Seventeen percent of guest workers employed in the construction sector in the city are in the 15-19 age group, an inter-State urban migration survey has found.
The survey also found that 11% of manual labourers and 17% of hotel workers were in the 15-19 age group.
The survey, funded by the Don Bosco Young at Risk (YaR) Forum under the Salesian Ministry for Migrants in India, was held across eight cities in the country — Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Mumbai, Guwahati, Tirupur, Vijayawada, Dimapur, and Vasco. Conducted among 2,407 unskilled guest workers, the survey aimed at highlighting the “vulnerabilities” faced by young guest workers in cities.
In Thiruvananthapuram, 301 guest workers were surveyed. Of them, 101 worked in the construction sector, 100 were hotel workers, and 100 were manual labourers (those surveyed at labour chowks on crossroads, and at vegetable markets, bus stands and railways stations, and including transport labourers, freight handlers, garbage collectors, agricultural, fishery and related labourers, and manufacturing labourers). The presence of adolescents in construction sector is an area of concern, especially as there is little regulation of the kind of work they do.
“The survey was taken up as part of our work for guest workers, but the findings on adolescent workers were a revelation. It raises questions about the nature of their jobs, whether they are allowed proper rest, or if there is a monitoring mechanism to ensure that rules related to them are followed,” Fr. P.D. Thomas, director, Thiruvananthapuram Don Bosco Veedu Society and Childline, says.
Fr. Thomas says they had come across three 15-year-olds from Tamil Nadu who had been employed in a hotel and were being made to work nearly 12 hours a day.
This ties up with the survey findings related to the hotel sector. It found that construction and manual labourers reported working around eight hours a day, but hotel workers worked much longer — almost 12-hour shifts every day. They also received fewer days off, working 28 days a month.
Low wages
The daily wages earned by them were the lowest. Around 52% of them were paid on a daily-wage basis. Construction workers reported the highest monthly earning.
“While labour among children under 14 is taken seriously by the authorities, adolescent labour is given little attention. Adolescents are made to work long hours without break, and given no overtime,” Fr. Thomas says.
The education levels among guest workers is also low.
