K. Savitramma, a resident of Sabbavaram area in Visakhapatnam district, was caught in a debt trap after the untimely death of her husband. Left with no option to make the ends meet, she sent her two sons aged 15 and 17 years to earn their livelihood in Surat of Gujarat.
“My children had to discontinue their education. I had no choice as the debt was mounting. Now, they are working with a plywood manufacturing unit and send ₹20,000 every month. I clear a part of the debt and spend the rest on maintenance of the house,” says Ms. Savitramma.
Thousands of families belonging to the socio-economically weaker sections in the three north coastal Andhra districts of Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam are being forced to send their children to work as it is a question of their sustenance.
Even as the entire globe is observing the World Day against Child Labour on June 12 every year to create awareness against engaging kids as paid workers, it appears a lot more needs to be done to check the menace.
Several rural pockets of the north coastal Andhra districts are plagued with abject poverty, Illiteracy, debt burden and lack of employment opportunities which are forcing parents to send their minor children to States such as Gujarat, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana among others to contribute to the family income at a tender age.
Number of children from Anakapalle Rural, Kasimkota, Chodavaram, Narsipatnam, S. Rayavaram, Elamanchili and parts of Icchapuram, Sompeta, Palasa of Srikakulam district are leaving their homes in search of greener pastures.
Paltry wages
They work at brick kilns, at toll gates, small scale industries, construction industry, and food manufacturing industries.
“I left home at the age of 15 and had worked with a coconut oil manufacturing industry at Thiruvanthapuram in Kerala for which I was paid ₹7,000 a month. Working in a 18-hour shift with a lunch break of one and a half hours daily was taxing. But I needed money for my family. Many children of less than 15 years of age were working with me,” recalls G. Meena Rao, now 26, a former migrant labourer from Ichchapuram.
Child labour appears to remain a serious issue in urban areas too as many kids from the slums in the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) limits are working at houses as domestic helps, small eateries, construction sites and small scale industries. Experts say that these children usually belong to the families of migrant labourers.
Migrant labourers
“Due to shifting of slums, many families are migrating to other States for livelihood. Their children discontinue education in this process and usually end up as daily wagers to support their families,” says Pragada Vasu, a member of Association for Urban and Tribal Development (AUTD).
He said that around 600 children had stopped going to school in the mid year when a slum was shifted from the railway station area to Kambalakonda last year.
In Visakhapatnam city, children below 14 years of age working at roadside vends, small eateries and tea stalls is not a rare sight.
“Many of them seem to have migrated from Northern India, Odisha, West Bengal. To evade the official inspection, the employers resort to various tricks. Many employers prepfer not to engage children at the sale counter or front offices to evade raids by the officials,” says Generation Yuvaa (Visakhapatnam) founder B. Naresh Kumar.
