While other commuters fretted and fumed, these kids, on their way home from school, stuck their necks out of their convertible to have some fun during a traffic snarl on Jawaharlal Nehru Road on Friday afternoon. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

They know what schoollife is. They still carry schoolbags, pack lunch boxes and polish shoes. Not their own, but those belonging to the children of their employers. For the many child domestic labourers in the city, carefree schoollife is a distant memory.

A survey conducted by Save the Children, UK, Right Track and Loreto Day School, Sealdah, has revealed that 46 per cent of child domestic workers (CDW) in Calcutta are primary school dropouts. ?Since most of these CDWs are girls, their parents either thought education is unnecessary for them or they couldn?t afford it. We are trying to urge employers to resume these children?s education. They can be sent to government and municipal schools, if not to the same schools that their wards are in,? said Manabendra Ray of Save the Children.

Through a Powerpoint presentation on the survey at the city-level Consultation on Child Domestic Work held at Rotary Sadan on Friday, Paramita Chakraborty and Madhusree Ghosh, students of Loreto Sealdah, pointed out that 84 per cent of CDWs work more than eight hours a day. Besides being denied proper food and rest, these children also fall prey to mental and physical abuse.

Kunal Dey, a member of Juvenile Justice Board, rued that in not one case the employer been penalised for causing physical and/or mental trauma to the child domestic worker. This despite the law recognising it as a cognisable offence, calling for a jail term of three to six months and a fine.

Most of the child domestic workers are victims of organised trafficking rackets that operate in some districts in West Bengal. ?There exists three or four-tier systems. Many placement agencies which claim to provide nurses or ayahs are found to be part of these rackets. The good-looking girls are the more ill-fated as the agencies sell them to dance bars and brothels. The rest become CDWs in Calcutta,? said Ray.

But even urban families are not safe for these children, with 68.3 per cent of respondents admitting to being physically abused. Around 32.2 per cent were sexually abused, while 86 per cent have faced some form of emotional torture.

Recently, the Supreme Court issued notices to the Centre, states and Union territories on a PIL by a group of NGOs seeking a ban on all forms of child labour. The petition pointed out that the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, which disallows the employment of children only in hazardous jobs, in a way legalises other forms of child labour.

?An Article in our Constitution guarantees the right to education to children between six and 14 years. Child labour in any form contradicts this right,? said Biplab Mukherjee of Campaign Against Child Labour.

V. Shubha

Child domestic workers Bharati and Anuradha (centre), now school students, chat with girls from Loreto Sealdah and Loreto Dharamtala at Rotary Sadan, where the Consultation on Child Domestic Work was held on Friday afternoon. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Language link

Recalling the support lent by India, Pakistan and other countries when Bangladesh proposed the worldwide celebration of February 21 as International Mother-tongue Day, Bangladesh deputy high commissioner to India Mohammad Imran said: ?The researchers of both the Bengals can work in unison to formulate a standardised Bengali language.?

Speaking at the inauguration of the week-long mother tongue festival organised by CU on February 21, he dwelt on mother tongue being a national asset.

CU registrar Samir Kumar Bandopadhyay in his address declared his plans to make the presence of the Bengali language felt in a year?s time through the identification of the various photographs and paintings on the university premises, nameplates of the campuses and halls under the varsity, and letter correspondences by the officials within the state.

Emphasising the two-fold emotional and social relevance of celebrating the occasion, CU vice-chancellor Prof Asis Kumar Banerjee said in his welcome address: ?Make others conscious of their mother tongue and remind yourself of the same always, to further social advancement.?

Hailing the mother tongue festival as CU?s ?blossoming rose?, deputy registrar Nitish Biswas announced the involvement of the Dhaka and Calcutta universities in joint programmes in future.

CU pro vice-chancellor Prof Suranjan Das inaugurated a folder comprising a poem by Biswas, inspired by the Bengali speech delivered by Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi on January 17 at the inauguration the CU post-centenary golden jubilee celebrations. ?We have to take the precedent of Bangladesh where Bengali can now be used for administrative works,? Prof Das said.

The ceremony was strewn with Bengali songs and recitations.

Arjun Chaudhuri,
2nd yr MA journalism and mass comm, Calcutta University

It?s payback time!

Bam bam! Tandoori Chicken goes about his mission of gunning down highway travellers.

Bam bam! Tandoori Chicken goes about his mission of gunning down highway travellers.

The bird flu scare saw the majority of loyal flesh-eaters chicken out. With sudden culling sprees at poultries in many pockets of the country, our feathered friends have decided to fight back ? not in real life, but in the virtual world.

Revenge of the Tandoori Chicken is an online game by Games2win.com. It allows champions of chicken to don the role of Tandoori Chicken at a roadside dhaba and shoot down highway travellers. The game allows individual scoring and a top-10 score list.

Games2win.com is also planning to come out with sequels soon.