A voice for working children

In June last year, about 400 children in the Karnataka province in India were the willing victims of an experiment: to plan and carry out an election process which would culminate in the setting up of a pint-sized panchayat (village council).

But the issues leading to the Makkala (children's) Panchayat and the ideas behind it were no child's play.

In India, where the labour force is bottom-heavy with child labour, workers for civil liberties see giving those children a chance to participate in decision-making processes as an opportunity to give them a voice in exchange for a vote.

Behind the programme is a group called Concerned for Working Children (CWC).

Nandana Reddy is its director. She has been interested in issues surrounding child labour since she was herself a child. When something is everywhere it is difficult to avoid being affected by it, she says.

That she would be politically motivated was a given: her film-maker father and actor mother were active members of the Socialist Party.

And although she says she does not remember writing it, an early poem on child labour was sent off for publication by her proud parents.

Reddy now writes poetry only "privately," but she is still published. As a member of ISPCAN's working group on child labour her writing skills are put to use in penning papers.

But as director of CWC, which was developed to combat the reality of child labour, and to improve the workers' conditions, Reddy is involved at grassroots level.

And she counts the Makkala Panchayat initiative as a real success story. "Problems affecting children can be tackled effectively only by reorienting the objectives of the administration at the local level," she says. And working children have the "need and right to be protagonists" in designing and developing solutions.

Consider the irony of the situation, she says, and it is apparent that such children have very little reason to trust adult-driven decisions made about their future -- or the destiny of those generations to come.

"The right of children to participate has thrown up a whole range of questions for us adults," says Reddy.

"It has challenged ... and confronted us with many of the mistakes we have made."

Plenty of discussion has taken place about how working children might participate in decision-making which directly affects them -- and Reddy says that the "level of participation in 'adult affairs' depends on the extent adults enable it and are willing to open up space for children."

"The time will come," Reddy fervently hopes, "for adults to listen to the perceptions children have of society as a whole, the proposals they have for making changes."

If that sounds idealistic, cast your mind back to the beginnings of the women's movement, she suggests.

"There is a distinct possibility that our children may open the door to a new world and their vision can save humanity from the ailments of the old."

Chikku, a working child who stood for election in the Makkala Panchayat and whose policy hinged on the statement: "I did not stand for this election to give children jobs," would doubtless agree that the door has at least started to open.


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