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Importers of Rajasthan sandstone worried about child labour
London, July 18, 2008: (IANS) Reports that child labour may be in use in the quarrying
of the world- amous sandstone in Rajasthan has led some British companies to
tighten their import guidelines. B&Q, one of Britain’s top DIY (Do It Yourself) superstores, says it has adopted
strict buying standards and rigorous quality management processes to oversee the
suppliers of sandstone after hearing reports of use of child labour in
Rajasthan. Companies like B&Q are now using their India offices or NGOs to confirm the
reports that there are many illegal quarries in the Indian state where children
work.
A B&Q statement says: “B&Q requires all of its suppliers to provide evidence
that demonstrates they have a robust process of supply chain management that
assures their supply chains meet B&Q’s operational standards. In India
specifically, B&Q is working closely with its suppliers to ensure guidelines
addressing employment practices, health and safety, quality of product and
environmental performance are properly adhered to.”
India is the third largest exporter of sandstone in the world. Indian sandstone
has become popular in Britain for gardens because it is attractive and of good
quality. It is costly, when compared to local concrete slabs, primarily because
of the transport expenses involved. The Herald reports that the British companies are already looking for
alternatives to sandstone, given the controversy surrounding it. One such is
reclaimed stone from kerbs and pavements, which are refurbished in Scotland.
In India, a bank for street children
NEW DELHI, June 7,2008: India is home to the world's largest population of street children,
conservatively estimated at 10 million. Their lives are far removed from the country's growing image as an economic
juggernaut powered by software engineers and ornamented with Bollywood babes.
Theirs is a parallel world of struggling to survive, a world where adolescent
angst is about whether another meal comes your way, or whether you can sleep
through the night, unmolested, on a hard patch of pavement.
In Delhi alone, more than 100,000 youngsters are believed to live on the
streets. Many remain with their poverty-stricken families, but thousands do not.
A large number cluster around the city's main railway stations -- heavily
trafficked areas where they can sell their wares and where passengers leave
behind detritus they can pick through.
Boys scooting between train tracks, darting in and out of newly empty railway
carriages, are a common sight. Many are harassed or beaten by police officers,
or sexually abused by predatory adults. A fair number resort to sniffing glue.
Some beg, others steal. Many of these "railway children" are runaways who have come to the Delhi
metropolis to escape abusive households or the monotony and poverty of life in
the countryside.
To help the youths plan for a less bleak future, the charity set up its Children’s
Development Bank in 2001, a way for street children to learn lessons about money
and saving that, for most, their parents aren't around to teach. "We see this as a life skill," said Sebastian Mathew, director of the project.
"How much they save is not important. It's the habit of saving and not spending
their money on sniffing glue, smoking, watching the same movie again and again."
About 2,000 children have accounts at 12 "branches" around Delhi, located in
shelters or at sites where the charity runs classes and other activities for
homeless youths. Adult staff members are always present to ensure the safety of
the children and to collect the takings at the end of each day, depositing the
cash at regular intervals in a dedicated account in a private bank.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Bring about lasting change for underprivileged children: CRY
New York, May 29 (IANS) Pointing out that millions of children in India are
still denied their basic rights of survival in the midst of the country’s
“unprecedented economic success”, the American chapter of CRY (Child Rights and
You) has given a call to reverse the situation by engaging underprivileged
communities in seeking lasting solutions. CRY America, a non-profit organisation
that works to restore basic rights to underprivileged children, especially in
India, addressed a press conference here Wednesday to present what they called a
proven, lasting change to end the dire situation.
Highlighting the problem, Shefali Sunderlal, president of CRY America, said,
“Whereas on one side India is experiencing unprecedented economic success, it is
yet to attain the most basic social development indicators for its children.
Millions of underprivileged children have their survival threatened on a daily
basis due to malnutrition, illiteracy, child labour, preventable diseases, abuse
and exploitation.”
