Disguised child labour cases rise amid pandemic

With lockdown having been lifted and life returning to normalcy, Prashanth (name changed) should be in school at the moment, thinking about next year's class 10 board exams, a crucial stage in a student's life.

But the 15-year-old is instead assisting his father in repairing mobile phones, thanks to the pandemic which turned his life upside down.

"All problems started when schools were closed due to Covid-19 during March 2020," says Prashanth, talking about those months when his father's mobile service shop had to be shut due to the Covid restrictions.

It was then that he started learning basic mobile repairing techniques from his father, who started working from home. "At that time, my father taught me simple repair techniques and I used to assist him," Prashanth told DH.

But what started as simple lessons during lockdown kept continuing even after the restrictions were lifted.

"My father is forcing me to continue with the same work and not sending me to school," says Prashanth, who even contacted the Child Helpline and expressed his interest to go back to school as well as sought intervention of experts into his plight.

Prashanth is not alone. Child rights activists say that there are many such kids who have been forced to keep away from schools in the state during the pandemic, which is referred to as disguised child labour. They are now seeking a separate survey to ascertain such cases.

Nagasimha G Rao, child rights activist and director at Child Rights Trust, says in "disguised child labour, there will not be any exploitation but pressure". "The percentage of such cases in the state is high in agriculture," he adds.

According to people working with Child Line, they are attending at least five to six such calls every month. "The rights of children to education has been snatched away and they are forced to earn and assist. We are trying to counsel such parents and in some cases even our efforts won't work," says Nagasimha.

Apart from agriculture, cases of disguised child labour is high when it comes to street vendors like chat shops, vegetable and fruit carts and flower sellers.

"We could see kids assisting their parents at a majority of these street vendors," said Gopinath R, a child rights activist.

Activists working for the protection of child rights want the state government to conduct a separate survey to identify disguised child labour.

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