What a contrast? Where we all are going gaga over how India has progressed since 1990's economic liberlization. Yes indeed we have moved on and made progress. But still there is large chunk of population that is still to get its due opportunity of decent life.
The Hindu in its Sep 23 edition carries a news item reporting detection of bonded labour in right in the backyard of our Namma Bengaluru.
Courtsey - The Hindu - 77 labourers rescued from brick kiln units
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Bangalore/article791021.ece
"...Four-year-old Martin twists his tiny hands to demonstrate how he used to flip bricks that were laid out to dry in the kiln in which he and four other members of his family were employed in Rajanakunte police station limits at Yelahanka here.
His father, Peelaram, had been promised an advance and asked to relocate his family from a village in Bolangir district of Orissa to work in the kiln. “But the sardar [middleman] never gave us the money, and my family was working for Rs. 300 a week,” he told The Hindu, as he waited to give his testimony at the office of the Bangalore (Urban) Assistant Commissioner on Thursday. He said the family together produced 6,000 bricks in a week. Besides Martin, Peelaram's two older children, both school dropouts, and wife worked with him ..."
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This is Pathetic state
NIce Post Syed
ITs heartening to see this happening even in our so called modernizing city of Bengaluru. I hope we can all make a difference by bringing in a change in the lives of these people with a minimum wages rule and if not followed concerned people be put behind bars. OR take away their rights to construct (in this case) or get their projects executed in general.
Bangalore is the Mumbai of yester years..
Like ppl flocked into mumbai to work in the mills from all over India..now labourers come into blr from all places..
Typically the spread is as below:
Private Security - Orissa, Nepal
Carpentry - Bihar
Low scale construction - North Karnataka
Mix of most North Indian states - Infra projects including housing
It is just that these folks in the press report landed in the wrong place for a job..and they complained as they saw their fellow state ppl making a decent 4-5K every month..btw even the photo above has ppl well fed and adequately clothed.
So Syed think its a one off case being blown out of proportions by press..dont worry!
We can ignore it at our own peril!
Srinidhi,
The story could have been media activism and even could be a fabricated one. But you and me know in our hearts that this practice of bonded labor in many forms is not a imagination of somebody. It existed before in open and exists now may be behind close doors. Isn't it?
The reason I posted this story is to look into the issue beyond the bonded labor symptoms. Basic question to be ask is why do people from rural areas are migrating to urban areas? Failure of agri economy in sustaining the rural life? Did we failed in providing basic life to the ordinary souls living in villages?
bonded labour
ssheragu
Syed's information from THE HINDU is heart rending
1. It is such a retched sight to see small children and old people working in unhygeinic & dangerous areas when basically their employment itself is prohibited by law; even grown ups of workable age work without basic amenties and proper compensation / protection;
2. further even now we see in many households small chidren and grown ups being employed as domestic helps; quite a few of these cases are of a typical pattern where, young children and senior people are brought from the native place of the householder and made to work 7 days a week in the house by providing three meals and a paltry sum as salary; the housholder does not realise that the servant is denied his baisc right to education (if the servant is a child) or the servant is made to work without any rules & regulaions (if the servant is grown up), as I do not think any law permits employment for 7 days a week and to be at the beck & call of the householder for 24 hours a day
3. one root cause of all this is that the offender goes unpunished; one way to avoid could be as follows; it should be compulsory for any construction company, business establishment, agency etc. to annouce and put up a board that NO CHILD LABOUR is employed; then public should be encouraged to report any employment of child labour in these places by proper reward; in the case of households, TV / newspaper advts. etc. could be used to prohibit householders from employing children as domestic helps and to prevent / discourage householders from employing grown ups as domestic helps without any rules & regulations
many thanks
Srinath Heragu