With the closure of schools, lack of access to internet connectivity and mobile phones for online classes, the number of children working in the agricultural sector has gone up in six districts of Maharashtra, including Jalna, Nandurbar and Pune during the Covid-19 period.
According to the findings of a survey conducted by NGO Child Rights and You (CRY) in six districts, the number of children who are in child labour or working in agriculture has gone up since 2020 after the outbreak of the Covid-19. The total number has gone up from 2556 in 2020 to 3356 in 2021 and to 3309 in 2022.
“Closure of schools, lack of access to internet connectivity and mobile phones for online classes, financially stress of the families with huge job losses as well as the long strike of state run bus services seemed to have affected children’s academic prospects’ in rural areas, thereby forcing them to work in agriculture as well as in family run enterprises. Within CRY intervention areas in Maharashtra, close to 55% children accessed online education because of their linkage with Activity Centres and access to digital learning aids (tablets),” Kreeanne Rabadi, Director, CRY (West) said.
One of the findings of the survey said: “Children have migrated to neighbouring cities for work. These children often work as waiters or in brick kilns, as helpers, beggars and labourers in cities of Mumbai, Pune, Daund, Beed, Manmad, Aurangabad and Nashik. Many also migrate to work in sugarcane harvesting, irrigation, cultivation of agricultural land, sowing or planting, intercropping, threshing, spraying etc”.
Even in cities, CRY – in its survey -- found that a large number of children, despite attending online classes, are opting to work. In Mumbai’s two intervention areas, CRY found the pandemic and the lockdown to have had a multilayered impact on families that were on the margins in urban centres.
In areas of Mumbai like Bandra’s Rahul Nagar, Sion Koliwada and Mankhurd’s Cheetah Camp, CRY found that out of 589 children in the age group of 14 to 18 years, while 145 children are currently involved in a different kind of jobs of which 84 girls are engaged in household chores like cooking, sweeping, washing clothes and utensils and taking care of elderly or young ones.
“Children have unfortunately felt the burden of their family’s financial conditions and have preferred to work rather than go to school. The children who claimed to accompany their parents to work in fields earning alongside them anywhere between Rs 100 to Rs 500 per day,” one of the observations in the survey said.
“More investment is needed in programs to get children out of the workforce and back into schools, and increased efforts need to be made to provide social protection for families so that they don’t have to make the difficult choice of pulling their children out of education and putting them to work,” Rabadi said.