This document summarizes a photo exhibition on child labor in India. It includes photos of children working in various difficult conditions, such as selling goods in traffic, construction work, tobacco rolling, fishing, and domestic work. Many children have limited access to education and basic needs. The exhibition aims to inspire action to promote child rights through photography by documenting the lives and struggles of children. It encourages volunteers from different backgrounds to join the initiative through contacting the organizers to help build a movement.
1. CLICK RIGHTS
PRESENTS ….
Roaming Photo Exhibition on Wheels
Kolkata January 2011
2. Festivity is in the air. This young boy celebrates his Christmas, New years and Durga
Puja knocking at the rolled up windows of the cars trying to sell balloons at the traffic
signal of Esplanade
3. Small children like this unnamed child come from villages of Jharkhand, Orissa and
Bihar. They work in the construction sites of Rajarhat (the proposed satellite city of
Kolkata) where hundreds of sky scrapers are coming up. After the day's work he is
folding up the safety net which is essential for his survival for working in high-rise
construction sites
4. In Aurangabad, Nimtita or Arjunpur village of Murshidabad district, the young
biri-rollers help the elders in the family to earn some extra money for their family.
They often become soft targets of the deadly tuberculosis for handling tobacco
constantly.
5. Bubai, the kite runner is a resident of a village in South 24 Parganas. He
studies at the charity based school of Lashkarpur. Will his dreams ever
come true; can he dream of better future and prospect?
6. These are the eyes of Jhumki. These children are from the villages of Narendrapur
and Lashkarpur in South 24 Parganas. Their parents are farmers, fishermen or run
small tea stalls in the locality. They want their children to study further but have
limited funds. Yet they aspire for their children to be educated
7. The gram flour sherbat seller was photographed near Babughat, Kolkata.. Most of
these children selling lemon sherbat or gram flour sherbat are seen in school
uniforms and are often working to relieve their parents after attending schools when
other children do their homework or play in the park
8. Shanti, Jhumki, Bubai and Shuddha do not have access to proper Govt schools or
formal education. We find them playing during most mornings before they go to a
voluntary school at 10:30 am
9. Young girls work in the fields and look after their cattle along with the older women
right from their childhood as there is no scope for them to attend school, in Purulia
the poorest district of West Bengal. Hardly there are schools in the locality and even
if there are, they are mostly not suited for girls- the roads are unsafe; there are no
toilets which push girls out of schools.
10. A boy helps his father to stitch the fishing net in Puri, Orissa. Their hut was engulfed
by the sea a few months ago. Ongoing effect of climate change often makes the lives
of the children vulnerable.
11. A lot of people migrate to India from Bangladesh in search of better living and
land up in even worse situations. The thatched hut is all that this girl has to share
with her family in a village of Gupti, Coastal Orissa .
12. This is the youngest boy in the tea stall. The moment signifies the heart wrenching despair that
he feels, working constantly in the maddening heat while being yelled at to make the maximum
number of dumplings that he possibly can in a given time.
13. This young boy although young seems to have a rebellious nature. The owner would yell at
him for being slow and he would occasionally respond by slowing down even further. This
prompted calls to the owner of the shop at the Lake Camp. The calls were traumatic for the
children; much more than the yelling. And they would then respond by working
frantically. Many of the customers at the store are children (accompanied by their parents) and
it was rendering to see the lack of empathy that the customers, kids and adults alike, felt for the
children working to feed them.
14. These two children near the shanty settlements that line the ghat stretch near
Babughat, were playing in the Ganges. On asking them if they went to school they
smiled, looked at each other and said no. Under their expression of defiance lay
hidden a certain yearning and despair
15. These children have no school to go to and hardly any means of communication with the rest of
the world. They live in this place called Satabhaya in coastal Orissa, where more than 300
houses, roads and entire villages were engulfed by the sea in less than 5 years through repeated
cyclones and tidal waves. The nearest school, hospital or market is about 10 kms of walk through
the Mangrove forests of Bhitorkonika
16. The effects of 'Aila' the tropical cyclone that hit sundarbans in May 2009 have led to
large scale migration; especially of women and children; owing to lack of basic
infrastructure and livelihood
17. Poverty in the Sundarbans is a cliché for the world news. Yet it exists even today to
a worrying extent and children, specially girls like these are at constant risk of
being trafficked for child labour or even worse!
18. Even at this young age, he is an expert boatman, assisting his father since the age of
four. His father ferries the boat for a meager salary and cannot afford to hire an
assistant. So, the boy has to play the role at the cost of his education .
19. Most of the street side shops in Kolkata are run by young children, who come from
villages to the big cities in search for a living. Having no means of shelter they sleep
on the footpath at night, where their childhood dreams increasingly become hazier in
the backdrop of the shining street lights
20. The smiling moment is supposed to be an integral part of a girl’s life but having no
basic access to health, electricity, pure water, education and transportation coupled
with their daily struggle for survival makes it a distant dream.
21. In many of the Hindu festivals when children usually have fun and frolic, these
young children accompany the dhakis to the city and work untiringly.
22. About the Initiative
Volunteers from diverse
professional
background like film
making, banking etc Nilay
a
fellow n Dutta,
, pho A CR
by pr to jou Y
o
anch fession an rnalist
oring d
And the in
itia ti v
e
Click Rights in Kolkata
23. To
ac insp
tio
n f ir e p
or eo
ch ple
ild
r ig to t a
hts ke
Come Together to Build a Movement for Child
Rights Through Photography.
d
e with the chil
opl
o ut to pe
T o reach age
ss
ri ghts me
24. • Do You Feel passionately about child rights issues in
India ?
• Do You Love Clicking Pictures ?
• Do You Want to bring about a change through
photography ?
To Join us :
Mail us at :
nilayandutta@gmail.com
anupama.muhuri@crymail.org
Contact : 033-24169507 / 2772