#FactFinding- NCPCR demands strict actions against those who force children do e-waste recycling
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Pune, March 03: Taking cognizance of e-waste and involvement of children in it's management at Seelampur, Delhi and Muradabad, the National Commission of Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has demanded penal action under the relevant provisions of Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 and Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 against those who engage children in such hazardous activities. The NCPCR has also called for mandating authorisation for e-waste recycling and sesitization of children, parents, scrap dealers and local administration.
The NCPCR has been taking several initiatives to safeguard the protection of child rights. In it's fact finding report released on Wednesday, it noted to have seen a section of children engaged as child labours in harmful sector like e-waste so that they could meet the earning of their family. The scrap market of Mustafabad, Delhi, is the dumping yard for old laptops and old mobile phones and that e-waste dismantling takes place in the entire area on a large scale.
When the surveyor reached the spot, Suleman (name changed), a child aged 15 years, was detaching wires from TV’s picture tube. The wires were being detached by heating up, which is a highly smoky process. During interaction, it came out that the child detaches these wires from TV’s Tube daily for 12 hours. He segregates copper, iron, platinum, gold and other materials from e-waste- Tubes, Laptops and Mobiles.
Another child Mohammad Shahid (name changed), aged 8-9 years, was also seen in a shop in a nearby street, segregating lithium from batteries. These children have to also wash motherboards with acid so that platinum and other metals could be segregated. It is burnt so that the hidden metal can be collected for selling. The children there engage in segregating lithium from the batteries of these laptops, thereafter, the lithium is sold to companies that make power banks.
Why push children into such hazardous work at the cost of their health in first place? Section 3A inserted through CLPR Amendment Act, 2016, states that no adolescent shall be employed or permitted to work in any of the hazardous occupations or processes set forth in the Schedule.
Priyank Kanoong, the Chairperson, NCPCR sensing the need for companies to establish their own dismantling plants said, "Processes that involve child labour; those products should be rejected. Whereas e-waste and child labour are concerned, the companies responsible are doing very well in organized sector. For any process the business is depending on unorganized sector, there is a greater possibility of involvement of child labour and exploitation of children"
According to Chandrabhushan, the Environmentalist, all the TV manufacturing companies should dismantle their used products which is a reality in other countries but in India Television Companies don’t comply with this norm. Companies who are producing millions of electronics gazettes are to give their e-waste to the registered Recyclers but unfortunately it is not happening.
As per a UN report published in 2019 only 20 per cent of the E-waste is properly recycled in an average but it is limited to about 5 to 7 per cent in India. For these companies in other countries disposal is their responsibility, however, when they work in India the responsibility of dismantling is left with unorganized sector. Thus they adopt a dual standard when they work in India. In this way they play with the health and lives of children.
As the NCPCR did, the aligned Ministries in India- the Environment, Health, Education, Labour, need to look into the matter and take required strict action against the persons responsible for the misdeed. Afterall, article 39(f) of the Constitution of India reads that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment!