ISPCAN CONGRESS, AUCKLAND 6 - 9 SEPTEMBER 1998 

Nandana Reddy  
Director Development, The Concerned for Working Children  
  
Working children in many parts of the world are claiming their right to be protagonists and have been participating as social actors for centuries. To resist exploitation is a fundamental right and children have found that organised resistance is more effective than any other. They did not wait for adult permission or for statutes to recognise this right.   

Though children's participation has been quite extensively discussed these past years, it is apparent that the degree and level of participation of children in `adult affairs' depends on the extent adults enable it and are willing to open up space for children. It is ironical that though working children are the ones experiencing the problem, they are the ones who are the least involved in designing and developing the solutions.   

This right of children to participate has thrown up a whole range of questions for us adults. It has challenged our paternalistic paradigm and confronted us with many of the mistakes we have made. It has set in motion the beginning of a new relationship with our children based on mutual accountability, respect and transparency.   

As children become more empowered there will be less need for them to protest discriminations. The time will come for adults to listen to the perceptions children have of society as a whole, the proposals they have for making changes. 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.  

This paper addressing the above issues is based on the work done over five years in 36 countries and the author's personal interaction with movements of working children in three continents.  

Dear friends,  

As I flew into Auckland I had an aerial view of your beautiful country - a lush green island set in a jade sea. I know very little about New Zealand but I have always wanted to visit this part of the world. Of course even I, a child rights activist, have heard of the 'All Black', who has not? Their little routine is enough to intimidate any team and maybe that is the secret of their success.   

I am fascinated by your culture, specially that of your indigenous people, the Maori. As legend goes, the Naga, an indigenous people of my country India, are said to have an affinity with the Maori. Though an island community, one of the idols that they worship is a boat suggesting that they arrived in that part of the sub continent by sea. All that lies between my country and New Zealand is an expanse of Ocean. Yet it is unfortunate that our two countries have had very limited interaction.  We should try to change this.  
   
It is not an easy task to be the last in a series of excellent key note speakers but I will try. I have learnt so much just listening to them.  I therefore thank the organisers of this Congress and especially Dr. Robin Fancourt, for the privilege of having this opportunity to participate in this Congress, share my thoughts with you and to visit this part of the world.   

I was delighted to see that children and young persons had been given some space to address us. We were all touched by their message and were witness to the power of children's voices. I congratulate ISPCAN and sincerely hope that you will take this initiative further and make this a practice. I hope that in the next Congress in Durban more groups of children will be invited to participate more actively in the main deliberations of the Congress. This will add a much needed dimension to the debate.  

For the past three days you have been delving deeper into issues related to child abuse and neglect. You are an expert group. I admire your dedication and  commitment. Each one of you is a master craftsperson, chiseling away at the problem and discovering new insights and ways to address them. I am here to speak to you about the value of working children's participation in decision making and the formulation of Policy and Practice. I wish to seek your indulgence to allow me to take you on this journey through the eyes of working children.  

As you are an enlightened audience and time is short, I will touch on some of the important issues just briefly. Please forgive me for not going into details.  

Since the first ISPCAN Congress that I was asked to speak at in Brazil,  child labour has been on your agenda and I have watched the progress made on this subject over the years.   

The economic exploitation of children is one of the largest forms of child abuse and neglect in the world today. The phenomenon of child labour is not new. Children have worked all through history. Child work is not just a developing country phenomenon. Children also work in countries such as the USA, Canada, the UK and the Netherlands. In the UK more than 50% of children have experienced work before the age of 14 years.  

The projection of the child work issue has largely been the horror stories, the helpless victim image. This has led to gross generalisations on the subject - one of them being that all work that children do is bad. The truth is that all child work is not bad just as all education given to children is not good, but rather covers a wide spectrum or continuum from beneficial to the intolerable.  We should recognise that there are no black and white situations in child labour, but several grey areas in between.  

Many children see work as beneficial, as a means to escape dire poverty, as a ladder to improving their situation and that of their families.  

Working children and their communities are constantly making choices based on their analysis of the present situation and an economic projection of the future. These choices are always in order to improve their situations or at the very least maintain the benefits that they have. The Concerned for Working Children, an NGO that I work with in India, learnt that interventions that do not preserve or improve the benefits will be resisted by children. An example of this is of a group of girls in a small fishing village, uppunda, on the west coast of India.  While the boys in the village are involved with fishing, the young girls aged 10-14, have the responsibility of collecting fuel from the forest for their consumption.   

