A mother in India ties her toddler to a rock in 40 degree heat for nine hours every day while she and her husband dig holes for electricity cables for just £2.50 each.
Sarta Kalara says she is left with no option, as her three-and-a-half year old son is too young to care for fifteen-month-old Shivani.
Every day the barefoot toddler sits in the dust tugging at the 1.4 metre plastic tape marked “caution” which is wrapped around her leg.
“I tie her so she doesn't go on the road. My younger son is three and a half so he is not able to control her. This site is full of traffic, I have no option. I do this for her safety,” the 23-year old mother from Ahmedabad told the Reuters news agency.
Unfortunately, with around 40 million construction workers in India, most of whom are poor migrants moving from site to site and one in five of whomare women, it is not unusual to see young children on building sites while their parents work.
Many of the families working on these sites live in tents on site or – like Shivani’s family – sleep in the open.
Prabhat Jha, head of child protection at Save the Children India, said: “There should be creche facilities, either from the government or the construction companies. There should be a safe place for these children. They are at real risk of being hurt.”
However, there is little provision for the safety of workers, let alone their children. Companies often outsource the hiring of cheap labour, often made up of members of the same village, and most have no proper training. They are usually left to work with little oversight and few safety provisions.
Often the children remain with their parents on the construction sites until they are seven or eight, with their mothers take quick breaks during the day to feed them. After this they are usually sent to live with grandparents in poor villages in neighbouring states.
Mrs Kalara said the site managers simply turned a blind eye to her plight, adding: “They don't care about us or our children, they are only concerned with their work.”
