The desperate parents, migrants from rural areas of the country, make up the majority of the 40 million construction workers who go from job to job, often living in tents or bedding down at the construction sites under the open sky.
One in five of these workers are women, many with small children who spend their days rolling in the sand and mud as their parents carry bricks or dig holes for roads or other infrastructure. Such is the case with little Shivani, tethered to a rock with a 4.5-foot long piece of red and white plastic caution tape, reports the Express.
The child’s mother, Sarta Kalara, says she has no choice but to tie her baby up despite her crying, while she and her husband work for $3.80 (250 Rupees) each a shift digging holes for electricity cables in the city of Ahmedabad. “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,” says the 23-year-old mother.
“This site is full of traffic,” she adds. “I have no option. I do this for her safety.”
Prabhat Jha, the head of child protection at Save the Children India, said crèche facilities (child care facilities) were rare and usually costly. “There should be crèche 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,” Jha told Reuters.
Indian construction companies often outsource the hiring of cheap labor and have no interest in the welfare of these people who come and go so quickly, and there is little or no oversight into any safety measures. On the day the picture was taken, the temperature was 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and humid.
The photographer talked to Kalera while Shivani sat on her mother’s lap, the plastic rope dangling from her leg. Kalera said the construction site managers turn a blind eye to children on the site. “They don’t care about us or our children, they are only concerned with their work.”
And that seems to be the way it is across India’s big cities. With drought and hunger driving families to the cities where they hope to find work, these migrants end up being the unwilling butts of discrimination. They are often the first people police look at when there is a robbery or any kind of crime, while the women have even been killed.