These girls used to leave at 3 am and walk nearly 12kms a day. They were abused by the forest officers; they were made to pay fines - returning home with large loads on their heads at 3 in the afternoon. In all the listings that Bhima Sangha, a union for, by and of working children, made of the problems faced by them, the fuel problem always headed the list. Yet all efforts to solve this problem were resisted by the children themselves.  

We couldn't understand why until, 13-year-old Prema a very poised young girl and the President of Bhima Sangha, explained to us that the girls did not want to give up the advantages that the collection of fuel brought them. First of all the girls saw this as some amount of freedom in a very restricted society. They saw this as a means of going out of the house, having a  chance to chat with their peers and be on their own for a little while.   

Second, these girls also sold some of the fuel that they collected which gave them a little pocket money. Prema explained that a solution that would preserve or increase these benefits would be willingly accepted by her members. We were finally able to negotiate a solution where the girls were willing to trade off their cash benefits for education at an extension school where the syllabus was designed by them. At the centre they also saw that they had not only the freedom to go out of the house and meet together but also to discuss and plan strategies for change. The problem of availability of fuel was solved by the forest dept. who agreed to set up a fuel depot at Uppunda.   

It is because the children pointed out their concerns that we could together arrive at an acceptable solution. Any strategy addressing the issue of child labour should be  based on a cost and benefit analysis of the children's situation and ensure that the benefits are increased and the costs drastically reduced. This can only be achieved  through children's participation.  

However most interventions so far have not taken into consideration the complexity of the situations, the varied and multiple causes of child labour and the real reasons why children work.  

Our response has been "knee-jerk".  We have tried simple single pointed solutions such as legislative bans, boycotts and compulsory education and burnt our fingers  badly.  

Papu, a street child from New Delhi and a member of Bal Mazdoor Sangh, a union of working children says: "We are treated as the Nation's filth. When there is a VIP  visiting, they round us up from the station platforms and the footpaths and lock us up. By doing that they feel they have cleared away some of the cities' garbage."  

When we want organically grown tomatoes, we dump chemical fertilizers and pesticides, however, in our zeal to eradicate child labour we cannot just dump children and be content with the fact that we have cleaned out a sector (export oriented or otherwise) of child workers.  

Here we are dealing with thinking, living human beings who are desperately trying to survive in a constantly changing world and where they and their families have no political power or voice to determine these changes.  

As we approach the twenty first century, it is time that we acknowledge that we have failed to address the problems that working children face, specially in the countries of the south. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has been in existence since 1918 and their first task was to address the issue of child labour. Yet they now propose a New Convention on child labour that narrows down the field of intervention to the 'most intolerable forms', the thin segment of children that are engaged in activities that have crossed all humane boundaries. This is a disaster management approach. In the light of our pitiful track record, after nearly a hundred years of experimentation, we have had to admit, rather shamefacedly, that we have no workable solutions to child work. This also means that we tacitly accept the reality that our children will continue to work for the next decade at least and resign ourselves to an 'at least let us do something' attitude.  

This is not good enough. This should not sit easy with our conscious. We have abdicated our responsibilities and betrayed the trust of our children and if we are to enter the next century with any grace we must with all urgency and humility find answers to the questions in our children's eyes.   

We have failed mainly because we have adopted a top down approach. We wanted simple single pointed solutions that fit in easily with our adult elite logic. We allowed our vested interests to get in the way. We felt that we knew what was best for our children and we never thought of consulting them. As a result we have learnt hard lessons and harmed the children we have set out to help. Two cases in point are the garment girls of Sicom in Meknes, a small town in Morocco and of an estimated 36,000 children working in the garment units of Bangladesh. What is worse, in many cases we have not even taken the moral responsibility of our actions.   

In the light of our track record it is not at all surprising that working children are questioning our efforts and challenging our intentions. Derlis, a working child representing the Organisation of Working Children and Adolescents, Asuncion, Paraguay voiced what many working children feel. They say that all laws, policies and conventions including the Convention of the Rights of the Child are empty  promises. They seem to have decided to take their lives in their own hands and use their right to organise to change this state of affairs. It is possibly the most effective  
defense they have to resist exploitation and improve their lives.   

