Children - Terre des Hommes

92
Many of the Workers in the Mines of India are
Children
News & Communications, DUKE UNIVERSITY
Tuesday, November 8, 2005
DURHAM, N.C. -- When we arrived that morning in Bhat
Basti, a crowd of excited children swarmed around our
jeep before I could even open the door. One of them
was a pretty 12 year-old girl named Raju. She spends her
days toiling in the cavernous quarries of India.
Bhat Basti is a cramped mining village that’s sprung
up on the scorched earth where the desert meets the
city of Jodhpur. That day, I visited with my colleagues
from GRAVIS, the local non-governmental organization
where I’ve been working as a researcher for the past four
months.
Persistent droughts forced Raju’s family to migrate to
the city for work. But after laboring in the mines, her
father died of silicosis, or occupational lung disease.
When her mother fell sick earlier this year, the burden of
supporting the family fell to Raju.
She now earns 50 rupees (US $1.25) for each 12 hour day
of clearing rubble from the bottom of the mine. Because
her low caste status limits her opportunities and the
dominating mine owners limit her freedom, it’s unlikely
that Raju will ever escape this cycle of poverty.
Yet Raju’s story is hardly unique: Of the two million
mine workers in Rajasthan, an estimated 20 percent are
children.
http://news.duke.edu/2005/11/child%20labor.html
Reckless In Raniganj
From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 50, Dated Dec
20, 2008
Life here is a step away from catastrophe — but
desperation forces many into activities that undermine
their own future, says TUSHA MITTAL
EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Muskaan is kneeling close to a patch
of fresh, hot coal. She is sorting charcoal pieces that
she will pile into a bamboo basket for her father to
carry across the town of Raniganj. Everyday, groups of
other men, women and children join her at this coalburning
ghat, only a few kilometres from the city’s main
market. The coal that comes to them is mined and sold
illegally. The irony is that Raniganj sits in the heart of
India’s coal belt, yet residents rely on illegal coal to
cook their daily food. If caught, Muskaan can end up in
prison for months without trial, but a lonely constable in
khaki from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF),
watching passively at the sidelines provides the muchneeded
assurance.
But as Muskaan bends over, she doesn’t know that the
ground below could be a hollow cavern, a void created by
the same illegal mining she’s a part of. Today, after years
of unscientific coal mining, Raniganj is suspended over
a thin crust of land; over a labyrinth of vacant galleries.
Locals live in fear that someday, the entire town with
its 35,000 plus population could cave in. As they ply
through the town’s dense alleys, no one knows where, or
when, the feeble earth will crumble.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main41.
asp?filename=Bu201208reckless_in.asp