Sustainable change is possible only if underprivileged communities are actively
engaged in seeking solutions collectively and issues are addressed holistically
from a social justice perspective, she said. |
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A malnourished child in India
May 16, 2008: More than 1.5m children in India are at risk of becoming
malnourished because of rising global food prices, the UN children's charity,
Unicef, says. It warns that food inflation could be devastating for vulnerable women and children right across South Asia. The region already has the largest number of malnourished children in the world and levels could get even worse. Even before the current crisis almost half of all Indian children showed signs of stunted growth, Unicef says.
According to Unicef's latest State of the World's Children's report, India has the worst indicators of child malnutrition in South Asia: 48% of under fives in India are stunted, compared to 43% in Bangladesh and 37% in Pakistan. Meanwhile 30% of babies in India are born underweight, compared to 22% in Bangladesh and 19% in Pakistan. Unicef calculates that 40% of all underweight babies in the world are Indian.
Put all that in hard numbers and the figures are stark. Fifty million Indian under fives are affected by malnutrition. Rising food prices, Unicef says mean 1.5 to 1.8 million more children in India alone could end up malnourished.
And already Unicef says more expensive food is having an impact. "People are changing the way they eat," says Mr
Toole. "Households that have three meals a day are going back to two. Or if they have two they are going back to one. That has a dramatic impact on child nutrition because children need to be fed
frequently." Elsewhere it's not the number of meals, but the quality of the food they're eating that is changing, he says.
Source: BBC News |
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Globally, over 2.1m kids under 15 have AIDS: UN
NEW DELHI, April 4, 2008: Over 2.1 million children below 15 years are living with HIV globally, most of them infected before their birth, during delivery or while being breastfed. While around 4.2 lakh children were newly infected in 2007, an estimated 2.9 lakh children under 15 years died from AIDS the same year. Young people, aged 15-24, accounted for about 40% of new HIV infections in 2007.
The number of HIV-positive pregnant women receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) to reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to their infants increased by 60% from 2005 to 2006, but even then, only 23% of HIV-positive pregnant women are receiving
ARTs. These are the findings of 'Children and AIDS: Second stock taking report' a review of the progress made and the challenges remaining in four key areas: preventing HIV transmission from mothers to children (PMTCT), providing paediatric treatment, preventing infection among adolescents and young people and protecting and supporting children affected by AIDS.
The report was launched by UNAIDS, WHO and Unicef on Thursday. According to Dr B B
Rewari, NACO's ART consultant, India estimates that 4% of the 2.6 million estimated HIV cases are children. "We have identified 31,620 HIV positive children of which 9,171 have been put on ART. The rest are constantly monitored and will be put on drugs when they become eligible. At present, we have paediatric ART formulations for 15,000 children donated to us by Clinton Foundation," Dr Rewari said.
Source: The Times of India
Integrated Health Strategies Can Save Children's
Lives: UNICEF
March 18, 2008: The recent UNICEF's global flagship report—The State of the World's Children 2008: Child
Survival report emphasises the need to empower local communities to provide immediate assistance to sick or severely malnourished children. Strategies that can help reduce the number of children who die before their fifth birthday were highlighted at the launch of the recent UNICEF's
report. While recent global data show a fall in the rate of under-five mortality, the report goes beyond the numbers to suggest actions and initiatives that should lead to further progress.
"Community-level integration of essential services for mothers, newborns and young children, and sustainable improvements in national health systems can save the lives of many of the more than 26,000 children under five who die each day," said Ann M
Veneman, Executive Director, UNICEF.
The report describes the impact of simple, affordable life-saving measures, such as exclusive
breastfeeding, immunisation, insecticide-treated bed nets and vitamin A supplementation, all of which have helped to reduce child deaths in recent years. UNICEF Country Representative in India Dr Gianni Murzi, echoed, "We can reduce child mortality in India through these interventions and the sustained strengthening of health systems with increased community participation. Integrated health, nutrition and sanitation interventions are essential to make a significant dent in the problem of child survival in the
country."