When I began my work with working children nearly 25 years ago it was as a Trade Unionist in the informal unorganised sector of labour. Between 20 - 40 % of that work force were children below the age of 14. They could not understand why the law discriminated between them and adult workers and pressed the union to address their concerns.   

In this they did not meet with much success as collective bargaining resulted in increased benefits for the adults while any settlement concerning them had to be finalised under the table.   

These children also realised that their issues were wider that the mere demand for increased wages and better working conditions. Their aspirations were not limited to those of the adult workers. These children were full of hope and wanted to change the world. It was then that they decided to form Bhima Sangha - a union for, by and off working children and celebrate child labour day on April 30, the day before labour day. Bhima Sangha has since grown in numbers and in stature. What began as a small union in the city of Bangalore now represents more than 16,000 working children in the State of Karnataka. They have used the strength of their own union to change their lives and as a result many villages in Karnataka have been declared child labour free.   

The working children's demand is reasonable on its merits, but is also fully justified under the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Articles 12 (the right to be heard) and 15 (freedom of association). It is the first global recognition that children also have the two most fundamental rights, the right to organisation and participation.   

These are the two rights, that if exercised, will ensure - more than any other measure, the realisation of all the other rights articulated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, so far, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified convention, with the glaring exception of the United States of America, is by and large regarded as the fulfillment of basic needs and services with the responsibility of providing these accorded to the State.  

The most effective way for any right to be realised is the power of the collective voice, the strength of organised action. The Convention on the Rights of the Child paves the way for this in its recognition of these two fundamental principals, but children have been denied this for centuries and we are slow in providing the space for this to become an actuality.   

However, by and large, it is apparent that the degree and level of participation of children in 'adult affairs' depends on the extent adults enable it and are willing to open up space for children. We lay down the frame and set the rules of the game. It depends on our willingness to share the power and control we now enjoy.  

In a world where adults have taken decisions for children and set standards for them, the listening to smaller voices is still seen by many as a means of gathering interesting information from the perspective of children, involving them in 'doing something' and preparing them to be complete social subjects when they reach adulthood.   

This facilitation by adults opens a space for children's voices to be heard, but it can also act as a barrier where children are mere testimonies of exploitation, symbols that reinforce the victim image, while the adults proceed with the 'real' deliberations. When children wish to take the initiative to question us we tend to draw the line and rarely allow them to suggest to us how things should be done.   

The biggest and most glaring irony in the lives of working children is that though they are the ones most directly experiencing the problem, the most affected by the interventions we design - especially the ones that go wrong - the ones who live with exploitation and abuse in their daily lives, they are the ones who are the least involved in designing and developing the solutions. We as adults would be hard pressed to explain to working children the blatant contradiction inherent in this state of affairs.   

In a small slum in Bangalore city 14-year-old Salma, a working child that produces incense sticks on a piece rate basis and one of the leaders of Bhima Sangha, led an agitation for increased wages for her friends and herself.  After nearly three weeks of collective bargaining and very unique forms of protest, Salma managed to get an 15% increase in their wages. However Salma and her friends saw this a mere stepping stone to better things.   

Not satisfied they wanted to transform their slum into a safe and healthy environment for children. They want a safer and better paying industry for their parents, they wanted more schools designed to their needs and conditions. They have demanded and obtained daycare centres for toddlers and better health care facilities. They have begun cleaning away the refuse and are rapidly working towards declaring their slum child labour free.   

There are examples in many parts of the world where the initiatives taken by working children have had far reaching results that have changed their lives and the lives of their communities for the better. It is their way of acting not just to resist exploitation but to change their environments and to find deeper and more long lasting solutions. Throughout history there have been children who have acted as full fledged social beings. They have grasped opportunities and used them; they have challenged social norms and questioned the structure of society. They have paved the way for dramatic changes and in many ways made history.   
  
Working children have been organising themselves for decades. In 1899, a hundred years ago, the newspaper boys 'the Newsies' in New York fought for and got increased wages.   

Inherent in the tripartite nature of the ILO is the organised representation of its affiliates. The ILO's tripartite alliance between governments, employers and workers organisations insists on and advocates the right of organised labour to always be represented in negotiations.   

There is no cause of the ILO that is more sacred or central than the right of workers to organise. It is recognised that organised movements, even if their actual membership is limited, do represent the concerns and demands and reflect the aspirations of the many, while individuals represent no group at all.   

