CHILD LABOUR
Child labour is and has always been a difficult problem to address. In the global market, today, the problem has become much more difficult. Also, current economic practice makes it difficult to ban the practice of child labour, for fear of eliminating the nation’s area of advantage - cheap labour.
Child labour is not only harmful for the health of the children, but it also takes away their chance for an education, and simply takes away their childhood. If we take a positive outlook and say that the child is helping to earn for his helpless family, the argument that goes against this is that the child is not protected, which is a very strong argument. In India with the growth of the unorganized sector there is a chance that child labour will only go higher up the graph.
We ourselves can do a lot to eradicate this problem. The government has its own strategies. Along with the government we can also volunteer thorough organizations, campaigns etc.
But first we all have to be more educated on this topic and make people around us also aware. We all know about this problem and through this article I just want to remind you again and motivate people because unless something materialistic happens we all will only continue writing articles on this topic and nothing else.
-Sonalika Sangwan
X-A
Millions of children in India are engaged in this darkness of child labour. Their innocence and childhood is lost in the effort to eke out a living and earn three square meals a day. Books, toys and school are unheard of for them as they are grounded in harsh reality of being poor. Many children work as domestic servants, selling petty articles, begging, being exposed to hazardous articles like carpet weaving, fire crackers etc. Even after 60 years of independence, it is a sad state of affairs that children in our country are deprived of basic education.
These children enter the true adult world much before the time their body and brain is developed to accept such harsh realities of life. The careful attitude and effervescence of childhood are alien to them. The future doesn’t hold much promise for them. They are sucked into the quagmire of crime and juvenile homes.
This is the scenario of our country where “Right to Education” is a fundamental right of every citizen. How can our country boast of technological advancement and development when millions of children are wallowing in the darkness of ignorance and poverty? The vision of a strong and powerful India cannot be envisaged until every child is educated.
Each of us must ensure that knowledge prevails over the evils of illiteracy and the “Right to education” dispels the darkness of ignorance.
- Rajkumar Agarwal
X A
A LIFE BEHIND A LABEL
Sure, it’s hip and cool to flaunt the costliest brand of jeans or the latest pair of sports shoes that have just come into the market. It’s even better if the label is that of a multi-national company. Now, it wouldn’t be hip and cool if one knew that those very brand products are made by thousands of children working in unsuitable conditions all over the world, would it?
Does it even seem naturally right, for a child to be working in miserable conditions, trying to earn a meal, at an age when he should be enjoying life, oblivious to anything called worry? No it most definitely does not, yet we have a much too large number of children working behind the grim walls of factories, operating machines which even an adult would have to be careful while dealing with. These kids are hidden away from the eyes of the rest of the world and denied basic things like proper food, health care or even a bit of freedom. Forget education, it’s too far away to think of! Besides all this, being uneducated and innocent these children are easily exploited and paid wages that are synonymous with nothing. These kids usually work to try and support their families or are orphans, who work with the purpose of earning at least one square meal a day.
The question is not “what is child labour” but “what is being done about child labour”? Sure all of us are well educated so we know what child labour is, what causes it, where it is prevalent and so on and so forth. In fact all of us have been listening to speeches, debates etc since we can remember, where child labour have been discussed ever so passionately. But most of the time it is just limited to the stage or paper. Most of us couldn’t care less what happens outside because our world is limited to our family and friends. Unless one experiences the same trauma which would probably never happen, he will never truly be able to relate.
To help stop child labour doesn’t mean one has to give up his life and go stand on the streets with a slogan “STOP CHILD LABOUR”! We can start at the basic level by boycotting products made by children, not employing children and taking action against those who employ children. By ensuring that a child doesn’t work and gets educated, we can help the child avoid a whole lifetime in which he might have had to work as a labourer, paid next to nothing.
By stopping child labour not only are we bringing a child a better life but also becoming a better human being.
Pratyusha
X A
Children can’t read, adults can’t count...
'Stop Child Labour - School is the Best Place to Work'
The Ministry of Labour recently issued a notification banning children below 14 from working in residences and the hospitality sector. After agriculture, these areas are where children are employed in the highest numbers.Child Rights and You (CRY) has welcomed the Ministry's recent notification but feels it is an insufficient response. Many gaps still remain in the legal provisions against child labour.
However the severity of the issue does not rest at these various laws and organisations that are meant to help these children but the nature of the society towards the issue. It’s no more about the larger picture but the root of the problem. Millions of children work as domestic workers in homes and exploited by their employers who are part of the so called top class society.
In Andhra Pradesh alone, 247,800 children work in cottonseed production and around 450,000 in all of India, most of them for Indian-owned companies.
Moreover child labor affects a child's heath as well.
Investing in [children] is not a national luxury or a national choice. It's a national necessity. If the foundation of your house is crumbling, you don't say you can't afford to fix it while you're building astronomically expensive fences to protect it from outside enemies. The issue is not are we going to pay -- it's are we going to pay now, up front, or are we going to pay a whole lot more later on.
