ESCAP Report 2009

The Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Report 2009 has recently been unveiled. The report states that as the global financial crisis is still unfolding, its impact on people’s income levels and their welfare is difficult to estimate. Preliminary estimates indicate in 2009 that unemployment in Asia-Pacific could increase by 7 to 23 million workers.

Greatest Employment Impact
According to the report, in 2008, the greatest employment impact was felt in the export manufacturing sector, including garments, electronics and autos, which constitutes a large part of many East and South-East Asian economies. The crisis is also expected to hit such sectors as construction, tourism, finance, services and real estate.

The report reveals that the countries experiencing the greatest impact will be those with slowing economies and rapid labour force growth, such as Cambodia, Pakistan and the Philippines. Wage growth is slowing across the region –- the average wage growth in real terms in 2009 is unlikely to exceed 18 per cent –- and an outright wage reduction in countries with low economic growth seems inevitable, the ESCAP report states.

Cost of Financial Crisis
The ESCAP report points out that mere unemployment figures tend to mask the full extent of the problem. Hundreds of millions more will bear a disproportionate cost of the crisis, it states. As the 1997 crisis showed, when people are affected by sudden shocks, the ones most at risk are the poor, women who are labourers in the manufacturing sector, the youngest and oldest populations and socially excluded groups, the report highlights.

Not only do these groups have fewer resources with which to cushion the impact of shocks, such as real assets and savings, but they also have less influence on economic and political decision making, it states.

However, the negative impacts, according to the report, last much longer than the crisis itself: although economic growth resumed relatively quickly after the 1997 crisis, in some countries it took up to 10 years to recover lost ground in the struggle against poverty. Communities or groups that have been excluded from productive resources, decent work and social security are likely to be highly vulnerable to the negative impact of the global financial crisis and to volatility in food and fuel prices.

Such groups include indigenous communities; ethnic minorities; persons with disabilities; populations displaced due to conflict, large development projects, environmental degradation or disasters; stateless people; and migrants.

In particular, many refugees and internally displaced populations depend on food assistance for their survival and generally do not have access to land for farming, employment or income generation.

Child Labour Situation
The ESCAP report points out that the financial crisis could exacerbate the child labour situation. In the Asia-Pacific region, for children may have to go to work to supplement household income. As of 2004, by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates, 122 million children were economically active in the region. Children are also at risk of being withdrawn from school or not enrolled.

The report states that where families have to pay school fees for their children, economic hardship often leaves them with no option but to keep their children out of school. When families have to cut back on the quantity and quality of food, poorer nutrition in children can have permanent effects on intellectual capacity and cause chronic poor health, which, along with lower educational completion rates, could undermine human capital development and set back economic and social development for decades.

The report highlights that it is expected that men and women will be affected somewhat differently by the current financial crisis. In the Asia-Pacific region, especially with the growth of exports, many women have entered the labour market, but many of them work in export processing zones, where they may not have labour rights, or in industries which sometimes offer very low wages, poor working conditions and no job security.

Lack of Social Protection
According to the report, many women also work in the informal sector, which is precarious and offers no social protection. Although in many cases women have taken up paid work because male household members lost their jobs, women and girls may be seen as a burden on the family because their work may not be valued as highly as that of male household members.

In difficult times, the report states, families often rely on women to care for the sick, older persons and those who cannot fend for themselves, making it difficult for women to earn an income outside the home. Culturally, women and girls are often expected to contribute financially to the family regardless of how that money is earned, it reveals.

When there are few opportunities for wage work, girls and women may end up being trafficked through the promise of a job or being lured or forced into prostitution and other forms of extreme exploitation. Men may migrate out of rural areas, leaving women as household heads and often among the most poor.

Child Labour: Shame for Civilised Society

Child labour has hit every nook and corner not only in India but also across the globe. In other words, it is not restricted within a particular place, particular district, particular country but it is to be considered as a global problem. Across the global, to a lesser or greater degree, visible or invisible, admittedly or otherwise, child labour exists. Decades have rolled and that too in the age of globalisation. But things are not changing much fast for children living in rural areas, especially for the children of the poorer segments of the society, rather their condition is deteriorating.

