3 Mar 2012

INDIA / CHILD LABOUR

The Right to Education Act passed in 2010 says that all children in India between six to 14 years of age are guaranteed elementary education. For many poor children, however, school remains out of reach. More than 14,000 girls and boys living in 101 slums of Moradabad were found to be not in school, putting them at risk for being drawn into labour. UNICEF

Posted at: March 3, 2012 12:02 am

Duration: 05:05

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STORY: INDIA / CHILD LABOUR
TRT:  5.06
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /HINDI / NATS

DATELINE: 1 FEBRUARY 2012, MORADABAD, INDIA

SHOTLIST:

1. Various shots, Nagma walking into school with her girlfriends
2. Various shots, girls attending school
3. Various shots, city scenes
4. Various shots, Nagma attending an adolescents meeting
5. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Nagma, student:
"I would like to tell all parents don't let your children work instead made them study like I am studying. I want to become successful and so should your children so that tomorrow they become your support."
6. Various shots, Anasat home with his family
7. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Anas, student:
"He wants to be a doctor because his grandfather is ill."
8. Various shots, workers in city
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Adele Khudr, Chief of Field Office, Uttar Pradesh, UNICEF:
"The concentration of wealth in urban areas hides the ugly face of urban poverty. Children of the urban poor are more exposed to violence and exploitation. To protect them we need to ensure that they are in school and that their potential is fully realized. The Right to Education Act adopted by India in 2010 provides the right framework for this to happen." 
10. Various shots, Nagma leaving school

STORYLINE:

Fifteen-year-old Nagma is back in school now, learning and laughing with friends.

But two years ago, there was little laughter in her life.

This spirited girl who loves to read, and does it very well, spent six hours a day sewing decorative beads onto fabrics instead of learning. Her earnings, less than a dollar a day, were needed to help her family scrape by.

In Moradabad, a bustling city of 900,000 people in Uttar Pradesh, a Child Rights Project, supported by UNICEF and funded by Ikea Foundation, is making the Act a reality for poor children, like Nagma.

Urban life, in megacities like Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, and smaller cities like Moradabad, now dominates the globe. Over half the world's people live in cities and large towns, including more than a billion children. In India, nearly 370 million people live in urban areas.

Cities are magnets, but their promise of a better life is rarely kept for the estimated 97 million who live in urban poverty in India. Life in overcrowded and unsanitary urban slums is especially dangerous for children's health, development and welfare.

More than 14,000 girls and boys living in 101 slums of Moradabad were found to be not in school, and so at high risk for being drawn into labour. More than 12,000 of the children have been reached by the project, including Nagma, and are now studying.

The Project also reaches poor families and children, with critical lessons on health, hygiene, education and protection through community mobilization groups.

Nagma is an active member of one of these groups. One message she never tires of sharing, with friends and across her community, is that families should keep their children in school, for the good of the family as well as the good of the child.

SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Nagma, student:
"I would like to tell all parents don't let your children work instead made them study like I am studying. I want to become successful and so should your children so that tomorrow they become your support."

From the ages of eight to ten, Anas spent ten hours a day, six days a week, fanning the furnace fire in a smoke-filled workshop in a Moradabad slum, where metals were melted down and moulded. He earned less than a quarter of a dollar a day.

Anas carries with him a reminder of the dangers in such arduous work:  His foot is scarred where molten metal burned it.

Now he is 11 years old, out of the workshop and doing well in school, another beneficiary of India's Right to Education Act and the UNICEF-supported Child Rights Project.

Like any child, Anas enjoys playing. But concerns that led him into labour still seem to haunt him. His grandfather is ill and in need of costly medicines, which the family struggles to buy on earnings of approximately (USD) $60 a month. So Anas plans to become a doctor, to help his grandfather get better.

SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Anas, student and child labourer:
"He wants to be a doctor because his grandfather is ill."

Moradabad is renowned for its decorative brassware and metalwork, attracting workers who find both employment and lodging in the city's grim slum areas.

Manufacturing may thrive here, but it's a congested and hostile environment for children.

Open drains line the crowded alleys, and the air is polluted by engine exhaust, soot, metal dust and the coal-fuelled furnaces of the workshops.

School is an oasis in the chaos, and without it to define their days and touch their imaginations, children are easily drawn into labour.

SOUNDBITE (English) Adele Khudr, Chief of Field Office, Uttar Pradesh, UNICEF:
"The concentration of wealth in urban areas hides the ugly face of urban poverty. Children of the urban poor are more exposed to violence and exploitation. To protect them we need to ensure that they are in school and that their potential is fully realized. The Right to Education Act adopted by India in 2010 provides the right framework for this to happen."

Back in Nagma's school, another day draws to an end, but for the teenager it's the beginning, of a life free of labour and time finally to enjoy childhood once again.