Giving Compass' Take:

• Professor Shantha Sinha explains how anti-child labor activists convinced those who would not be swayed to believe in the rights of children. Keeping children in school and out of work reduces poverty. 

• This is a good example of building an argument your audience can understand. Can you and/or your organization better address the concerns of skeptics by reframing your argument in a way that suits them? 

• Learn about removing barriers to women's labor-force participation. 

Professor Shantha Sinha has been an anti-child labor activist for the past 35 years, and was among the earliest voices in the country fighting for the rights of children to attain a formal education. She is the founder of Mamidipudi Venkatarangaiya Foundation (MVF), and a professor in the Department of Political Science at Hyderabad Central University.

What were the steps you took to change the prevailing social norm?
At the time the policy was that if children were working, they would attend night schools. This was unacceptable, so we had to convince nonprofits and the government that children have a right to be in formal, day schools.

We mobilized the community on one side, and on the other, we engaged with employers and school teachers. Many teachers resisted because many of the older children could not read or write, and so they worried about the additional burden of new students, and how they would cope. Since the schools were not ready to accept them, MVF ran a residential bridge course. To our surprise, we found that within 90 days, most children could learn to read and write, and thus appear for the 7th standard board exam to be admitted back into school.

Meanwhile, we lobbied with the Andhra Pradesh government, who agreed with our stance and released a circular announcing the mandatory closure of all non-formal education (NFE) centers, or night schools, in the state. This was in many ways a big win, but it also faced resistance from those who argued that child labor was inevitable, because of poverty; and, families would collapse without children’s income. Nonprofits, the government, academics and global agencies such as the ILO, DFID and others held this view. Indeed, many in the establishment and governance of the NFE program depended on the centers for their own livelihood, and thus had a vested interest in perpetuating the program.

This must have been a difficult fight, because you were making a point about children’s rights that had negative consequences for those in the establishment. Can you tell us more about it?
Oh, it was. For me there was only one argument: children must not work because they have a right. There can’t be a bigger argument than this.

However for those people and institutions who weren’t convinced with this argument, we highlighted the fact that it was child labor that caused poverty, and not the other way around.

We showed how there was transformation in society once child labor no longer existed. For example, we were working in 1,200 villages, where many of the young girls were employed in farms, plucking flowers, picking vegetables, and assisting with the harvest. They were cheap labor and could be forced to work long hours. But as these girls began entering schools, there was a scarcity of labor, which their employers’ sought to address by asking the mothers to step in. These women agreed to work but only if they were paid three times their daughters’ wages (INR 27 per day instead of INR 9).

Read the full interview with Professor Shantha Sinha about child labor at India Development Review.