India: Ways out of exploitative child labor
Worldwide, 160 million girls and boys work – almost half of them under appalling conditions. Suniti was one of these children. Now she is catching up on missed schoolwork at a transitional school.
Suniti is thrilled: "I have so much fun at school!" The girl is eleven years old and lives in the Koderma district of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Since the beginning of 2021, she has been attending the so-called bridge school in her village. Working children of school age catch up on their education there so they can then attend a public school.
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Previously, Suniti, like 22,000 other girls and boys in the region, had toiled in mines, extracting the mica mineral. Every day from morning till night, in heat and dust. Working in the self-dug, unsecured shafts is life-threatening; adults and children are frequently buried alive and suffocate. The families are poor;
mica is their only source of income. There is no government assistance here.
Terre des Hommes together with its local partner organizations Savera, Samarpan, and Ekjut, enables many children to attend school, even though it's not easy for families to forgo their children's wages. Suniti's family, for example, earns about 120 rupees a day working in the mines, the equivalent of €1.50. That's barely enough to feed them. The crucial help for Suniti's parents is the free school meals. A hot meal eases the burden on the family budget
Suniti wants to become a teacher
At first, Suniti was very shy and quiet at school. But her teachers encouraged and supported her. The girl learns quickly and is good at explaining things. She is also involved in the project's children's group: "We go to the neighbors and talk to them and all the children in the village so that they all really do go to school!" Suniti has now reached the second-grade curriculum. Her career goal is clear: she wants to become a teacher. This year she will transfer to the public school. A big step out of poverty and into a better future.
Terre des Hommes - Aid for Mine Workers
Starting in summer 2022, Terre des Hommes will launch further projects in 100 villages in the mica mining regions of the Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand, supporting children and their families who work in the mines. Internationally, Terre des Hommes is exerting pressure and demanding that mica-processing companies end child labor in their supply chains.
What is Mica?
Mica comprises a group of 37 minerals, also known as mica: Mica is used in countless products such as lipsticks, car paints, computers or mobile phones, because the mineral sparkles, reinforces fabrics and insulates against heat and electricity.