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| Exploitation in the name of studies | | | Vaibhavi Chandel
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU Feb 18: While the voluntary organizations keep organizing seminars and giving television talks, those indulging in this menace are mocking over the law and the so-called champions of child welfare by exploiting the children to the hilt.
Notwithstanding the laws in force on prevention of child labour and the initiatives being taken by various social and non governmental organizations on creating awareness among the people against this growing menace, exploitation of children, in one form or the other continues unabated.
The menace is more pronounced in the remote and far flung areas of the Jammu region, as may be in other areas as well, where children driven by poverty are made or coerced to do jobs from domestic help to street vendors. But, the situation takes alarming turn when such a practice is encouraged and perpetrated by the government agencies.
What an irony that instead of learning basic education, children are learning the techniques of unskilled labour. When India is talking about super computers and technology exchange with the developed countries, hapless students in a remote district of Rajouri, on the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan, have to take the load of wheat and rice under the mid day meal scheme meant for school children.
This is a regular exercise these students undertake to offload the grains in the store that shares its wall with the office of the Chief Education Officer (CEO) of Rajouri district.
On the condition of anonymity, parents of several children confirmed their wards being made to unload and carry the wheat or rice bags to school stores for providing the mid day meals under the centrally sponsored programme. “This is not acceptable but what can we do, we are helpless”, observed a parent.
However, the school austerities feigned ignorance over the issue saying that there was no such activity on the premises of the school.
“I have never seen children picking up the bags of wheat and rice
meant for them under the mid day meal”says a school teacher.. He said
that there are around 160 students in the school,"he adds.
“Teachers themselves unload the truck and take the bags to the store room” he adds.
On the other hand a legal expert, Rinku Sharma, who has also done tremendous work on ecological issues in the state says that there is a provision of three years imprisonment for the people who use children for labour. “There are various provisions under the Child Labour Act in Jammu and Kashmir to prevent misuse of children, but in this particular case it seems as if the teachers have thrown the law to the winds. Under the law strict action could be taken against the teachers
of the school” said Sharma.
In 2009 there was an alleged scam in the mid day meal scheme in Rajouri district. After the reports of scam, the Vigilance Department conducted raids on 70 schools across the district. Authorities of more than 35 schools in Rajouri had complained that they did not receive rations meant for the scheme for six months. Meanwhile this is not the condition of only one school in the state
but in Kathua, Poonch and Doda districts of Jammu, there are reports of many schools where teachers use the students as domestic help in their homes.
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