with such salaries that the young ones do not have to work. The problem my friend is that in India we do not want to pay adequate salaries - salaries that will suffice to sustain families. We will earn several tens of thousands in a month, but when it comes to our maid servant who puts in 2-3 hours of back breaking work every day, we want it to be done for Rs. 500 to Rs. 700. If the parents were to earn enough to feed their children, do you think the children would be required to work? There would be a few cases where the either or both parents have abandoned the child or are alcoholics/drug addicts. In such cases, the children are to be taken care of in an orphanage run by the taxes that we pay to the government. As for us tax payers, we should ensure that this happens and the money is not siphoned off to some greedy politicians pockets. Buying crackers as a means to sustain these children is a very shallow attitude towards society - it is as good as shirking off our responsibility.
As for the cost of manufacturing, if it goes up due to higher salaries being given to employees, then pass on the cost to the customer. If that is what it takes to manufacture a product, then the customers should pay for it. Do we grumble when the petrol prices are hiked due to rise in production costs? So why should we grumble if the cost of the crackers go up? Also, it could mean that the employers may have to forego a part of their profit margin in order to remain competitive against the cheaper chinese imports. And just because they exploit labour in China doesn't mean that we do the same here - communists or no communists!
As for me, I do not burst crackers due to the noise they make and the pollution they create, both of which cause enormous trauma to the senior citizens and the babies. If there were to be crackers without sound and which spew out less smoke, I'd be happy to burst a few of them.
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