My conversations with a working child

I pass by Gandhi Bazaar[1], a busy area bustling with flower sellers, people selling food on pushcarts and roadside stalls, small fruits and vegetable vendors and lots of shops, filled with people, almost all the time. Occasionally, I buy flowers from a little girl, who is engrossed in stringing the jasmine flowers and sells it to people in a small bamboo basket. I have seen a lot of children in this area, helping their mothers string the flowers, while also tending to their young ones. Sometimes during the winters, it is a really sad sight to see the children unclothed and fast asleep or playing in a corner near the mother while she sold the flowers!

For a while, the flower sellers association had restricted the selling of flowers from small vendors as they sold at a cheaper price and this was affecting the business of other medium and large scale vendors in Gandhi Bazaar. This led to the disappearance of many of these small vendors over a period of time. However, despite the rule, I usually see this one girl (never asked her name), seated in a corner where I usually pass by, where she strings these flowers and sell them to people at a mere Rs. 10 per meter of flowers. I buy flowers from her and don’t miss an opportunity to have a little chat with her, when she is free. She is a sweet girl and is quite good with how she interacts with people!

She speaks Tamil and I have managed to have some conversation with her in my broken Tamil. Upon speaking to her a couple of times, I learnt that she knew Kannada. I once asked her which school she went to and how she performed in her exams. She said’ “I go to school just a kilometer away from here. I study in 8^th standard. I did well in my exams, akka[2]!” When I asked her about her examination results, she said, “I passed, akka!”

Recently I spoke to her again and asked her why she didn’t sell roses, along with the stringed jasmine, because that’s usually the practice of flower vendors in the markets in Gandhi Bazaar. This is what she said to me, “Gandhi Bazaar people don’t allow me to do this. I am somehow managing to do this. How can I leave this akka? I make at least Rs. 1000 everyday. If I sit at home, it is so boring. At least I can spend time doing this!” The child’s maturity was really amazing! She was fearless and spoke to me very confidently when she said that. She seemed really happy with the work that she was doing and made money, and helped her family.

Children work for reasons best known to them. It is really easy to comment as an outsider that children should not work and be in school. I am not sure if she was honest with me about going to school, but why should she be? Who am I to question the choice of the girl, without understanding why she made the choice of working? The girl probably comes across all kinds of people who tell her different things. Some people question why she works, telling her not to work and go to school; or worse, scare her that the police might come and take her away; some people just don’t care and there are others like me, who want to probe her to increase their understanding of why children work. Despite all this, she still continues to work! Have we ever wondered why she works, before saying that she should not work?

I have learnt that child labour is not an independent problem in itself. It arises from a set of conditions that necessitate its inception. Child labour is the result of poverty, which is the result of adaptation of skewed ideas of development, being influenced by the Western notion of development. Without having addressed the root causes that give rise to the problem, we cannot hope to solve the problem of child labour. The solution to child labour begins with a deep analysis of the problem. Without having understood the complexities of the problems, the solutions that are devised to address the issue will not work.

The dominant reaction to this situation is, guess what? Raid and rescue the child, because we think that the child should not be working and that the child should be in school. But did we think once, before we passed our judgments on what the child should or should not be doing, what the child has to say in this case? Did we even begin with thinking if it really does any good to the girl? From my experience in working with CWC[3] and talking to working children, I know that the raid and rescue approach has not worked with working children because the way it has worked so far has only managed to traumatize children and push them into far more worse conditions that they were in before being raided and rescued! Do we really think about the problem and solution before we agree and sign up for it?

So coming back to the example of the child, what would have happened to the child, if she were to be raided and rescued? The child would be traumatized and punished for trying to help her family and because she liked doing it and earn a little money from it. Did the child need someone to come and ‘raid and rescue’ her? Without understanding the reason behind the choice made by the child, how can we impose our ideas on the child? And while we did that, say with a good intention to help the child, did we care enough to understand that if it will really help the child? One need to ask these questions to oneself before saying children should not work, children should be in schools, and working children should be raided and rescued and so on because even with a good intention, one can harm the best interests of the child. So before taking any decisions for a working child, we need to consider what the child might have to say for him/herself because it is critical if one considers helping a working child.

When we intend to help others, the basic ethic should be to listen to others and understand best in their words, how they would like to be helped. Judgmental attitude is a barrier, through which a lot of essential information is lost, which prevents us from effectively understanding a situation and acting upon it, in order to help and support someone. Listening to the children simply does not mean listening to them, but to understand what they say, what it tells about them and what kind of support they might require. So the next time you see a child working, think about what might happen if you do something that takes away the rights of the child, is detrimental to the best interest of the child and think, question and find out if what you are doing really puts the child in a better off position.  

‪#‎workingchildren are NOT the problem but part of the solution. They must participate in the ‪#‎childlabour debate. Let us not be ‪#‎antichild!

To understand the nuances of the child labour debate, please follow the campaign:

http://www.concernedforworkingchildren.org/news/2015/05/are-you-antichildlabour-or-antichild/

http://www.concernedforworkingchildren.org/publications/newsletters/cwc-newsletter-issue-05-june-2015/

https://www.facebook.com/workingchildren?ref=tn_tnmn

https://twitter.com/workingchildren

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[1] Gandhi Bazaar is a commercial area in Bangalore South.

[2] Akka is a word is Kannada used to address one’s elder sister, or used for older women, with affection.

[3] The Concerned for Working Children (CWC) is a not-for-profit secular, democratic development agency based in Bengaluru, India. It works on the issue of working children and their needs, children’s rights, particularly children’s right to self determination.