CHILD LABOUR FREE SHOP

Namaste to all of you,

As always, I hope you are all very well. I would like to share some information I have received from my dear friend Natalia Mayroth. Natalia is a journalist, who travels a lot and is currently in Mumbai.

She tells me that some blue stickers with smiling faces in some shop entrances got her attention which had the following message written on it:  “CHILD LABOUR FREE SHOP”.

I think it’s incredible that stickers with such a message are being put up. It should be a FACT, a RIGHT that protects children from being exploited for certain benefit!

Unfortunately that is not the case:

India has around 1,4 billion inhabitants, one of the biggest counties in the world: The law says that children 14 years and under have the right to receive a free education. The reality looks much different: UNICEF estimated that 56 million children have never entered a school!

Child labor is prohibited by law. UNICEF estimated that 10 million children are forced to work!

It seems that India has the biggest child labour workforce in the world.

Right now because of the pandemic the numbers have lowered a little but once the companies are opening their doors again for sure these numbers will rise again, because they need to save money.

Very convenient for the companies exploiting these children is that a child doesn’t have a voice in order to protest, they don’t have the capacity to organise strikes in order to ask for humane working conditions and fair salary. That means it’s perfect for corrupt business.

I have seen with my own eyes very little children working in hidden, dark shops without windows and without even being able to breath fresh air. There they were working for many hours. At midday they received a plate of rice and a glass of water and then they have to continue working until the smallest of them collapsed onto the floor, until he was woken up again in order to continue working.

I also got to know families that hired very young girls in order to cook, clean, iron etc. in exchange for a mattress, very little food and 2 Euro per month!

We are educating the Children of Childsrights, and are trying to give them the best information and education possible so that maybe tomorrow they will be able to defend the RIGHTS OF THE CHILDREN!!

Thank you so much for always accompanying us,

Christiane