Domestic Child Labor No More: resolution but also pragmatism

It is a bit everywhere, invisible but still inescapable. It is in ours and in the neighbors’ houses. It is a bit in all the corners of Kathmandu and in many others throughout South Asia.

You see it in the small grocery store a few meters from your house when you go to buy a package of milk. It might even happen that you meet it when you have a stroll in your neighborhood.

It is domestic child labor, one of the worst forms of children exploitation. As it is so common, so natural, I am wondering if it is so bad.

I find myself in a dilemma when I meet it in the morning while I go to buy milk.

Should I call CWIN and ask them to send their social workers? After all, who am I to judge? Hardly after six years in the country, I ‘m still trying to come to terms withthe complexity of the reality on the ground.

Certainly all forms of child labor should be condemned; there is no room for justifying or condoning such an inhuman benchmark of poverty still affecting a large chunk of the population.

At the same time, I am trying to look at this plague from a different perspective. Domestic child labor and more in general allthe other forms of child labor,could beseen differently as a last remedy to something that could be much worse.

Consider if, instead of working in our houses, the child was trafficked or sold, ending up trapped in perverse cycles of exploitation, a potential pathway to a future life of troubles and misery.

Some of them find a way out in the crowds of our cities, empowered, fight after fight, by the freedom and anarchy of the streets.

It is hard to say which option is best. In reality these children are offered no real choices in life as they are catapulted into adulthood.

It is all about inequality, people’s mindsets and power relations, three determinants of unequal relationships between those who have and those who have not.

I hope that gradually society and the economic dynamics of the nation will change for the better and that the nation as a whole will realize that what was acceptable or granted before, won’t be anymore.

Child Labor no more can be a reality and not simply a motto. While acknowledging the great advocacy work done by many not for profit organizations in the country, I bet this would not be enough.

I am a gradualist and realistic by nature and I do not believe that you can eradicate domestic child laboronly through awareness raising campaigning.

Unfortunately there is no magic wand.

The only way out won’t happen overnight and it has multiple names: equitable development, shared prosperity, safety nets. All requires years to bear fruit.

For this reason, for the time being, let’s agree on a minimalistic but effective framework.

Here is my deal: in exchange for having guest children carrying out some well defined home duties, excluding categorically anything that can pose a threat to them, the host families would ensure a decent and human living conditions in something resembling a child friendly environment. Is this a chimera?

To start with, let’s term all domestic working children in a different way, let’s define them as Host Families Supporting Guests.

Let’s raise their living standards by educating them, ensuring mandatory playing time and by having our children to bear some working duties with them. Why not encourage our children to play with them?

Why can’t we grant few hours a day, similar to all other children, so that the guest child can go to school? Why do we not offer home schooling for them? There are many programs and tailored made curriculums addressing their needs.

Let’s use a carrot and stick approach. I do not want to believe that all domestic children are treated inhumanely although with no doubts there are many cases of abuses and exploitation to be prosecuted and condemned in the strongest possible terms.

Let’s not condemn the host families outright; let’ offer them an opportunity to amend and improve. Then if this does not happen, severe and stringent punishments should apply. At this point, even a new legislation could be put in place empowering child centered human rights not for profit organizations with “teeth” necessary to support the prosecution of not complying citizens.

We are dealing with children that do not need owners but foster parents who care for them. Making this clear will be an outright priority together with special allowances for those families whose income is below the poverty line, the same families forced to supply their own children as domestic workers.

These incentives will discourage in the future this “out of necessity” practice and possibly will allow many Supporting Guests to rejoin their own families.

We live with hypocrisy every single day when we see and experience child labor. Let’s make Domestic Child Labor No More. Slowly, progressively but steady.