Laws exist in all continents of the world to prevent the exploitation of the child. Various seminars are being held, resolutions passed and plans of action drawn up on the protection of children, yet not much could have been done about child protection and the problem grows out of proportion day-by-day. So, child laws have to be radically re-thought and re-written from the perspective of rights of the child, in terms of policy and accountability.

Apparently, child labour includes the employment of children but it entails several other dimensions which make it critical. Economic pressures coupled with the increasing trend to hire children in order to save production cost, unemployment in families are a few of the various factors responsible for the increasing child labour.

Indian Scenario
India has the dubious distinction of employing largest number of children in the world in the age group of 5 to 14. According to a recent report, about 11.2 million children are employed in child labour in the country. This accounts for 1.35 per cent of the total population, four per cent of total working population and 3.6 per cent of the total child population of the country. More than 90 per cent of the working children are in rural areas and most of them are employed in agriculture and allied activities. Not only this, India is also
a major destination for trafficked children. According to the Ministry for Women and Child Development, about 12,446 children are involved in this menace.

It is quite evident when we see the country’s capital itself, where the situation is deteriorating. A large number of children are seen working in sweet shops and small restaurants especially in major cities and towns.

Practical Problems
The Centre is planning to increase the age bar from 14 years to 18 years to end a disparity in child labour laws and juvenile justice laws. The Labour Ministry is now examining a proposal to amend the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act (CLA) to increase the age to 18 in consonance with other laws and United Nations Convention on Child Rights, to which India is a signatory.

Even Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury and the chairperson of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has asked the Labour Ministry to define child labourers as those who are below 14 years of age are considered child labourers but the Juvenile Justice Act considers 18 as the age bar.

The Labour Ministry has also constituted a working group to consider a set of amendments in the law prohibiting child labour. The group has been constituted following recommendations from several states and child right organisations. The working group is expected to submit a list of amendments in three to six months.

Changing the age could have major implications for 13 industrial sectors and 52 types of works enlisted in the Act, where child labour is not allowed. It would mean that these sectors would not be able to employ children between the age group of 14 and 18 years, if the amendment comes through. The Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) claim lakhs of children are employed in hazardous industries listed in the Act.

Recently, the Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan ruled that protective laws for children were not being properly implemented and child labour continues to be a major problem in the country. He also cited a report that 5,000 children still eked out a living on the streets of Delhi itself.

At a meeting, the Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee headed by the Director-General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recommended that nine more processes be added to the list of hazardous occupation under the law where children cannot be employed. The list includes 15 occupations and 57 processes involving excessive heat and cold, mechanised fishing, timber handling and loading, food processing, beverages industry, diving and mechanical lumbering.

Wrong Premises
The CLA, though prohibits child (upto 14 years) labour in specified hazardous occupations (17) and processes (57) and hardly cover 10 per cent child labour, exempts household workshops and training centres altogether. With the shifting of production processes from industrial premises to homes and due to poor implementation of the law, child labour continues to thrive even in specified hazardous processes such as diamond cutting, gem polishing, carpet weaving and so on. Articles 24 of the Constitution, thus stands violated.

The majority instances of child labour belong to historically serving communities of Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) or Muslims. The concept of ‘craft’ and ‘informal education’ emanates from a biased distinction made. The normal skills are considered essential for the children of the poor and marginalised placed lowest in the Hindu hierarchy.

Practical Problems
It is a fact that every problem has some solution, so does child labour. The only need is to sit down, realise and analyse the various aspects and then converging all these into some sort of viable strategy or strategies. The following are some of the practical ways:

Raising Awareness: Raising awareness among children and parents can go miles in tackling child labour. A well-thought strategy should be imple­mented to let parents know the initial needs of childhood development.

Brief Curriculum: Children need special care and brief syllabus which helps them learn fast. They can be grouped in 20 each batch supervised by an activist who can identify the weakest one among the batch and accordingly can give his attention to him.

Vocational Training: It is frequently popular among families which are susceptible to resort to child labour. While non-formal education programme can teach children skills that will offer immediate economic options as well as psycho-social support, the most formal vocational programmes require close adult supervision.

Residential Camps: These are necessary for children below 15 years of age. The camps can pave way for these children’s early education since most of the child labours have not had any education before. So, here they can well be trained properly.