There is a repeated reference in all ILO documents to the participation of 'workers organisations', whose comments are solicited in the formulation of all conventions. In the questionnaire regarding the proposed ILO convention on the most intolerable forms of child labour, there is reference to finalising the instrument in 'consultation with the organisations of employers and workers concerned, where such exist'. This should have been interpreted as 'working children's organisations' as in this case the workers concerned are child workers and there are organisations of working children in three continents - Africa, Asia and Latin America and this movement is spreading fast.  

The ILO should seize this opportunity to have a serious dialogue with unions and movements of working children from different parts of the world.  A Convention as a result of such a consensus could prove to be the most powerful instrument to date.  Most instruments have failed in their application - not so much because of the lack of a political will - but because they do not show us the way. The participation of working children could change this - they could show us the way. Moreover the ILO could gain moral high ground as they would have the Mandate of the working children themselves.  

Working children's organisations are spreading, and increasingly represent the concerns and aspirations of working children from many parts of the world. They want to enter into the international debate. They know that their agendas are being written by adults in the North and they want their voices to be heard.  

Working children view this world very differently from us. Their experience is not ours.  They are the subjects of a very disparate set of circumstances. They live with discrimination, ostracisation, inadequate access to and no control over resources, exploitation, no political power and no voice. Despite this, one of the most remarkable things about many groups of working children, such as those in the street, is how much of their lives they have been able to take into their own hands. In some cases much more so than middle-class children who may in fact have very little decision- making space of their own in spite of being economically well-off.  

Unfortunately though there are many records of the exploitation children face, there are very few recording the achievement of movements by children to resist it. History, usually written by those in control, have suppressed these. To quote a South African proverb "Until the lions have their historians, history will always be told by the hunters." So until children reach the stage where they can re-write history, they will remain mere helpless victims in our eyes and not the determined small beings they are, capable of a more holistic and beautiful vision for the new age.  

The capacity of children, specially working children, to identify and analyse situations that they find themselves in and change them is grossly underestimated and undermined. They know their situations the best, they understand the nature of humiliation and oppression, they recognise the things that enable growth, development and empowerment. They know what needs to be changed and very often, what needs to be done to change them.  

Many NGOs in different parts of the world have realised the value of listening to working children's views about the nature of their work, what causes it and what needs to be done to change it. They are increasingly taking note of working children's opinions in developing programmes and this has had a significant impact on the quality and success of these initiatives. It has also been seen that when working children have not been consulted strategies can fail and in some cases (the garment sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco) with disastrous effects on children and their families.   

Children in countries of Latin America, Asia, Africa and the United States of America, have been involved in the gathering of information and designing plans of action that would benefit them and their communities using the Participatory Rapid Appraisal (PRA) methodology.   

Bhima Sangha (Working children's union)  in India have been using PRAs for several years now to plan strategies in their localities. In 1990 working children mapped the course of the river Varahi from source to mouth, documenting information on natural resources, infrastructure, history, demographics and culture.   

The children of Bhima Sangha met to discuss their findings. They realised that massive destruction of the environment including the felling of forests had led to a scarcity of raw material for the production of traditional crafts such as baskets and mats. There was also a paucity of green manure, medicinal herbs, firewood and fodder for their cattle.  

There was a small child at this meeting, a boy called Dinesh, who seemed 6 but was actually 9. I felt he looked too young to participate. Then he began to speak. He said "The answer to this is to grow our own forest. We will plant all the trees we need including medicinal herbs. We will let lose all the birds and animals our parents told us once lived here. We will not ever cut any trees, only branches and we will protect this forest for our children".  

I said where will you get the land?  He said we will ask the Commissioner. I said what if he does not give it to you? He said we will sit in his chamber until he does - after all we are Bhima Sangha children.  

Dinesh's dream has come true. In 100 acres of land, a forest planted by little working fingers has begun to grow. They call it Namma Kadu or "Our Forest" and the trees are now twice the height of Dinesh. I saw him the other evening at dusk with his bundle of firewood on his head, cheerfully waving to me.  

This is the forest that we adults will never see fully grown in our life time - but the children of Bhima Sangha were able to find a long term solution to some of the root causes of child labour. Their vision is amazing and it makes us ashamed of our far too conservative logic that lives largely in the present.  

