The civil
society working on land rights and mining issues seldom highlight
their plight
MAY 31,
2014
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| Photo- Courtesy-http://www.amusingplanet.com/ |
Ashok Shrimali*
India currently produces 89 minerals out of which four are fuel
minerals, 11 metallic, 52 non- metallic and 22 minor minerals. Mining for fuel,
metallic and non-metallic industrial minerals is currently undertaken in almost
half of India’s districts. Post-Independence, mining has been considered as one
of the main industries that generate high revenues considering that India is
significantly endowed with mineral resources. Development through the means
mining in our country is also considered to be directly proportional to
economic prosperity at all levels — be it national or local.
Unfortunately, mining has always been a symbol of struggle between
human need and human greed. The greed has always undermined the need. We have
seen many such struggles by tribal people in India such as the one in Niyamgiri
hills against Vedanta in Odisha, against POSCO in Odisha, against SAIL in
Salem, Tamil Nadu, and many more. Through these struggles one can see that
economic prosperity has never percolated to the Local level. It is in and
around these mining areas that we find many children growing up. These children
are affected by mining both- indirectly and directly. It is these children who
one should be concerned about and refer to as the mining children.
A fact finding visit to the mines of Hospet and Bellary in 2005
and the country-wide study on children and mining, “India’s Childhood in the
Pits”, a report on the impacts of mining on children in India undertaken
jointly by HAQ Centre for Child Rights, Samata, Mines, Minerals and People
(MM&P) and Dhaatri Resource Centre for Womenhighlighted the impact of
mining on children. The report highlighted that mining children suffer from
malnourishment, respiratory diseases, absence of safe drinking water, of safe
and healthy environment.
These areas are prone to high dropout rates from school,
vulnerability to sexual exploitation, and trafficking. Since areas
inhabited by adivasis are the ones that are also mineral resource rich, it is
the adivasi children who are the worst affected by mining. They are hit the
hardest by landlessness, displacement and depletion of forest resources, which
also seriously affects their nutrition.
However, the tragedy is that “mining children” are nobody’s
children. The ministry or department that mines does not look after children
and those ministries or departments that look after children, such as
Departments or Ministries of Social Welfare, Labour, Women and Child
Development, Education, Tribal Welfare do not have mining areas on their
radar. So invariably, children in these areas fall between the cracks.
Following the release of the report “India’s Childhood in the
Pits”, an inter-ministerial committee was set up by the secretary of mines to
address the issues of women and children in the mining areas. This Committee
was constituted keeping in mind the need to interact and coordinate
with different concerned ministries to address the emerging concerns. But
unfortunately, as soon as the Secretary changed, this initiative seems to
have put into cold storage.
What is more, the same kind of gap exists between human
rights activists and civil society groups as well. Those who work on land
rights and mining issues seldom see and therefore highlight the issues
concerning children. Similarly, those working on child rights seldom see the
impact mining is having on children. Media too has never made this
connect. Therefore it is not surprising that they are partnering with mining
companies such as the partnership between NDTV and the controversial
Vedanta, who have caught on to the importance of the issue and the need to
focus on children, and are already acting on it to boost their image.
Ashok Shrimali
Children are affected directly and indirectly by mining. Among,
the direct impacts are: The loss of lands leading to displacement and
dislocation, increased morbidity due to pollution and environmental damage,
consistent degeneration of quality of life after mining starts, increase
in school dropouts and children entering the workforce. The indirect
impacts of mining are often visible only after a period of time. They are: Fall
in nutrition levels leading to malnutrition, increase in diseases due to
contamination of water, soil and air, and Increase in migration due to unstable
work opportunities for their parents.
India has a lot of laws, policies and programmes for children. But
studies have shown that mining children are unable to benefit from them. Very
few laws provide any protection or relief to mining children in particular or
address their specific situation created as a result of living and even working
in mining. The paradox of mining lies in the fact that, although they
live in the mining areas, neither the mining industry nor the mining
administration is legally responsible for ensuring the rights and development
needs of children. This is because the principal job of the ministry of mines
is to mine and not look into the requirements of children.
The mess that is created in the lives of children as a result of
mining is addressed by other departments like child welfare, education, tribal
welfare, labour and others, which makes for an inter-departmental conflict of
interest and leaves ample room for ambiguities in state accountability. In this
process, the child is being forgotten. Thus, impacts of mining on children have
technically few legal redressal mechanisms to bring the multiple players to
account.
Child labour in mining and quarrying is in virtually the worst
form of child labour because of the extent and severity of the hazards and the
risks of death, injury and disease. There is no justification
– poverty included – for children to work in this sector. It is
literally a back breaking work. It is relatively straightforward, therefore,
for governments to legislate to include mining and quarrying activities on
their legally-binding, national hazardous child labour lists; thereby making
them prohibited activities for children.
Mining children have the same rights as any other child in the
country and it is important for all those who work on mining or child rights
issues in the area, to be familiar with these so that they can advocate for
their realisation. The Indian Constitution, various national policies,
assorted laws concerning children, and international legal instruments ratified
by India, particularly the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989,
which India ratified in 1992, provide a legal framework for ensuring children
their rights to survival, development, protection and participation.
Article 45 of the Indian Constitution promises that the state
shall endeavour to provide early childhood care and education for all children
until they complete the age of six years. The largest programme to
guarantee this is the Integrated Child Protection Scheme. Although this
has not yet been recognised as a fundamental right by the Constitution, for the
complete growth of a child NGOs must try to ensure that there is fully
functional anganwadi centre for children in our area.
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| Photo Courtesy - |
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*Gujarat-based senior rights activist, who attended round table
conferences on Children and Mining – Protecting Child Rights in Mining Affected
Areas, held at Vishakhapatnam, Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi and Delhi between May
21 and 26, 2014
Courtesy- counterview.org
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