Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi rues the lack of initiative on the part of political parties and religious leaders in the world's largest democracy in taking up children's rights issues.
"No political parties talk about working for the cause of children's rights issues even during the time of elections," Satyarthi, who shared the 2014 Nobel peace prize with Malala Yousafzai, told Onmanorama in an exclusive interaction.
How do you look at the state of child rights in India?
We have great traditions, heritage and wealth of knowledge. We are the second most populated country. But in spite of all these, it is ironical that India is home to the largest number of spited, abused and trafficked children in the world.
Within the country, we have all sorts of trafficking, modern slavery, sexual abuse, denial of education and childhood.
Attitudes towards children
In our religions and cultures, a lot of good things have been preached about sacredness of childhood and children. But people in the society have three different responses or behaviour to children, he said.
One, the attitude of naïve people or good doers who help poor children believing they are doing some mercy or charity to them. That is a donor attitude or charity behaviour.
There is a second set of people who feel that poor children are born to work for others, they are cheap labour and they could easily be exploited and girls specially could be sexually abused and raped or sold for prostitution. In this case, the children are normally exploited due to their physical and mental vulnerabilities.
The third category is people who are very good to their own children. They pamper the kids and do all kinds of crimes, including economic crimes to collect more and more money to safeguard the future of their children. They will do anything, be it good or bad, for the cause of children.
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In all these three categories, we don't see a deep-rooted understanding and culture of child rights. The culture of child rights begins with respecting childhood, not just doing mercy to a child or pampering. Even in our homes, people pamper their children and try to do everything for them, but are not friendly to them. They are not friends to the children, because they don't respect them enough. They may adore them and love them, but they don't listen to them.
And that's why even in middle class families, children feel neglected. The parents are just busy in earning money with no time to spare for the children, neither to talk nor listen. In such families, lot of sexual abuse of children also take place. Neither the children have the courage to share it with parents nor the parents listen or look at the changed behaviour of children, who are victims of such abuses.
The legal conundrum
India has some good and weak laws. The laws against child sexual abuse and trafficking are very strong. The child labour law is weak and obsolete. The right to education law is purposeful. The legal frameworks to protect children exist. But the children themselves and parents of poor children don't have access to the legal system because they are innocent and illiterate about their rights. So laws are not implemented.
There is hardly any accountability of enforcement agencies in implementation of laws related to children. So the legal situation is not really healthy and the social situation is ironical in a way.
The political class
You can hardly hear from politicians during elections that children can ever be in their election agenda. They don't ask the people to vote for them because they will ensure that the children would be protected from sexual abuse or trafficking. They don't say we will spend more money on children or we will have more budgetary allocation for children. These issues are not raised in polls. The cumulative effect of all these situations is that India's children are not safe.
Are the Central and state governments moving in the right direction vis-a-vis child rights issues?
The Central and state governments have to do a lot. We have to invest more on children. It is a pity that India spends only four per cent or less than that of the GDP on health, education and protection of children combined, where as the population of those below 18 are 41 per cent.
This is a reflection of the negligence towards children. We demand that more money has to be routed for education primarily and for health and protection of children.
The enforcement agencies – may it be school teachers, police officers or doctors who deal with children – should be trained properly, well equipped and sensitised towards the rights of children. They should be given an orientation on how to behave with children.
They should know about the rights of children, who also need to be taught about good touch and bad touch as well as the fact that they have certain rights mentioned in the Constitution. Lot of work needs to be done on legal awareness for the children and parents as well as the implementation agencies. Budgetary allocation and implementation of laws are the primary responsibility of the government.
What prompted you to take up child rights issues?
It was my passion since childhood to work for the cause of children's rights. In fact, it began on the first day of my schooling when I saw a cobbler boy outside the school. That image was very disturbing and I asked teachers, headmaster and friends why he is not with us in the school. Most of them replied or tried to convince me that it is common for poor children to work.
But it was not convincing for me. I used to see that boy everyday outside the school and that made me angry and more disturbed. I started thinking for a solution as I never believed that some children were born to work at the cost of their childhood, freedom, education and health.
I started helping children by collecting old books and distributing it to them and raising money from friends and relatives and paying school fees. It was the time when the whole notion of child rights had not evolved. You will be surprised to know that the UN convention on rights of the child was adopted only in 1989 and rolled out in 1990. So it is not a long time since the people, governments and international agencies had conceived the notion of protection of children and child rights.
I was talking about 60s, 70s and 80s when I was struggling with these issues. Since these issues were so close to my heart, I decided to give up my career – I was an electrical engineer - in 1980 and started my fight against child labour even without knowing what to do and how to go ahead.
When I wanted to know about child slavery, nothing was written to read and learn from and no one had worked on such issues. People thought slavery was a medieval thing and it was abolished in 18th and 19th centuries globally and most countries had made laws against it. Child labour was also not a notion.
Children were working and some people were empathetic and were helping them through some charity work and poor children were given shelter and food and put up in orphanages. But that was not child rights. It is different from the age old charity approach and attitude.
Kerala is a state that has been faring well in terms of several social development indices, especially education and healthcare. Where is the place of the state in terms of the protection of child rights and issues like child labour?
Kerala has definitely done very well and we all praise the efforts of the government and society in ensuring education. Education was fundamental in reaching such social development indicators on infant mortality rate and malnutrition. The mothers especially got education and that has helped a lot. But we should not forget that a number of children are still working here and many are being kidnapped or stolen from within Kerala. A large number of children are being trafficked from other parts of India to work in Kerala. So the issues that need to be addressed by the government and the society remain.
(The first part of an interview with Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi)