Child Labour : A Devastating Evil

We all must have seen children working in roadside dhaba, washing utensils, working as a housemaid, sweeper and doing many more things, and ruining their childhood for a small amount of money, to take care of their family.  This child labor is not just cruelty against children but it also shows the evil side of the society. Not only it is violating the laws but it is also against the principles of human rights and natural justice. To have a check on this unending problem, global level efforts have been made by United Nations.

According to International Labour Organisation (ILO), child labor means 

“work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential, and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.It refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children, or work whose schedule interferes with their ability to attend regular school or work that affects in any manner their ability to focus during school or experience a healthy childhood.”

International Labour Organisation, a body of UN, launched in 2002, The World Day Against Child Labour on 12^th of June. The purpose was to unite together the governments, local bodies, NGOs, various workers and employers organizations and to find out the child labor issues and to provide the directions to help child laborers.

~Causes~

It is very important to know the reason and originating point of a problem to have an impactful solution. Poverty is the foremost reason of any problem and like that it has the worst impact on child labor too. Poor families often indulge their wards in employment o make money out of it and sometimes seeing the family conditions, children themselves work secretly. Other main causes of child labor maybe sum up as:

1. Lack of educational facilities
2. Family tradition and culture
3. Growth of industrialism
4. War & civil contentions
5. Poor implementation of laws
6. Unemployment
7. Lack of workers’ rights
8. Poor economic condition of a country
9. Apart from these many countries have in their laws provided some exemptions that result in increase of child labor. Such as –

• Nepal
  • Minimum age of 14 for most work, plantations, and brick kilns are exempt.
• Kenya
  • Prohibits children under 16 from industrial work but excludes agriculture.
• Bangladesh
  • Specifies a minimum age for work, but sets no regulations on domestic work or agricultural work.

~Effect & consequences~

Child labor has not only affected the children and ended their childhood life but it also has resulted into huge drawback in the developmental process of the country. Child laborers are often forced to indulge in hazardous activities like making of firecrackers in which there is a high risk of accidents and they are not provided any protection too.

Injuries and abuses like cuts, burns, and lacerations, fractures, tiredness and dizziness, excessive fears and nightmares are common in child laborers.

Child laborers are prone to physical abuses that involve corporal punishment, emotional maltreatment such as blaming, belittling, verbal attacks, rejection, humiliation and bad remarks. They are not provided the basic needs and physical neglect like lack of adequate provision of food, clothing, shelter and medical treatment are common in child labor.

Competition of children with adult workers leads to depressing wages and salaries. Sexual abuse, particularly sexual exploitation of girls by adults, rape, prostitution, early and unwanted pregnancy, abortion, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS, drugs and alcoholism are much likely to occur in child laborers.

Child labor also affects the social development of a child because the child spends time doing labor instead of with peers in social play, learning how to interact properly.

Lack of schooling results in inadequate educational qualifications and higher skills that result in perpetuating their life in poverty. Lack of opportunity for higher education for older children deprives the nation of developing higher skills and technological capabilities that are required for economic development/transformation to attain higher income and better standards of living. The economy and growth of the country face a lot of problems because of child labor.

~Laws prohibiting Child labor in India~

Since the independence, the government has tried hard to have a check on this social evil. Some of the legislations dealing with the issue are:

• The Factories Act of 1948: The Act prohibits the employment of children under the age of 14 years in any factory. The law also placed rules on who, when and how long can pre-adults aged 15–18 years be employed in any factory.
• The Mines Act of 1952: The Act prohibits the employment of children below 18 years of age in a mine. Mining is one of the most dangerous occupations, which in the past has led to many major accidents taking the life of children is completely banned for them.
• The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986: The Act prohibits the employment of children under the age of 14 years in hazardous occupations identified in a list by the law. The list was expanded in 2006, and again in 2008. This Act provides a long list of activities which are not allowed to be performed by child laborers. And in contravention, the offender is liable for punishments too.
• The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) of Children Act of 2000: This is the most recent & important effort made by the government to prevent child labor. It made child labor a crime, punishable with a prison term, for anyone to procure or employ a child in any hazardous employment or in bondage. This Act provides punishment to those who act in contravention to the previous acts by employing children to work.
• The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009: The law mandates free and compulsory education to all children aged 6 to 14 years. This legislation also mandated that 25 percent of seats in every private school must be allocated for children from disadvantaged groups and physically challenged children.

Apart from these provisions, Indian Constitution has also provided the check on child labor.

• Article 24 provides: strictly prohibits children from working in hazardous environment.
• Article 21, 45 gives the right to education to all the children below the age of 14years( in respect of that Article 21A has been inserted).
• Article 39 declares the duty of the State to provide the children a free and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity.

~Solution of the Problem~

No problem is big enough if a person has strong will-power against it.

So as the case with child labor, government, as well as social organizations, have stood side by side in this problem and tried hard to eradicate it from roots. The first name that comes

The first name that comes in mind about child labor is of Kailash Satyarthi, a Noble Prize winner, who founded the Bachpan Bachao Andolan in 1980 and has acted to protect the rights of more than 83,000 children from 144 countries. “

“Anger is within each one of you, and if we are confined in the narrow shells of ego, and the circles of selfishness, then the anger will turn out to be hatred, violence, revenge, destruction. But if we are able to break the circles, then the same anger could turn into a great power. We can break the circles by using our inherent compassion and connect with the world, through compassion, to make this world better”, said the Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, on the issue of ending the problem.

Education is the solution of the half of the problems of the world. Apart from it the simple solution of child labour are : providing education, high family incomes by increasing wages,  family control or fertility so as to check the over population, implementation of poverty elevation schemes, strict enforcement labour laws, promotion of fair trade practices to guarantee a fair price to small-scale producers and by replacing the child workers by adult workers for permanent solution of the problem.

~Conclusion~

No society ever existed without evils and this is true in the present case too.

This evil has deep rooted in the society like once slavery used to be. But modern society is more likely to accept the humanitarian changes and the day is not so far when we will see the child labor free society.

Child Labour(Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act passed in July 2016 was a progressive step towards ending this problem. Numerous NGOs has been working on the issue without any profit motive. The last hurdle arises on the part of the society. The problem will exist till some narrow-minded, greedy and wicked people are out there in the society. All the positive steps are of no meaning till those who are indulged in this understand the situation. So let’s take a sacred vow to end the problem and to establish an ideal society for each & every individual.

SOURCE OF INFORMATION:
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=8ryQCgAAQBAJ
http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Regionsandcountries/Africa/WCMS_101161/lang–en/index.htm?ssSourceSiteId=global/lang–en/index.htm
www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_norm/@ipec/…/wcms_101161.pdf

www.atree.org/sites/default/files/articles/slr_2016_74-104.pdf

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