Opinion Articles

OPINION ARTICLE: Lost childhoods restored to stolen workers
By Suman

Do you know that 250 million children, world wide, are being exploited as child labourers?

Do you know that 60 million children in India are engaged in fulltime employment?

And do you know that 75 million adults in India are unemployed?

You may be thinking that if the adults took the positions held by children, there would be a significant impact on the unemployment problem, and you would be right.

However, India is a complex country with a population of over one billion people. This mass of people includes the desperately poor and the very wealthy, often living side by side in a way that would not happen in Australia . It is cheaper to use child labour than to employ the parents of those children, and there are few laws to regulate the so-called ‘employment' of young people.

I am in Australia to talk about the ‘stolen children' of India - the boys and girls who have been taken from rural villages to work for minimal wages and under conditions that defy human rights charters. Their parents are fed a rosy dream of a good education and job skills for their children, so they allow them to be taken. When they realise that their children may never return, it is too late.

I am one of the founders, and the current Convenor, of SACCS, the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude, founded in the late 1980s. Over 700 Coalition member organisations are working to eliminate child labour in the world. To date, SACCS has rescued over 75,000 children, but there are millions more in need of rescue, rehabilitation and empowerment. After their rescue, many children come to Mukti Ashram which is a place of healing and hope in New Delhi, or to other rehabilitation centres. Mukti Ashram focuses on restoring stolen childhoods and then returning children to their families and communities.

Over the years, I have established partnerships with a number of groups in Australia, including the Catholic Schools Office in the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle. Study tours led by Director of Schools Wayne Tinsey have enabled teachers and students to visit India.

I was fortunate to be born into a family that valued education and had the resources to provide it, and I have chosen, since my college years, to do all I can to offer this fundamental human right to as many children as possible.

To learn more, please email muktisaccs@yahoo.com or childrenspeek@yahoo.com

I am visiting the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle as part of an Australian awareness-raising mission.

Many of the victims of child labour practices are from low castes or tribal groups. In India one's surname usually indicates what caste a person is from. As an act of solidarity with the children, I choose not to use my surname.

Suman
Suman is one of the founders, and the current Convenor, of SACCS, the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude.