Plight of estate children

The death of two underaged female domestic workers under mysterious circumstances once again brings into focus the employment of minors as domestic labour. It also opens up the substantive topic of child labour once again.

We have a legal arm to deal with exploitation of children Viz. the National Child Protection Authority. Is this body acting only on complaints instead of taking a pro-active stance in dealing with exploitation of children? As far as we know, employment of children below a certain age as domestics is banned in this country. There is also a law that stipulates a minimum age where every child has to attend school. Isn’t it the duty of the NCPA to ensure this is happening? True, it cannot be expected to go to every home to inquire. But isn’t there some procedure by which whereby households employing minors could be nabbed?

The fate of the two domestic workers also opens up the topic of poverty. Their’s is an all too familiar tale of poverty making parents throw caution to the winds and send their offspring to slave in rich homes. Typically, the victims belong to the estate community, a rich source of domestic labour due to the acute poverty among the plantation community.

Illiterate parents with armies of offspring are only too eager to part with a couple of them if it means an additional income to the large family. What they fail to understand or are incapable of doing so is the injustice meted out to these children whose future would forever be consigned to slavery.

This episode also brings to light the sad plight of the estate community whose lot has hardly improved from the days of the British Raj. Of course there were messiahs of the thottam who came as deliverers to bring emancipation to their community. But it was obvious that they wanted their people to be for ever grovelling. They knew that if these folk were exposed to knowledge and education they would see through their charade.

Thus their modus-operandi was to keep these people shut off from the mainstream and in eternal poverty, forever beholden to them. Thus they were used as a bloc vote at elections by these messiahs as a bargaining chip to be exploited so they could ladle for themselves the gravy under any administration.

Thankfully, the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has now taken a hands on approach to raise the living standards of the estate community instead of allowing them to be held to ransom by unscrupulous politicians.But more concrete action is taken to get these people out of their seige mentality and make them an independent people.

True, the Estate community today has come a long way from the point where it was almost a ghetto community. The plantations are now undergoing a rapid transformation with infrastructure development and the upgrading of all facilities in the health and education spheres.

Yet, with all that, they are still lagging behind in many ways due to the inferiority complex cultivated over the years not inconsiderably assisted by their political masters. What they need is a new impetus to their lives so that they could enter the mainstream of national life and be equal partners in its development and progress.

A technology boost

A front page news item in our edition yesterday stated that Small and Medium Scale entrepreneurs including carpenters are to be introduced into modern technology. This is a timely move since all sections of the country’s labour force has to adapt to the new challenges and trends. Today, in a world where manual labour is fast becoming an extinct commodity, the importance of adapting to modern systems cannot be overemphasized.

Already, automation is taking over the myriad functions hitherto done manually and those behind the times may even run the risk of losing their jobs. Hence the quicker one adapts to the change the better it would be for all concerned.

Besides this will also enhance overseas job prospects for our masons who it has to be said did well for themselves during the initial Middle East job boom with their manual skills. The program is also targeting school drop outs and those with a lack of qualification to enter higher studies. This would open up a whole gamut of opportunities to the youth especially at a time the country is set to embark on a massive post war reconstruction.