US embassy cable - 05MUMBAI2192

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MUMBAI 002192 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR DRL/IL, G/TIP, INL AND SA/INS 
DOL FOR ILAB: ROWEN, MEUGENIO, MMITTELHAUSER, SHALEY 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB, PHUM, ECON, KCRM, KWMN, EAID, IN, Child Labor 
SUBJECT: DO NO HARM? THE FIGHT AGAINST CHILD LABOR IN MAHARASHTRA 
 
REF: MUMBAI 2093 
 
SUMMARY 
-------- 
 
1. (U) Following the rescue of thousands of underage children 
from Mumbai workshops (reftel), some child welfare activists 
debate whether the children are now better or worse off.  The 
Government of Maharashtra's (GOM) program "Education For All" 
attempts to address gaps in educational facilities, but primary 
schools for all children aged 6-14 are not yet available 
throughout the state.  Some politicians and social workers 
advocate children learning a marketable trade in workshops along 
with traditional schooling. All of our interlocutors argued, 
however, that workshop conditions must be radically improved. 
Others demand all children under 15 stop any type of employment 
while using National Child Labor Projects and other NGO programs 
to try to provide them an education.  The GOM intends to enforce 
current labor laws to bar employment for children under 15. 
However, given the current lack of educational opportunities for 
many child laborers, opinions in Mumbai differ on the best way 
to help the targeted children.  End Summary. 
 
What Happens to Rescued Children? 
--------------------------------- 
 
2. (U) Between June and September over 16,000 child laborers 
were freed from workshops in Mumbai and sent to their homes. 
The GOM Ministry of Industries, Education and Labor estimated 
that 98 percent of the children hailed from poorer regions of 
India such as Bihar, West Bengal, and Orissa.  Although social 
activists in Mumbai advocate an ultimate goal of universal 
primary education for all children aged 6-14, all admit that 
this will take time.  Some of the children sent home from Mumbai 
have become beneficiaries of NGO-sponsored assistance programs 
(reftel), but current needs outweigh available funds.  Some of 
our interlocutors fear that a significant portion of the freed 
children will face a life of poverty without education at home, 
will return to uncontrolled sweatshops or become street 
children. 
 
Education for All? 
------------------- 
 
3. (U) The GOM recognizes that ultimately parents must have 
alternatives for their children in their home villages if child 
labor is ever to be tackled at its roots.  Attitudes towards 
child labor, which many poorer groups of Indian society see as 
vocational training, must change, and parents must see that 
primary education at home is a viable option to sending their 
children to Mumbai or elsewhere to work.  A GOM and Government 
of India (GOI) sponsored program Maharashtra Prathamik Shikshan 
Parishad (Education for All) aims to provide a quality education 
for all children in the state by 2010.  The GOM covers 25 
percent and the GOI 75 percent of the program's 820 million 
rupee (about $18 million) budget.  Education for All provides 
teacher training and covers the cost of books, school materials 
and volunteer teacher salaries.  Under the primary and upper 
primary guarantee scheme, a volunteer teacher can offer classes 
wherever needed in urban areas.  Local school authorities 
oversee the quality of these programs that run for 2-3 years 
until children can be mainstreamed into public schools.  In 
rural villages the head of the local council can request that a 
volunteer open a school provided there are a minimum of 15 
children and the village provides space.  In isolated areas, 
Education for All will fund school supplies and a volunteer 
teacher salary of 300-500 rupees (about $7-11) per month for as 
few as one child lacking a nearby school. 
 
4. (U) Bhau Gawande, State Project Coordinator for "Education 
for All" is confident the state government will be able to offer 
a primary school education to almost all children in Maharashtra 
by 2010.  He considers any child out of school to be a child 
laborer in some capacity even if only working at home.  He 
claims the project helped enroll 300,000 children to date in 
primary schools, and is still targeting a remaining 150,000 
children in Maharashtra.  He regrets that social forces and 
resource constraints will prevent some learning disabled and 
migrant children from benefiting from the project.  He also 
laments the lack of significant penalties to compel parents to 
send children to school, citing an old law from the 1950s 
setting a fine for this at 1 rupee (about 2 cents).  Nilima 
Mehta of the Child Welfare Committee agrees that all children 
under 15 must be in school.  She lauds the GOM's interpretation 
of the 93rd Constitutional Amendment for free and compulsory 
education to all children under 15 to mean that no child of that 
age can be in an industrial training setting.  "He has to be in 
school and not in a workshop and that is non-negotiable," Mehta 
told us. 
 
Training without Exploitation? 
------------------------------ 
 
5. (SBU) Some child welfare activists advocate the creation of a 
better monitoring system to allow younger children to learn a 
marketable skill under humane working conditions.  They feel 
that removing children from the skilled trades without providing 
universal primary education will "take them out of the frying 
pan and into the fire."  Nitin Kadam, a social activist with the 
National Congress Party (NCP) from a south Mumbai district with 
high concentrations of child laborers, feels that many of the 
children rescued in the recent raids are now worse off 
economically than before the raids.   Many impoverished parents 
cannot provide for their children until age 15, Kadam argued, so 
they send them at a young age to workshops to learn a trade. 
After 2-3 years of training and low-paid work, many become 
journeymen earning about 2,000-3,000 rupees (about $44-67) per 
month, well above their earning potential in their home 
villages.  Kadam suggests allowing underage children to work as 
apprentices in non-hazardous industries.  A government office or 
NGO should register the working children, and ensure that the 
children get humane living and working conditions and receive an 
education.  Kadam insisted that universal primary education for 
all children must be the goal, but argued that India is still a 
generation away from that goal.  Until then a temporary solution 
must be found for children with no hope of a formal education to 
make a decent living, Kadam told us. 
 
6. (SBU) Bhagawan Sahay, Maharashtra State Minister for 
Industries, Labor and Energy also raised the fate of rescued 
children in his conversation with us.  He hopes to convene a 
conference in January next year to focus on the current legal 
and rehabilitation framework for child labor.  The conference 
goal would be to create a road map to amend existing laws, 
improve enforcement mechanisms, or provide more vocational 
training options, whatever is deemed to guarantee the best end 
result for the children.  He alluded to Mahatma Gandhi's idea of 
the "New Curriculum" in which children were taught a trade along 
with formal education to ensure their livelihoods.  However, 
Sahay insists the government will continue to remove children 
under 15 from hazardous labor.  He also praised the joint 
USDOL-GOI funded INDUS project which helped set up special 
schools to in suburban Mumbai and rural districts of 
Maharashtra.  Vipula Kadri, National Director for Save the 
Children India, wishes to see a rehabilitation of Mumbai's once 
extensive series of over 700 night schools where working youth 
were able to get a formal education.  A lack of funds and 
difficulty recruiting teachers has decimated this educational 
option for working children, Kadri told us. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
7. (SBU) The drive to eliminate child labor in Maharashtra is 
underway on several fronts.  Recent successes in removing 
underage children from child labor in hazardous industries are 
being complemented by improvements in education.  Programs such 
as "Education for All" will help guarantee primary schooling for 
increasing numbers of children in Maharashtra in the coming 
years.  USDOL, GOI and other NGO-sponsored aid programs in 
poorer source districts will continue to provide alternatives to 
sweatshop labor for former child laborers as well.  The lasting 
impact of all such programs, however, will depend heavily on 
continued funding and an institutionalization of the political 
will that the GOM is clearly demonstrating at present.  End 
Comment. 
OWEN