How child welfare laws work against the poor
As per the Children’s Act 1960, whoever employs or uses any juvenile for the purposes of begging or causes any juvenile to beg shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine. The person who willfully neglects the juvenile shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term, which may extend to six months, or with a fine, or both.
Any police officer or any other person or organisation authorised by the state government may take charge of a juvenile person for bringing him before a Board. The Board may make an order directing the juvenile to be sent to a juvenile home for the period until he ceases to be a juvenile.
The fact is that in most instances, Nats perform as a family. Some of their art forms require the supple bodies that only children have. Most of them are too poor to send their children to proper schools. By accompanying their parents the children pick up valuable skills that have the potential to become a source of future livelihood. By contrast, going to dysfunctional government schools, the children become good-for-nothing and develop disdain for their traditional work. This is a sad loss of invaluable social capital in the form of their artistic talent. films, or made to work for ad agencies. Those who take to sport also start entering competitions very early on. Those who learn classical singing from ustads also start learning and performing at an early age. But nobody ever dreams of arresting the parents of such child stars or handing over such children to the care of Kailash Satyarthi’s NGO on charges of child labour. Why then target the poorest of the poor whose very survival depends on the street performances?
Their children are neither neglected nor abused. In Parts I and II of this series I have described the pains these parents take to get their children released. Just witnessing the brutalisation these families are subjected to when arrested and separated from their children has been deeply traumatic for me.