CUTS Centre for Consumer Action, Research & Training (CART), Jaipur in partnership with Save the Children (UK) has conceptualised a unique project titled ‘Hum Bhi Bachche Hain’ (we too are children) on Child Domestic Workers. The project was formally launched in Jaipur on 27 July 2005 in a meeting at Patel Bhawan, HCM-RIPA, Jaipur by Principal Secretary DWCD (Department of Women & Child Development, Government of Rajasthan) Ms. Alka Kala. About 75 participants – Govt. officials, teachers & students from selected schools; representatives of donor agencies/CSOs working on child issues, representatives of social organizations etc. participated in the event.
The first phase of the project is for one-year from July 2005 upto June 2006. The project will be implemented through 35 selected Schools in Jaipur City in close collaboration with the Departments of Education, Social Welfare, Labour, Women & Child Development, Government of Rajasthan with a total budget of Rs.1,00,000/-.
Child Domestic Workers, as the term implies, are children working within the homes. That means children working for wage in cash or kind, outside their families in domestic chores and not for commercial purposes. They are within the households of employers and thus are invisible to public scrutiny. India employs the largest number of working children in the world. Every third household in India has a working child. A survey states that 17 percent of domestic workers in India are under 15 years of age and forty percentage of them are girls. Though the problem is so serious, in many cities in India there is no official data/record about the gravity and vastness of the issue.
The main purpose of the CUTS-CART project is to understand the issue and generate awareness about ‘Child Domestic Workers’ through schools in Jaipur using a child-to-child approach. It also aim at advocacy at Rajasthan State level, involving different stakeholders to make it compulsory for all schools in the state to check and the Government to prevent child domestic work. The project also aims at the capacity building of the schools to carry on the activities beyond the project period.