Now the children have gone a step further. They have realised that information is power and those that have it can influence policy and practice. So they have decided to do research themselves. They are at the moment involved in designing and administering questionnaires in 12,000 households in the villages of Kundapur, an area on the west coast of India.  

This awakening has led to an exciting dimension of working children's participation.  They wanted to actively participate in the decisions of the local governments or panchayats. To strengthen their participation in this process, they set up a parallel children's council, or Makkala Panchayat. Together we created a `Task Force' consisting of representatives of working children, and the local government.  

The children of Makkala Panchayat map the village and identify the problems they face. Then they picture the village the way they would like it to be. This they present to the local government at the 'Task Force' meetings complete with data and supporting evidence. The 'Task Force' then looks for ways of implementing these schemes through existing budget allocations or community participation.  

This programme is called Toofan or working children's Typhoon. These winds of change are gradually blowing over Karnataka, my State in India and as a result we have been able to declare several villages child labour free.  

Project Toofan has been functioning for three years.  It is not a parallel system but a part of the formal political structure - the 'Task Force' is chaired by the District Minister, the elections of the children's council is held by the local administration and the Secretary to the local government acts as the Secretary to the children's council as well.  

As a result children have been able to forge an official partnership with employers and government, that is normally the most difficult to achieve. They have been able to change the traditional view to planning and have succeeded in implementing child centered micro planning with themselves as equal partners in development. Through this, children have been able to determine their future and the future of their villages.  

Our experience with Project Toofan has shown us that children often hit the nail on the head. They pointed out that the lack of full day child care centres prevented many children from accessing an education, mainly girls. When both parents had to work at full-time jobs the care of toddlers became the responsibility of children. The establishing of full-time day care centres has relieved several children from this  
responsibility.  

Children also pointed out that there were several things wrong with the formal schools and unless these were changed they would find no relevance in education. The Concerned for Working Children held a consultation with the children of Bhima Sangha and asked them to design what they considered their dream school. The basis of their discussions were the formal schools, field centres run by us and a demonstration school set up for the purpose where the method of education was based on the Montessori system.  

The children began by listing the positive and negative aspects of each system and we were surprised to find that they were actually in favour of exams and uniforms. They felt that our centres did not pay enough attention to academics but they wanted our field activists to replace all teachers.  They saw the access to information as essential and they identified the existence of pedagogy only in the demonstration school.  

Their dream school was a combination of all the positives and they insisted that education should be empowering.  As a result we have implemented a new system of education in all the formal schools in the Toofan villages with the help of a consultant and based on the children's demand.  

With Toofan, a peaceful revolution has begun. The Panchayat presidents or local govt. leaders see the children's participation as positive. They say that for the first time they have been able to reach every household in village. They say that the issues the children raise are 'clean' or free from any hidden political agenda.  

The adult panchayats have found a new role and a higher level at which to function. They also see the children's Panchayat as the training of the next generation of leaders - the present ones having come through a policy of reservation and who are not adequately equipped to handle matters of governance.  

The sustainability of this intervention is reasonably assured as today's Bhima Sangha's children will soon be old enough to stand for elections to the local government and are likely to become the elected representatives of the community. They will have a vested interest in maintaining the systems that they have fought for to free children from the burdens they face.  

Martin Woodhead in his very interesting participatory study in six countries of the  
world called Children's Perspectives on their Working Lives argues strongly/forcefully for taking into account children's perspectives.  He says: "Children are important sources of evidence on how work may harm their development and are not passively affected by their work- too young and too innocent to understand what is going on.  They are active contributors to their social world, trying to make sense of their present circumstances, the constraints and the opportunities available to them.  Listening to children's perspectives does not undermine efforts to combat child labour that is hazardous and exploitative. It provides a much more sound starting point for intervening in ways that are child-centered, context-appropriate and in the best interests of working children."  

Strategies that are developed unilaterally and without the participation of all the major actors, specially working children require compulsion and vast resources to implement. Where as strategies developed on the basis of a consensus are easily implemented with minimal resources.  

The active participation of working children also brings about two things. Their very presence introduces an unwritten accountability. When your constituency is monitoring your every word and action, you become extremely careful about the steps you take.  They also determine where you place the lens of your camera - are you looking down at their problems from your ivory tower or through their eyes.  

At the Amsterdam Child Labour Conference, eight working children, all in their teens, elected to represent their unions and movements, demonstrated through their very lucid and eloquent participation that they were capable of handling the formal atmosphere of the conference, though for all of them this was a first experience.  

