The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Why Nagu locks in her child when she goes to work

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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
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Karnataka

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Why Nagu locks in her child when she goes to work

Bageshree S.

— PHOTO: PARTH SANYAL

WORLD’S YOUNGEST PARENTS? With the mother away, scrabbling for a living, it is up to the children to look after themselves.

Bangalore: A fire at Vijinapura in Ramamurthynagar killed three children in August this year. The children had been locked up inside their home while the mother was away at work, at a private school, and they had no way out of the inferno.

The incident exposed a glaring gap in our social support system: even as the number of families with working women is rising, reliable childcare facilities remain woefully inadequate. The patriarchal expectations on women, coupled with the lack of alternative care facilities, are putting children at extreme risk.

‘Don’t touch a thing!’

Nagu, a garment worker living in Kenchenahalli, Rajarajeshwarinagar, leaves her four-year-old daughter locked up in the house with an instruction not to touch anything except the television remote. She keeps food ready before she leaves for work at 8.15 a.m. to a factory on Mysore Road. “My son is at the boarding school at the Siddaganga Math in Tumkur because I can’t look after him here,” says Ms. Nagu.

Her factory has a crèche (called “baby room” by the workers), but it is only for children up to three. “My husband is an alcoholic and I expect nothing from him except to be left alone,” she says. In times of crisis, it is her neighbours who help out.

Worried about daughter

Mangala and Nagalakshmi, also garment workers in different factories on Mysore Road, have similar stories to tell.

“I am always worried about my daughter, considering the stories I hear,” says Ms. Mangala.

Providing care for children in a workplace with more than 30 women is mandated by Factories Act, 1948. Six others Acts, including the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, talk of childcare facilities. But many statutory crèches, when provided, are just rooms with no facilities.

At a public hearing held in the first week of August by the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KSCPCR), garment workers highlighted these inadequacies which were confirmed by the commission during their visit. They are now holding talks with apparel brands to improve the quality of childcare.

On the other hand, neither anganwadis run by the Government under Integrated Child Development Schemes (ICDS) schemes or crèches run by the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and by the Rajiv Gandhi National Crèche Scheme, provide complete childcare. For instance, the 1,651 anganwadis in Bangalore city look after children from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and are of hardly any help to a working mother.

“A large number of privately funded pre-schools charging exorbitant fees have mushroomed in the last decade which are not even monitored,” says KSCPCR Chairperson Nina P. Nayak. Only the setting of a State Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCD) that monitors the entire gamut of early childcare facilities can solve some of these issues, she adds.

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