Child schemes
in Union Buudget
New Delhi, February 29, 2008: The budget 2008-09 allocated Rs 7,200 crore in 2008-09 to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, representing an increase of 24% over the allocation in 2007-08. Also, an statement on the child related schemes has been included this year where the total expenditure on these
schemes is of the order of Rs 33,434 crore.
Cruelty
to children: a Rajasthan school teacher plucks student’s hair
Ajmer, February 28, 2008: A school teacher in Ajmer district of Rajasthan pulled out a clump of hair from a six-year-old girl's head for failing to solve a mathematical question. The incident occurred in the India Gandhi Balika Ucch Prathmik Vidyala in Pisagan town on Wednesday. The family of Sameena Bano, a Class 2 student, said they came to know about the teacher's assault when she returned home. “She told us how her hair was ripped off for failing to add and subtract,” said Shakur
Rangrej, her grandfather.
Rangrej said Block Education Officer Dwarka Prasad Sharma had promised to take action against the teacher. The teacher, Manjubala, however, denied any wrongdoing. “I have done nothing wrong. I am ready to face an inquiry.”
Source: Sify.com
Wealth 'may not lead to health'
BBC NEWS, February 18, 2008: Economic growth does not necessarily translate into improvements in child mortality, major new research suggests. Every year 10 million children still die before their fifth birthday, 99% of them in the developing world, according to Save the Children.
Some of the poorest countries in the world - Nepal, Malawi, Tanzania and Bangladesh - are among the top ten performers in this index, showing success in cutting mortality. But India, the fastest growing
economy in South Asia, lags well behind its poorer
neighbours. Some states in India, including Orissa, Rajasthan and Bihar, have child and maternal mortality rates that are among the worst in the world.
"The figures for child mortality in India are shocking," said Shireen Miller, from Save the Children India. "They are close to sub-Saharan Africa, and one does ask that if we can make such rapid development
economically then why can we not do the same socially? "And in fact are we actually a developed
country if we still have hundreds of thousands of babies dying and starving?"
Ban marriages between children below 18 years of age
NEW DELHI, February 05, 2008: The Law Commission has proposed that child marriage below 18 years of age for both girls and boys should be prohibited and that marriages below the age of 16 years be made void. Besides recommending compulsory registration of marriage, the Commission has proposed that marriages involving children between the age of 16 and 18 be made voidable (which can be annuled with mutual agreement between both the parties).
Elaborating on the Commission's proposals on issues related to child marriages, the panel's member Kirti Uppal said on Wednesday that the panel has proposed that the age for sexual consent should be raised from 15 years to 16 years for all girls, regardless of marriage. To ensure that young women and children are not left destitute, the Commission recommends that provisions relating to maintenance and custody should apply to both void and voidable marriages.
The Commission found that the present law. Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 did not make
a child marriage invalid even if it was below the age of 15 years. But under the criminal law, section 375 of IPC makes it a crime to have a sexual relation with a child under the age of 15 years.
Stars take on child malnutrition
BHUBANESWAR, January 10, 2008: The Citizen’s Alliance Against Malnutrition , a body of select MPs , film and media personalities, CEO’s , devoted to bring the issue of child malnutrition on center stage of national consciousness, went around a few schools and anganwadi centers of Cuttack district today. The best practices need to be replicated observed the star studded team which included the likes of Supriya Sule, Sachin Pilot, Jay Panda, Shyam Benegal, Gauri Karnik, Feroze Gujral and others.
Reports that 46 percent of the children below five years are malnourished and the reduction rate due to various programmes is just one percent every year prompted us to form the Alliance and launch a
campaign, they explained. This is the third state that we have visited, the first two being Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, they said. Asked why they had picked upon a relatively developed coastal district like Cuttack rather than the KBK districts, they said Orissa’s remarkable performance with a 10 percent drop in the malnourished over the last eight years was what we wanted to see. Citing an instance, they said the positive deviance approach wherein practices followed by a healthy family within the same community is adopted by all has been effective in Orissa and this could be replicated by other states.
Source: Statesman News Service
Children should not be fed biscuits
in mid-day meal (MDM) scheme.
