11 December 2007

India’s Rural Development Minister has been accused of using children as young as ten to pull ploughs on his family’s farmland in the latest scandal to spotlight the widespread use of child labour in India.

Raghuvansh Prasad Singh faced calls for his resignation after television stations broadcast footage they said showed two lower caste children working on his land in the eastern state of Bihar.

The two boys, both barefoot and in ragged clothing, were shown pulling a makeshift plough, made from the trunk of a banana tree and designed to be pulled by oxen.

The video also appeared to show Raghuraj Prasad Singh, the Minister’s younger brother and manager of the family farm, explaining that he was using children because the fields were waterlogged. “It rained so much this year that the fields are still muddy and oxen and tractors cannot move on them,” he is shown saying.

One of the two children, identified as Sonu Lal Kumar, is shown saying: “My hands and feet ache all the time, but I cannot leave this work. I need to work for food.” The scandal is an embarrassment for the Government that tightened a ban on child labour last year and is still recovering from a recent media expose about children working in the garment industry.

Officials estimate that there are 12 to 13 million people under the age of 18 working in India, but non-governmental experts and activists say that there could be five times that number.The majority work in the countryside, even though it is illegal to use anyone under 14 for farm work.

The Minister has denied the allegations against him and his brother and accused the television channels of fabricating their reports to score political points. “The incident beamed by TV channels has been stage-managed. There might be a well-hatched conspiracy to defame me,” he said.

“We do not need any ploughing in the fields during this season and they must have helped in throwing seeds in the fields. No manual labour has been used.” However, authorities in Bihar said that they were investigating the allegations and opposition politicians called for the Minister’s resignation.

Child labour activists said that he should be arrested and prosecuted. “This is slavery in its worst form,” Bhuwan Ribhu, of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), said. “What has happened has exposed one of the biggest forms of child labour. It shows the lack of sensitivity among officials and politicians about upholding fundamental rights.”

Children’s employers often argue that they provide the only lifeline to poor rural families who can no longer make a living from farming. But activists say that children are usually underpaid, underfed and beaten, and often sexually abused. “If you are so concerned about the children, why don’t you employ their parents - and pay them the minimum wage,” Mr Ribhu said.

Last year, the Government extended a ban on child labour to include those working in restaurants, tea shops and as domestic help, but activists say that it has had little effect.

In October, another media expose found children as young as ten sewing clothes for Gap, the American clothes giant, in a sweatshop in Delhi. The children said that they were not paid as they had been sold to the factory by their families.

Gap said the factory was run by a subcontractor who was hired in violation of company policies and that no products made there would be sold in its stores.