It is high time that a positive start should be made to eliminate all forms of child labour from everywhere to save a greater part of humanity from their ruin. It can be tackled only when the attitude and morality of parents, exploiters and society at large get changed drastically. It is hoped that the lot of children improves their life in order to make this beautiful world happy and prosperous.

Bofors Gun Deal Case

The controversial move by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to remove Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi from the "most wanted" list has not only triggered a political furore but also led to legal action. An application has been moved in the Supreme Court challenging the CBI decision. Quattrocchi is an accused in the Bofors pay off scandal.

This allows the Italian wheeler-dealer, who enjoyed unrestricted access to the highest reaches of power in 1986 when the Rs.1,437 crore howitzer deal was struck, to travel abroad without fear of arrest or extradition. It is not as though evidence on his key role in the Bofors scandal is in short supply.

Withdrawal of Red Corner Notice
The urgent application filed by advocate Ajay Agrawal sought the direction of the apex court to stay the operation of any withdrawal of Red Corner notice against Quattrocchi who has not submitted himself to any Indian court in connection with the Bofors case.

Agrawal, who had earlier moved the apex court in January 2006 against the de-freezing of Quattrocchi's bank account in London, sought issuance of Red Corner notice again. Agrawal said Interpol should be informed immediately so that Quattrocchi could be nabbed and produced before an Indian court. Following a communication from the CBI, the Interpol has taken Quattrocchi's name off the Red Corner notice.

The CBI had approached Attorney General Milon K Banerji in 2008 for an opinion as to whether to continue with the Red Corner notice issued by Interpol against Quattrocchi as the notice has to be renewed every five years.

Missed Opportunity
The Attorney General cited the inability of the CBI to seek Quattrocchi's extradition on two occasions--first in Malaysia in 2003 and then in Argentina in 2007--and opined that the judgments in both the cases indicated that there was no good ground for extradition.

The warrant cannot remain in force forever. Therefore, the warrant of February 1997 would lose its validity, particularly in view CBI's successive failed attempts to get the accused extradited from Malaysia and recently from Argentina. Agrawal had filed the petition in March 2007 accusing the CBI and its director of consistently misleading the court over the extradition proceedings initiated against Quattrocchi. During a hearing on September 5, 2008, the advocate had alleged it was ex-facie clear that the CBI was helping Quattrocchi ever since the change of guard at the Centre after the general election in 2004 in the country and at every step the CBI was facilitating Quattrocchi so that he may go free from the Bofors investigation.

Wrong Approach
The CBI is supposed to be an investigating agency. But when it comes to probing the deeds of those close to the government, it tends to become more of an obliging agency. First, it gave a clean chit to Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar in the 1984 riots case. Now it has requested Interpol to withdraw the Red Corner Notice against Italian businessman Quattrocchi, who allegedly received over $7 million as kickbacks in the Bofors case.

The CBI should have automatically gone in appeal against the Delhi High Court judgment of 2004 which exonerated the accused in the Bofors matter, and left it to the judiciary at the highest level to be the arbiters in the delicate political case that rocked the political establishment in the late 1980s and 1990s. That way the CBI would have drawn no negative attention to itself.

The sudden request is baffling, but only to those who do not know that it had been trying to save Quattrocchi right since the UPA Government came to power in 2004. It allowed the arrest warrant against him to expire in 2004 and then again in 2005. Not only that, it let him take the money, which is strongly believed to be the kickback amount, back from his London bank accounts in 2006 and then goofed up — whether deliberately or otherwise — during his extradition trial in Argentina in 2007 and thus helped him to escape to Italy.

Efficiency and Reliability
The problem with the CBI appears to be more basic. As a matter of course it fails to adhere to basic norms of investigation and followup, and does so only when prompted in politically sensitive cases. It fails in its duty as a top-flight investigating arm of the police to follow leads, or to even pursue the ends of logic in a given case.

The Government has never been able to establish before independent — or even sympathetic — observers that it is committed to maintaining the integrity of some of India’s most vital and under-siege institutions. This pusillanimity means that people are losing trust in those; and that they will view the institution-breakers askance. The CBI has been a prime target; so much so, many in the public assume its moves have a political flavour, rendering its entire existence as an independent, statutory body moot. With suitable changes of the law and appropriate staffing, a body such as the Central Vigilance Commission, an independent constitutional body, could serve the purpose with greater efficiency and reliability.