Six of the eight children engaged in a Plenary Debate moderated by Max van den Berg, Director Netherlands Organisation for Development Cooperation (NOVIB) and two of them were panelists in a workshop moderated by Minister Jan Pronk. These children showed us that given the opportunity they could participate in an international forum with poise. The fact that the recommendations of this conference reflected many of the concerns that the children voiced proves that they were convincing and able to convert the majority of participants to their view.  

During the Conference on Urban Childhood in Trondheim it was more than apparent that the presence of working children representing their unions and movements from three continents focused the attention of participants to the gaps now existing in the area of child work research. A large part of the discussions revolved around the need for working children to participate actively in research. Martin Woodhead's presentation that covered working children of six countries showed some interesting ways in which this could be done. The actual presence of working children as resource persons showed practitioners that they had valid and important contributions to make to their own betterment and proved that they were capable of designing solutions.  

It is only when children begin to participate that we realise that we have not given them the common courtesy of consulting them. It is only then that we realise that they are capable of exercising their rights with a tremendous sense of responsibility.  

For the past three days we have discussed and dissected some of the worst crimes that, we the adults of the world, have committed, the crimes against our children. We call ourselves civilised and yet we rape, torment, maim and exploit our children. This is not a sign that some of us have gone bad but a symptom of a sick society.  

In our relentless pursuit of profit and our eagerness to ape the consumerism projected by a few, we have lost our integrity. This model of development that is being thrust on us has resulted in the shrinking of social nets, the increase of poverty in the third world and the disintegration of the family.  Indonesia, once hailed as an Asian Tiger has been reduced to rattling her begging bowl as a result of Structural Adjustment Policies of the IMF and the enrolment of children in school this year has fallen from approx. 90% to below 50%.  What is free about a free market economy where 20% of the world's population consumes 80% of the world's resources, while 80% of our people subsist on 20% of our resources? This is not a path that our planet can sustain. The only answer is to jump off this fast train to nowhere and develop a model that is gentler and more humane.  

The leader of the Socialist Party in India, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia once said that the two great discoveries of this Century were the Atom Bomb and Non Violence and it will be left to be seen which of these will triumph by the end of the century. India, a self professed non violent country that could have given impetus to the movement for disarmament has just tested a nuclear device to cock a snook at the USA. Though many of us in India are ashamed of this we were powerless to prevent it and were silent spectators.  

Recently some children were talking about what was special about their villages.  One little boy said that his village was special because he could stand in the rice fields and turn his face skyward to welcome the rain. Another child said that in her village the full moon followed her wherever she went. This they wanted to preserve.  

The native Australian poet Marilou Awiakla wrote:  

When the people call Earth "Mother"            
They take with love and  
With love give back  
So that all may live.  
When people call Earth "It"  
They use her                   
Consume her strength  
Then people die.  

Already the sun is hot              
Out of season.   
Our mother's breast is going dry.   
She is taking all green   
Into her heart and   
Will not turn back   
 Until we call her   
By her name.  

Children seem to instinctively understand this. They have a close affinity with Mother Nature and want to nurture her. They know that their future is linked to the future of our planet and that any solution has to be holistic and take this into consideration as well.  

Working children's protagonism could be our saving grace. It has appeared in the spotlight at a time when the whole world is in a quandary. As a generation we seem to have lost our way. We have a new set of problems that are growing at an alarming rate for which we have no solutions. Now perhaps is the time to turn to our children with humility and listen to what they have to say to us.  

However, for adults to accept the children's agenda implies acknowledging that working children are protagonists of their own lives, legitimate actors actively participating in society. This view directly challenges the prevalent paternalistic image of children.  

The right of children to organise and participate in decisions regarding themselves does not mean that they have all the answers, nor does it mean that we, as adults, are absolved of our responsibilities towards our children. It is only giving them the first step towards being able to defend themselves and reshape their future. These children must be given the right to intervene in their environment and change elements that do not uphold their rights as children.  

We must also be prepared to face the fact that children will say things we do not necessarily agree with, they will ask embarrassing questions for which we do not have ready answers and they will disagree on the stands they take based on the differing realities they face. But we must be willing to accept this. The concerns of working children need to be put on the agenda and discussed. Their questions must be answered and only if we accept this challenge will we be any closer to finding solutions that work.  

