School 'chale hum', recount Gujarat child labourers

During a function organised by Save the Children on Saturday, kids narrated their experience of getting out of child labour and going to school. The NGO had organised the event in the city to celebrate the completion of its project that aimed to pull children, most of them from rural areas, out of farms and put them back in school. The project was implemented with the help of eight NGO partners, which covered 882 villages in Ahmedabad, Surendranagar, Sabarkantha and Baruch.

Gopal Bakhudi, a 13-year-old student who stood first in class 6, said he used to go to a cotton field. “Then the representatives came to our village and convinced my parents to send me to school. Earlier, when I did not have work in the field, I used to tend cattle. But now I go to school,” said Bakhudi.

Shaba Desai, who has worked in Bavla village of Dhandhuka, said that economic crisis often forces parents to send their children to work at a young age. “Most of them are poor. The children get measly amount for working in fields but even that contributes to the income of the family. Hence, it is very difficult to convince parents not to send their children below 14 years of age to work,” said Desai. She said that despite their best efforts, they have managed to pull only some students out of child labour and into school.

“For those parents, who could not be convinced, we have designed a special training programme to help children learn during the non-working hours,” said Desai. Devayat Parmar, a sarpanch of Panchavda village of Chotila, recounted his experience on how he initially tried to convince the parents.

“Later in some cases, we threatened them as well. We told them that child labour was illegal and that their access to government schemes would be stopped if they indulged in child labour,” said Parmar.