NEW DELHI, January 06, 2008 : Children should not be fed biscuits as lunch under the government's mid-day meal (MDM) scheme. This has been stated emphatically by India's premier agency on nutritional issues, the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Nutrition, backing the contention of many states
opposing the move to feed biscuits to children under the countrywide scheme. In a letter to the office of the Supreme Court commissioners in the right-to-food case, the institute has rubbished the attempt by biscuit manufacturers to hard sell their products as a replacement of hot cooked food for 12 crore
children.
In what would be the strongest indictment of the biscuit manufacturers' pitch for their products, the institute has written that it has “worked on the recommended dietary requirements for adults and children, and biscuits do not find a mention anywhere, nor is it recommended as a source of calories or nutrients, because biscuits (sweet or salty) are empty calories”.
The institute said, “Biscuits will only prepare children to switch to fat foods as adults; this will hasten the onset of diabetes and obesity.”
Boy shot dead in Madhya Pradesh school
BHOPAL, January 3, 2008: A boy was shot dead at a school in a village in Madhya
Pradesh by an older student on Thursday, police said, less than a month after a
similar deadly shooting at a school outside New Delhi. Until recently, school
shootings were almost unheard of in India.
The two boys, one about 15, the other about 13, started fighting after an exam
at their government-run school in Chorwari village, police said. The older boy then shot and killed the younger boy, said A.K. Soni, a top police
official of the region. The suspected killer has been arrested, he said.
In December, police arrested two boys at a private school in Gurgaon for
shooting dead their classmate.
Source: Reuters |
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British patios fuelling Indian child labour
New Delhi, December 27, 2007: Children as young as five are routinely being used to quarry stone for the booming British patio and garden landscaping market, one of
Britain's leading stone importers has warned. Chris Harrop, a director of Marshall's Plc, said that large sections of the gardening industry were turning a blind eye to the use of child labour in the sandstone quarries of Rajasthan, western India,
in order to maximise profits.
Only about a third of the 200,000 tons of patio stone imported into the UK from India each year was sourced ethically, Mr Harrop said, with the rest often being produced in atrocious conditions. "We want the industry to face facts," he added, "and we want consumers to start asking questions.
Up to 100,000 children are employed in India's quarry industry, which supplies almost three-quarters of the imported stone used in British patios and garden features. Indian sandstone from Rajasthan is among the most popular, since it most closely mimics the expensive yellow Yorkstone which was traditionally mined in the Pennines but has now been all but exhausted through demand. Although workers in the quarries typically earn just 80p a day, a single square metre of paving stone fetches about £35 by the time it
reaches Britain.
With such huge profit margins on offer, pressure is now growing on the industry's main trade body to enforce a code of ethics.
Denise Ewbank of the British Association of Landscaping Industries (Bali) said there was an "implied" policy on ethical stone but the
issue was becoming increasingly pressing. "Using ethically certified stone is not a condition of Bali membership," she said, "but this is an issue of intense debate and is already slated for discussion at a board meeting in January."
However, Mr Harrop says the industry's response to his calls to clean up its act has not been encouraging. "I've visited the quarries in Rajasthan several times," he said, "and you can see entire families, from five-year-olds to grandparents, breaking rocks in the searing heat with no health and safety considerations at all.
"The trouble is that a large section of this industry doesn't want to think about the fact that it is wrong that a 10-year-old should be digging stone for Britain's patios." Ignorance, says Mr Harrop, is no defence. Unlike the clothing giant Gap, whose Indian suppliers were exposed for using child labour earlier this year, the supply chain for garden stone is transparent. "Gap can argue it didn't know children were being used to make its clothes, but ours is a small industry and we can trace our supply chains directly from the quarries of Rajasthan to Mrs Smith's
garden. "If consumers knew about the conditions some of the stone was produced in, I'm sure they wouldn't buy it."
Source: Telegraph (By Peter Foster)
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Children as young as five are routinely being used to quarry stone for the booming British patio and garden landscaping
market. Up to 100,000 children are employed in India's quarry
industry.
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