A ray of hope for Jaipur's child labourers

Little heads bent over cold, hard stones. Little hands polishing, polishing till they attain that perfect glitter of perfection. From dawn to dusk, seven days a week.

A common enough sight, this, in any of Jaipur's numerous gem polishing industries. Where thousands of children, for a paltry Rs 10 a day, are destined to work their lives out, rubbing beauty into cold stones.

But today, there is hope for them. Lok Shikshan Sansthan, a voluntary organisation, is working overtime to wean them away from a life of drudgery.

The idea is to impart basic education to these child workers and gradually induct them into the educational mainstream. The organisation has now 20 schools running (each school has a strength of 50) to impart formal as well as informal education from class 1 to 5.

The 1988-started project has seen over 1,300 child workers successfully clearing preliminary exams to join regular schools. "We admit 1,000 students every three years and prepare them for the class 5 examinations." says Sansthan's co-ordinator of schools Sharif Ahmed, "We need at least 20 more schools."

The schools are funded by the International Labour Organisation. Each child receives a Rs 75 stipend per month.

"But as stipends are paid in a lump at the end of the year, most parents find it difficult to meet the school expenses," says project director Vimla Sharma, "Things would improve a lot if funds were made available to the Sansthan in advance."

As of now, there are at least 20,000 child workers in the gem polishing industry. (A recent National Safety Council study estimates that 13,000 children, under 14 years, are being exploited.) "Illiteracy has been the biggest hurdle in our efforts. We have to constantly counsel the parents to send their wards to the school regularly,'' says Sunita Purohit, the in-charge of a school.

Ten-year-old Akthar's story is a case in point. Akhtar used to work at a small karkhana (workshop). After much persuasion, his parents started sending him to school. But now, a cloud hangs over this bright child's future -- his father is determined to send him back to work as soon as he finishes class 5.

The attitude towards girls is worse. In most cases, they are withdrawn from school by class 5. The reasons are many, the major being societal pressures and early marriage.

However, there has been a perceptible change in the parents' outlook in the past few years . ''The dropout rate among girls have come down remarkably," says Sharma, "Today, in most of the schools, 75 per cent are girl students.''

UNI