--------Marian Wright Edelman
Founder and President, Children's Defense Fund, USA
We don’t bat an eyelid when we see these youngsters balancing gruesome burden on their heads and backs. Often they are crippled by these exploits, emotionally and literally. You scream, I scream and everyone screams about child labour but what would we do for a child labour? Child labour is the result of lack of social security/poverty/unemployment and excess population. Unless strict measures are adopted by the international community, child labour can’t be eradicated. We have to understand as to why children go to work. Some percentage of child labour comes from brutality and harassment by parents or step-parents. But rural poverty, lack of employment and illiteracy has given birth to majority of child labour problems. Our understanding should be a little more practical, as no parent wants the child to work at an age when he is meant to study and play. Poverty often drives parents to force their children to work. Over Population and illiteracy are the root causes of it. They think that the more the children, the more the income. This perception is definitely wrong. The system of child labour prevails in countries which are poor or underdeveloped. Nearly 70% of the world’s poor live in Asia alone and the major contribution is made by china, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The government in Asia should boldly make decisions to control excessive growth of population even if it means taking harsh decisions.
It has rightly been said, “A child uneducated - is a child lost”. What we should realize is that, a child uneducated is a nation lost.
Yashika Handa
XA
THE EXPLOITATION OF CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA
Child labour in India is a grave and extensive problem. Children under the age 14 are forced to work in glass-blowing, fireworks and most commonly carpet making factories. While the government of India reports about 20 million children labourers, other non-governmental organisations estimate the number to be closer to 50 million. Most prevalent in the Northern part of India, the exploitation of child labour has become an accepted practice and is viewed by the local population as necessary to overcome the extreme poverty in the region.
Child labour is one of the main components of the carpet industry. Factories pay children extremely low wages, for which adults refuse to work, while forcing the youngsters to slave under perilous and unhygienic labour conditions. Many of these children are migrant workers, the majority coming from Northern India, who is sent away by their families to earn an income, sent directly home. Thus, children are forced to endure the despicable conditions of the carpet factories, as their families depend on their wages.
Taking aggressive action to eliminate this problem is difficult in a nation where 75% of the population lives in rural areas, most often stricken by poverty. Children are viewed as a form of economic security in this desolate setting, necessary to help supplement their families’ income. Parents often sacrifice their children’s education, as offsprings are often expected to uphold their roles as wage-earning members of their clan.
CAUSES OF THE PROBLEM
As a developing country, India is faced with a multitude of social problems. One such problem, child labour, has disgraced the entire sub-continent giving it the distinction of having the largest number of child labourers in the world.
Poverty is one of the most widespread reasons for child labour system in India. Indian children are often forced to work out of necessity. Poverty forces children into workplace. Although poverty is the main catalyst of child labour problem, it is not the only cause.
A factor contributing to the labour situation is family debt. Often family debts are passed to the next generation forcing young children into bonded labour. The young also work involuntarily to pay off debts incurred when adults borrow money to pay for life-cycle events like weddings.
The irrelevant and often inaccessible education system in India, has led to an increase in child labour. In 1996, Carol Ballomy, Director of United Nations Children Fund, released tha annual state of the world’s children report citing education as the single most important step in eliminating child labour. Although provision has been made in India many children still find themselves illiterate, uneducated and driven to work.
Child labour is caused by multitude of problems including poverty, forced bondage, the general Indian attitude towards child labour, the irrelevant and inaccessible education system, inefficiency of protective legislature for working children and so on.
In order to overcome such obstacles India must introduce reform measures and welfare schemes.
Aditi Punetha
X B
CHILD LABOUR – A MISFORTUNE
Years ago, the birth of a child was met with so much joy and happiness. Sometimes a child is welcomed into the world with a sigh. Children suffer such cruel fate in the world today. Child labour is one among the misfortune faced by children.
One does not notice them at first; but children are hidden and exploited. They do not know what it means to be loved. They know not what it means to be cared for. They do not know what lies ahead of them. Children are a sign of innocence and it is heart breaking that they are treated with such unkindness. They deserve to be free, deserve to be able to play and make merry.
It is because of ignorance that these children are abused and tortured. Their health and well being of the children is in our hands. It is our duty to help them and put an end to child labour. We have to heal not only the physical scars but also build their emotional being that has been badly bruised. There must be a solution to make their fairy-tale dream come true. So friends, stand against child labour.
Ashna Prasad X A
Imagine how it would be to be deprived of education. How would it be if you had to toil all day long to earn a meagre amount, not enough even for 3 square meals? Imagine your child subjected to all this.
