VOA常速英语2007-Child Labor Persists in India Despite New Laws

By Steve Herman
New Delhi
22 October 2007
 

It has been one year since laws went into effect in India banning children from working in homes, hotels and restaurants. But as VOA correspondent Steve Herman reports from New Delhi, there appears to be little progress in reducing the number of working children in India, believed to have more young laborers² than any other nation in the world.

India has had laws since the 1930s banning children from working. Lawmakers pass new laws to protect children and ensure that even the most disadvantaged can receive an education.

But the pressure on poor children - often from their own parents - to work remains³ strong.

Pradeep Narayanan is in charge of policy and research at the advocacy group, Child Rights and You (CRY). "They stay back in villages and continue to work within their own family helping⁴ their parents, thus being deprived of various development opportunities," says Narayanan, "or they migrate with their parents, or they run away from the homes into the urban or semi-urban areas, where they start looking for various job options."

Babu Lal is 11 years old. He says an abusive father raised him, and he worked in his uncle's fields in Uttar Pradesh.  Babu says he wants to be a police inspector⁵ when he grows up so he can rescue children like himself.

Babu is among the lucky few rescued from a childhood of tough labor¹. He now lives in a shelter for children on the outskirts⁶ of New Delhi.

More typical in the capital are scenes of children on the streets from early morning until late at night, selling balls or books - or begging, darting⁷ in and out of traffic. Others labor at roadside food stalls.

At the bottom of the heap are boys like a rag-picker, who earns money by rummaging⁸ through garbage heaps. There are no laws keeping children from picking trash. He claims to earn an average of $15 a week by picking through trash 12 hours a day. He has seven siblings⁹, three of them in school. His father works in a park and his mother at a flour mill.

Harjout Kaur is director of the child labor division at the Labor Ministry¹⁰. She says that since a new law last year barred children from working as household servants and in restaurants and hotels, about 70,000 employers were raided, but only 7,000 citations¹¹ were issued.

"These children are taken out [of the workplace] and sent back home," says Kaur. "But after a while they'll again come back to the same situations, because the situations back home remain the same. So the strategy is that as far as possible, if their parents are able to take care of them they should be sent back. But in situations where they are not, they could be kept in the residential¹² schools within the place of work itself."  

Vikram Srivastava is the manager of development support at CRY. He calls the government activities a token effort. "There's no strategic policy, plan or long-term or short-term intervention¹³ plan by the government," he says. "So even if there are rescues or ... a few employers who have been prosecuted¹⁴, these things do not help in the long run."

Child rights activists¹⁵ complain that India's government is too focused on legislation liberalizing trade and industry. 

"They get implemented¹⁶ very fast and very effectively," adds Narayanan. "But the policies on social sector¹⁷ - whether it is health, child labor or education - policies don't get implemented."

At the Labor Ministry, Harjout Kaur rejects suggestions that the government is not sincere about the child labor problem. "There has been a lot of political will, a lot of will on the part of the government to eradicate¹⁸ child labor in the country," says Kaur. "Child labor is not a simple problem. It's a very complex problem. It's a result of a number of socio-economic factors."

One of the factors is very simple to see. For employers, customers and working children in India, there is nothing shameful¹⁹ about a child working at the cost of an education.

1 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

2 laborers   

n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工

参考例句：

• Laborers were trained to handle 50-ton compactors and giant cranes. 工人们接受操作五十吨压土机和巨型起重机的训练。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. 雇佣劳动完全是建立在工人的自相竞争之上的。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言

3 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

4 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

5 inspector   

n.检查员，监察员，视察员

参考例句：

• The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school.视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。
• The inspector was shining a flashlight onto the tickets.查票员打着手电筒查看车票。

6 outskirts   

n.郊外，郊区

参考例句：

• Our car broke down on the outskirts of the city.我们的汽车在市郊出了故障。
• They mostly live on the outskirts of a town.他们大多住在近郊。

7 darting   

v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• Swallows were darting through the clouds. 燕子穿云急飞。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Swallows were darting through the air. 燕子在空中掠过。 来自辞典例句

8 rummaging   

翻找，搜寻( rummage的现在分词 )； 海关检查

参考例句：

• She was rummaging around in her bag for her keys. 她在自己的包里翻来翻去找钥匙。
• Who's been rummaging through my papers? 谁乱翻我的文件来着？

9 siblings   

n.兄弟，姐妹( sibling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A triplet sleeps amongst its two siblings. 一个三胞胎睡在其两个同胞之间。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She has no way of tracking the donor or her half-siblings down. 她没办法找到那个捐精者或她的兄弟姐妹。 来自时文部分

10 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

11 citations   

n.引用( citation的名词复数 )；引证；引文；表扬

参考例句：

• The apt citations and poetic gems have adorned his speeches. 贴切的引语和珠玑般的诗句为他的演说词增添文采。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Some dictionary writers use citations to show what words mean. 有些辞典的编纂者用引文作例证以解释词义。 来自辞典例句

12 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

13 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

14 prosecuted   

a.被起诉的

参考例句：

• The editors are being prosecuted for obscenity. 编辑因刊载污秽文字而被起诉。
• The company was prosecuted for breaching the Health and Safety Act. 这家公司被控违反《卫生安全条例》。

15 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 implemented   

v.实现( implement的过去式和过去分词 )；执行；贯彻；使生效

参考例句：

• This agreement, if not implemented, is a mere scrap of paper. 这个协定如不执行只不过是一纸空文。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The economy is in danger of collapse unless far-reaching reforms are implemented. 如果不实施影响深远的改革，经济就面临崩溃的危险。 来自辞典例句

17 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

18 eradicate   

v.根除，消灭，杜绝

参考例句：

• These insects are very difficult to eradicate.这些昆虫很难根除。
• They are already battling to eradicate illnesses such as malaria and tetanus.他们已经在努力消灭疟疾、破伤风等疾病。

19 shameful   

adj.可耻的，不道德的

参考例句：

• It is very shameful of him to show off.他向人炫耀自己，真不害臊。
• We must expose this shameful activity to the newspapers.我们一定要向报社揭露这一无耻行径。