Fact-finding exercise: NCPCR finds rampant child labour in Mustafabad e-waste scrap yards
New Delhi: In a recent fact-finding exercise to investigate the status of child labour in the e-waste dismantling sectors of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights has found that scrap yards in north-east Delhi's Mustafabad area were employing children for hazardous work at measly sums to take advantage of "cheap labour".
As per the NCPCR, they first visited a scrap market in Mustafabad, near the mosque on Street Number 6. "In fact, e-waste dismantling was being done in this entire area at a large scale when the surveyor reached the spot," said NCPCR in a report with preliminary findings.
The child rights body found a 15-year-old child detaching wires from television picture tubes. The wires were being detached with heat, which is a highly smoky process. During their interactions with children, the NCPCR found that the children detached these wires for 12 hours a day. The 15-year-old also segregates copper, iron, platinum, gold, and other materials from e-waste.
Another child, aged 8-9 years, was also seen in a shop in a nearby street, segregating lithium from batteries. These children have to wash motherboards with acid so that platinum and other metals could be segregated. Also, it is burnt so that the hidden metal can be collected for selling.
As per NCPCR, the children were seen engaged in segregating lithium from the batteries of these laptops. Thereafter, the lithium is sold to companies that make power banks. Children are being engaged in lithium-removing work to get the benefit of low labour costs, who get merely Rs 200 (less than three US$) daily. "Surprisingly, the locals and children informed that many such children are engaged in the e-waste dismantling in the entire area," the NCPCR said.
The child rights body also came up with recommendations that include penal action against those who are engaging children in such hazardous activities. A third-party monitoring mechanism for assessing the implementation of EWM Rules, 2015 should also be established for end-to-end monitoring of the entire process beginning from e-waste generation to its disposal.
A joint meeting of all the concerned stakeholder ministries, departments, including the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Ministry of Education should be called for devising a detailed plan for eradicating child labour in this sector, the NCPCR recommended.
