NATIONAL8 (Spotlight Weekly]

Ungainful Employment

Economics and ethics come into direct conflict

By AKSHAY SHARMA

The public debate over the plight of child workers was rekindled a couple of months ago when newspapers covered how police rescued a group of children from a carpet factory in Kathmandu. These children were said to have been beaten mercilessly for not working the long hours their employer expected them to. Calls for ending the practice of hiring children for work gained new urgency and activists once again swung into action.

A child : Huffing and puffing

Hari Chaudhary's story explains another aspect of the debate. He earns his living by doing house chores in Kathmandu. When he goes home, he takes clothes and other things for his father, mother and siblings. In Kathmandu, he can eat better, go to a better school and do things he could have never done in Rautahat, which he left at the age of six.

Hari's father allowed him to go to Kathmandu because he wanted his son to have a better life. He thought it would be better for everyone in the family for Hari to be the economic benefactor. In macro-economic terms, that is how Hari became another unit in boosting national output.

In purely economic terms, every human being has a production value. But economics goes to the extremes when children are exploited for monetary gains.

"Gross exploitation of child persists in many forms. They are trafficked in and out of the country like contraband, bought and sold as sexual and economic commodities to a large number of exploiters," Steward McNab, country representative of UNICEF, said in an address to a workshop organized by Child Workers in Nepal earlier this month.

Law-enforcement officials agree that the scale of the problem is alarming. "Child abuse is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken," said Dr Govind Prasad Thapa, District Inspector General of Police.

Among the many forms of trafficking, the worst is the illegal purchase and sale of human beings. In Nepal, there may be some deeper reasons for the prevalence of this pernicious trade. Of 123 recent registered cases related to human trafficking, only 23 of the offenders were punished, according to experts. Why don't victims report to the authorities and why do the traffickers managed to avoid punishment even when the victims have filed cases?

Sexual abuse of children has been reported in alarming numbers in recent years. "Incest or sexual deviance in the family, new male member of a household with a record of sexual offense, loss of inhibition due to alcohol, loss of maternal libido or sexual rejection of father, a pedophilic sexual orientation, especially in the relation of father, and sex rings and pornography are the factors predisposed to child abuse," said Dr Harihar Wasti of the Teaching Hospital.

Experts call for a multi-pronged solution. They say Nepal needs to enlist more active support from India in combating trafficking in human beings. A large portion of the victims of sexual assault are aged 15 or below. This calls for proper psychological counseling for the victim and relatives who are faced with a long-lasting trauma.

Hari's fate took a new turn when he decided to leave his village. He seemed to be in an economically better condition. But the mean streets of Kathmandu are taking their toll on the boy.

He plans to go to Bombay where someone told him "the streets are paved with gold." There are many stories like Hari's. All you need to do is ask.