Gandhiji could have won the battle of independence for India with violence. We had a large population that was ready to do battle and that was also the prevailing mood with Subash Chandra Bose training an army in Rangoon. But he opted for non- violence. As a result he was able to show the oppressor the reflection of his own face and expose the nature of exploitation. The truth was transparent and there was mutual respect. This was a new revelation for the oppressor.   

With the participation of children we see the reflection of our actions. In their faces we see the real face of their oppressors. Their participation brings about an unstated accountability in adults. It makes it impossible for us to escape the moral responsibility of our actions. It is the most powerful monitoring mechanism one can think of.  

So as you all prepare to return home I appeal to you to carry this message with you to your countries. The greatest gift we can give our children is to listen to our children and truly hear what they have to say. They are the ones who will inherit this planet and they have a right to determine in what state we leave it to them.  

In our work with working children we have received many gifts from them. One of the greatest gifts that we have received is the capacity to recapture our childhood. To hope and dream - dreams that only children can dream. To find the courage to leave a bold footprint in the sands of time - after all we are mere transit passengers on this beautiful planet.  

So here in the land of the Maori, let us take the hands of our children and allow them to leads us from Te Kore Te Whiwhia - the womb of night to Te Ao Mavama - the bright light of humanity with the blessings of Rangi - the primal father and Papatua Nuku - earth mother.  

And now I wish to end my presentation with a poem about children written by the Indian Poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore:  

"Who can say if there is written on your forehead   
The invisible mark   
Of the triumph of some great striving?   
Today we search for your unwritten name:   
You seem to be just off the stage,   
Like an imminent star of morning.   
Infants bring again and again   
A message of reassurance -   
They seem to promise deliverance, light, dawn."   

In their presentation, Jeyasankar highlighted the importance of their presence before the committee: "We have to be here because these are our rights which are being discussed". He also pointed out that their report contains many specific demands and suggestions made to the GOI. He urged the members of the CRC to take up those demands with the Government when they come up before the committee in January 2000. Incidentally, the Government was due to appear in September 1999. It was learnt that the GOI has sought postponement to January 2000 in the light of forthcoming national elections.

Ratnakar described his typical day in his village. He said there was neither a hospital nor a doctor in his village. He worked from dawn to dusk all days of the week. It was working children like Ratnakar who had come together to write the report.

Girish presented how they had, while preparing their report, identified their problems and had categorized them as leaves (or immediate problems) and as roots (or basic problems).

He explained, with examples, that unless the root problems were addressed, the leaf problems could not really be solved. He stressed that their report identified 5 important social actors. "We, the working children, our parents, our community, our Governments and the organisations which work with us - all of us have to take up specific responsibilities to solve our problems. We have described that in our report" he said, "We hope more and more children from the world will be able to be present here to voice their own experiences, view points and suggestions".

The children responded to general and specific questions. They described the Unions and Movements of Working Children in the country that have significant membership (Bhima Sangha, the union which Girish represented, has a membership of over 13,000 working children) and yet they did not have any national recognition. Responding to a question, they talked about other children in their villages who are opposed to caste and gender discrimination. They gave examples of successful collaborations and partnerships they have had with some of their local governments. They also mentioned some of the hurdles they face to bring about a positive change. "In spite of all that, we believe that we can change many things for the better. Otherwise we would not have formed our unions. We would not have been here", they said.

The UN setting, the formal presentations, the strict time schedules and the volley of questions from the Committee which ranged from issues related to the education policy to the new ILO convention of Child Labour - were not really conducive to the participation of children. While the members of the Committee and their secretariat tried to be more flexible than usual and the atmosphere was made more informal than the norm, it was still too imposing and too structured a setting for children.

If the CRC is to be monitored by children a lot more thought has to be given to creating mechanisms and systems, which will encourage, respect, appreciate and enhance children's participation in totality.
All working children who have participated in the process of writing their Working Children's Report have expressed tremendous solidarity with each other. They challenge us, the adults, with their critique of the world. They inspire us with their dreams. They have stated, in no uncertain terms, that they will walk, hand in hand with us to create the village/city of their dreams. The preparation of this report is seen only as one of the many milestones in the long road towards that level of child empowerment that will enable them to be equal partners in the development of the society, and to that level of adult empowerment which will enable us to be worthy partners to children.

Thank you.

This article appeared in Deccan Herald, dated July 25, 1999

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