87 per cent adolescent in TN working in unorganised sector, says study

Chennai:
Eighty seven per cent of children in the age group of 14-18 in the state are working in the unorganized sector and are not covered by any labour laws, according to a study conducted in 25 districts of the state.

The study ‘Understanding Adolescent Poverty in Tamil nadu’, which was conducted by Little’s Trust – A Centre for Children, Madurai with the help of Samakalvi Iyakkam, Tamil Nadu and Child Relief and You (CRY) says that most of these children work as daily wage earners or mill workers, construction workers, domestic servants, restaurant boys etc.

The macro level study, which had a sample size of 2,436 respondents from 25 districts representing two third of blocks and 20 panchayat from each district, states that majority of these adolescents don’t have access to the money they earn as their salary with 72.9 per cent of the dropped out and working children give their salary to their mothers while 15.8 per cent claim that their fathers collect their salary. Interestingly, a majority of their fathers spent their earnings on alcohol , says the study.

Interestingly, most of the children are willing to go back to school and continue education if given a chance, says the study. “Most of them wanted to become someone ‘big’  like doctors, engineers, teachers, policemen and very few as politicians when their aspirations are articulated,” says the study.

The study also brings to fore the prevalence of bonded labour in the state. “We have found seven per cent of the respondents from the working population as bonded labourers,” says Little’s Trust – A Centre for Children, Madurai trustee T R Parvatha Varthini.

“As per the definition of bonded labourers, adolescent children work for the advance amount received by their parents from their employers. The advance amount ranges from Rs 1,000 to Rs 10,000,” she says.

The study also highlighted the prevalence of child marriage in the state particularly among the dalit communities. It states that 49 per cent of the girls dropped out and married at the age of 15-17 years.

The study states that growing urbanization and less focus on adolescent population by the state and policy makers encourage the pull factors in the liberalized economy where young girls and boys end up as unorganized work force exposing them to more vulnerable conditions.

The study also highlighted that family indebtedness is one of the major reasons for children to stop schooling and end up in unorganized workforce. It also brought to light that child labour is a vicious cycle where children of child labour tend to be child labourers.