Child labour shows the worst face of India. It has been 60 years since we got our independence and yet we have not overcome such problems. On one hand India has progressed to become one of the upcoming super powers and yet on the other hand we battle with child labour and poverty. Only the youth can help. We must uplift our fellow citizen from the shackles of child labour. Without it our dream of a developed India will never be realized.
E. S. Sharanya Shree
X
An estimated 200 million children aged five to seventeen are engaged in child labor excluding domestic labor. Several millions are believed to be engaged in hazardous situations or conditions such as mines, chemical factories, working with pesticides, and dangerous machinery.
Millions of girls are working as domestic servants. They face the rigorous toiling and abuse at large. An estimated 1.2 million children are into trafficking. They are forced into debt bondage, slavery, prostitution and many other illicit activities. However, a vast majority works in the agriculture sector.
Actually, child labor is the employment of children under an age determined by law. But due to universal schooling and discussion among the countries with UNICEF, led to decrease in child labor and increase in the awareness of education is brought into practice. As the parents have also become aware of the importance of education, even a poor weaver saves money to educate his or her child. Thus, encouragement from the government and support rendered by forums have reduced child labor but not totally eradicated it. This is a good sign and we wish and hope that each child in today’s world will be able to get educated and the dark world of child labor will vanish from the society.
Sheikh Farazuddin
XB
Imagine pulling out your child from school just because you are unable to find a job that pays enough to support your family. Imagine you have to pull your daughter from school and force her to work at an early age. Imagine the entire generation of your family being born into bonded labour, with no hope of breaking free. Imagine a country. Call it India, if you will, where 10,000 Indians died from entirely preventable causes. Half of India's children are deprived of their fundamental right to education every day.
The problem of child labour continues to pose a challenge before the nation. Poor children in India begin working at a very young and tender age. Many children have to work to help their families and some families expect their children to continue the family business at a young age. Child labour is a source of income for poor families. Parents would be biased into being compelled to support their decision to send their children to work, by saying that it is essential. They are probably right: for most poor families in India, alternative sources of income are close to non-existent. What is apparent is the fact that child labourers are being exploited, shown by the pay that they receive. The combination of poverty and the lack of a social security network form the basis of the even harsher type of child labour -- bonded child labour. For the poor, there are few sources of bank loans, governmental loans or other credit sources, and even if there are sources available, few Indians living in poverty qualify. For an average of two thousand rupees, parents exchange their child’s labour to local moneylenders. Since the earnings of bonded child labourers are less than the interest on the loans, these bonded children are forced to work, while interest on their loans accumulates. A bonded child can only be released after his/her parents make a lump sum payment, which is extremely difficult for the poor. Inadequate schools, lack of schools, or even the expense of schooling leaves some children with little else to do but work. The attitudes of parents also contribute to child labour; some parents feel that children should work in order to develop skills useful in the job market, instead of taking advantage of a formal education.
In order to develop a secure future for those branded as child labour, it is necessary that we contribute to it. Some institutions to protect children should be developed. People like us, coming together from all walks of life who believe in the rights of children, play a major role in spreading awareness. Many of us can even contribute in terms of money to provide education to all those denied of it. Advertisements should be created to spread awareness about it. Lastly the government should not enable organizations but implement one. Government plays a major role and it should implement the policies and take measures to provide education to all.
Bhavana Harwani
10 A
As each day passes, Child Labour is steadily rising. Knowingly or unknowingly many of the products we use are made by children, the most common being incense sticks. There are thousands of children employed in the zari workshops all around India, in the firecracker industry and many other such jobs where they hardly have a future. Children end up working 14 -16 hour per day at the young age of 8-12 years, when they should be in schools learning, playing and making the most of a childhood which comes only once in a lifetime.
Recently as you would have read, the papers carried an article where an international label of clothing which was outsourcing their production work in India was employing child labor.
Although the government has a regulation that no child under the age of 14 is to be employed, it is seldom paid heed to. The laws are difficult to implement and the employers go scott free in connivance sometimes with the law makers looking the other way for a consideration.
A last estimate was that there are approximately 400,000 children employed in child labor and these figures also seem to be very little and not accurate. What with poverty so wide spread the parents of these children are only too happy to send them into some sort of employment to augment their family incomes.
The government has a law that no child should be employed, however they seldom address the main issue and the reason why a child is engaged in child labor – poverty. It is my thinking that if the government provides some sort of cash incentive for each child to be in school there will be so many children who would truly be children and not mature before their years by working such long hours in conditions which can hardly be called conducive.
How can each individual make a difference? Stop using products which are commonly known to employ child labour – agarbattis or incense sticks, firecrackers, zari can easily not be purchased. This will certainly help in a small individual way and prevent child labour from engulfing more innocent children.
Let us make a conscious effort to put an end to this evil and let young minds grow and strengthen. Let a child enjoy his or her childhood rather than work to make incense sticks, fire crackers, zari borders or work as a domestic help.
Do your bit to give a child his Childhood.
Shirley Mistry
Class X