Dear all
Five years ago I had covered this story on child migration of western Odisha in The Pioneer.Posting it here for perusal of all
================================
Five years ago I had covered this story on child migration of western Odisha in The Pioneer.Posting it here for perusal of all
================================
Distress
migration afflicts Odisha’s child labourers
Dear All
I had covered
this story in the Pioneer in NOV 15 ,2010.Today I am posting it again forthe
perusalof all
Yours
SudhirMishra/Pioneer/Balangir
=============================================================
BHUBANESWAR | Monday, November 15,
2010 | Email | Print | | Back
Distress migration afflicts
Odisha’s child labourers
November 15, 2010 10:40:54 AM
SUDHIR MISHRA |
BALANGIR
Even as the entire nation observed the Children’s
Day on Sunday, sending the message that a child is the future of the
nation and need to be nurtured and grown properly, hundreds of children from
western Odisha migrated with their parents to work in inhuman conditions for
prolonged hours in the brick kilns and in other spheres in Andhra Pradesh,
Tamil Nadu and other States.
“I have no other option but to migrate with my
parents due to poverty and food insecurity and my parents cannot afford my
education,” said Tapaswini Parta of Talijuri village after returning from
Andhra Pradesh in June.
Every year, around 40,000 children migrate from the
district alone, help their parents in the brick kilns, perform all sorts of
hazardous works living in perilous conditions and facing exploitations of all
kinds, physical, mental and other abuses, revealed Santosh Padhy of Action Aid.
Constituting important parts of Pathuriaa, the unit
of migrating family, comprising wife, husband and children, the
below14-year-old children accompany their parents to the brick kiln sites to
work as carriers of raw bricks and other household chores there. Nuankhai, that
marks the beginning of festivity in the western Odisha, also begins the process
of migration. Migration is going on in this region for the last
four decades and to accompany their parents, the children also migrate with them.
“It is disgusting that distress migration,
especially child migration to the brick kilns, going on from the
region for the last few decades should be stopped. The civil society
organisations should rethink and redraft their strategies to prevent this,”
Action Aid regional manager Amar Jyoti Nayak had observed few months ago while
speaking at the Balangir Zilla Lok Sammelan.
Notably, Balangir district is not the lone case
of child migration. It is also taking place in Nuapada district and
Padampur subdivision in Bargarh district, ironically dubbed to be the rice bowl
of Odisha, Nayak rued.
Every year, out of the 30,000 people migrating from
Nuapada district, 13 per cent are children. The number usually goes up in a
drought year, said Abani Mohan Panigrahi of Lok Drusti, Khariar. A survey by
the Lok Drusti in 2004 revealed that 1, 4455 people, including 1,036 children
migrated from 120 villages in Nuapada district.
Such a migration is also continuing from
Gaisellete, Jharbandh, Paikmaal and Padampur subdivision in Bargarh district.
According to a report of the Samuhik Marudi
Pratikar Udyaam, Padampur, around 20,000 people migrate from western Odisha and
other parts of Chhattisgarh every year. Those who migrate to other parts of
western Odisha to harvest paddy, also carry their children. And, those who
migrate to Raipur (Chhattisgarh) to pull rickshaw to earn their livelihood,
also carry their children. One-fourth of the total migrant constitutes the
children.
Migration has become a big business in western
Odisha. As the poor get a huge amount of money at a time, they are migrating.
The total advance amount given by the dalals/sardar in Nuapada district amounts
to around 5.6 crore in 120 villages. In Balangir district, the amount involved
in the annual migration process is around `100 crore.
As the child migrates with their parents
and stays there for minimum six months, it results in disruption of studies and
school dropouts.
After returning, it is difficult to get enrolled
again and the child is forced to earn his livelihood as a daily
wager.
The Government is making tall claims of providing
education to all and to enroll the children for which the Sarva Sikshya Abhijan
(SSA) has been launched, yet large numbers of children are migrating every year
resulting in dropouts.
To take care of the education of the migrant
children, the Residential Care Centers (RCC) were opened in 2002 on
experimental basis in Balangir district with the participation of Community
Based Organisations (CBOs) where the children stayed and pursued their studies.
Buoyed with the success, it was extended to Nuapada
and Bargarh districts with active involvements of the CBOs/NGOs and
participation of the community. However, after the initial good response from
the SSA, it became a mere official formality by opening of the centres too late
and keeping non-migrant children there.
Migration cannot be stopped and steps should
be taken to streamline the process. Residential Care Centres (RCC) should be
opened before November and managed with participation and involvement of the
community and function properly to check childmigration. It should not be
treated as an official centre with the block level resource coordinator and SI,
but the community to be involved sincerely.
If the centers are opened by October and with
involvement of the community, a migrant parent would believe and leave his/her
children there rather than believing in the words of the officials.
Last year, 49 RCC centres were opened in Balangir
district and a total of 1,342 students were there.
The centres were opened in February and were
managed by the Village Education Committee (VEC), said an SSA official here.
This year we expect to open the RCC centres by the
first week of December, the officials informed further.
The Right to Education Act in its clause 5.2
states, “whereas child is required to move from one school to
another, either within a State or outside for any reason whatsoever,
such child shall have a right to seek transfer to any other school
excluding the school specified in sub-clauses (iii) and (iv) of clause of
clause Section 2, for completing his or her elementary education”.
“There should be inter-State collaboration between
Odisha and Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu to provide admission of migrated
children in the schools of migrating State”, opined Santosh Padhy.
There should be comprehensive intervention in
streamlining the migration process, reducing exploitation and
ensuring education for the children through the RCCs. A direct dialogue should
be made with the principal employer and the brick kiln owners to avoid
exploitation and distress condition through middlemen, opined Saroj Barik of
ADHAR.
A comprehensive detailed mapping of the migrant
children must be done in the western region so that the exact number of
children migrating could be known and intervention be developed, Padhy quipped.
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