It was a cold winter morning on Saturday last week. Kathmanduites were snuggling up in their warm quilts when eleven-year-old Bal Kumari Manadhar had finished moulding her 50th brick at a brick kiln located a few kilometres away in Bhaktapur.
For Bal Kumari, the day starts at 4 am and goes well beyond 7 in the evening. “She wakes up to prepare lunch and then goes to prepare bricks,” said her grandfather, Shyam Manandhar, who has been working at the brick kiln himself for the last 27 years. “We workers get paid fifty paisa per brick while the brick owners sell each brick for six to eight rupees.”
A fourth grader at the local school in Khaniyapuri village in Ramechhap district, Bal Kumari has been working at the Bhaktapur-based Agni Brick Kiln for the past 25 days to provide for her family. Her hands are rough and her feet worn hard by the hours spent mixing clay soil, moulding bricks and cutting brick edges.
Bal Kumari first came to the Capital to support her family. At that time, she was here to look after her cousin (daughter of her maternal uncle). “I used to watch my elders work all day with the clay and prepare bricks,” she said, adding, “The observations throughout the early years taught me the skills required to work now.”
Bal Kumari had to leave school for work. “I will only be visiting school to attend the final exams as I am away working here,” she said. According to her calculations, she will earn about Rs 16,000 this season. “My family has already taken Rs 8,000 in advance and I will be giving them the remaning amount by the end of this season.” she added.
Every winter, hundreds of children her age enter the Capital to earn additional income for their families who work in different brick kilns operating in and around valley. Most of the families have no choice but to send or bring their children to work. There are thousands of children like Balkumari, working day and night making bricks to meet the increasing demand of city dwellers to construct multi-storied buildings owing to the rise in urbanisation.
At the start of the winter season (first week of December to April end), most workers and their children stay in temporary tented houses at the brick making factory’s yard. The families, particularly the rural folks, migrating from remote districts outside the valley stay for almost six months during winter to make a living.
Most school-going children, particularly from Ramechhap, Kavre, Dolakha and Sindupalchowk, are brought to the Capital to work during winter. The students, like Bal Kumari, return to their respective schools only to give their final exams. For the rest of the year, they help dig the sand needed to make the bricks, mix it with water and mud and pour it into a mould.
The molded sand is then left to dry out in the field for a couple of days after which it is fired in the brick kiln.
According to data released in 2010 by Child Development Society (CDS), about 45,000 children are working in brick kilns in and around valley. There are 64 registered brick kilns in Bhaktapur district and in each brick kiln, a minimum of 20 children work.
Similarly, a recent study on the brick kilns of Bhaktapur, Lalitpur and Kathmandu states that among 240 respondents, 54.2 percent are girls and 45.8 percent are boys. 59.6 percent are below 10 years of age, 36.6 percent belong to the age group of 11-14, and 3.7 percent are above 14. Most of them migrate temporarily to the valley from Kabhre, Ramechhap and Sarlahi districts, mainly during their winter vacation from school.
Work at the brick kiln keeps them from school and when they return to give their examination, most of them fail due to lack of preparation. It is not surprising then, that they drop out and return to the brick kiln.
Children like Bal Kumari have limited options to keep their education afloat. Organisations like CDS run open learning centres in the valley so that the children can have coaching classes. But the target thus far has gone up to covering only 300 of them. Some schools near the brick kilns also provide separate coaching classes, but they are able to cover only150 children working in the kilns.
The case of children working in the brick kilns is not new, and inaction by the local government has resulted in them being trapped in menial labour. There are only seven non-governmental organisations, with 25 seasonal classes altogether, working for children labouring in brick kilns. In Bhaktapur, there are only seven seasonal coaching classes running for elder children and four early childhood centre for the younger children. This amount of support is not sufficient considering the number of children working currently. Will Bal Kumari live her life making bricks like her grand father? “I want to continue my studies and become a teacher,” she says, while keeping busy with the clay in her hands.
Derived from kathmandu post daily.
