Abolition of child labour: Social Justice for all
By: M Ahmad
Nearly 1 in 10 children are subjected to child labour worldwide, with some forced into hazardous work through trafficking: UNICEF
The term “child labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful tophysical and mental development. Child labour is mentally, physically, socially, or morally dangerous and harmful to children.
It prevents them from attending school; whether by obliging them to leave the school prematurely or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with extremely long and heavy work. Children enjoy the same human rights accorded to all people. But, lacking the knowledge, experience or physical development of adults and the power to defend their own interests in an adult world, children also have distinct rights to protection by virtue of their age. One of these is protection from economic exploitation and from work that is dangerous to the health and morals of children or which hampers the child’s development.
The latest global estimates indicate that the number of children in child labour has increased to 160 million worldwide, 8.4 million children in the last four years. 63 million girls and 97 million boys were in child labour globally at the beginning of 2020, according to almost 1/10 of all children worldwide. Child labour — boys in child labour outnumber girls by 34 million. 11.2% of all boys compared to 7.8% of all girls.
While the percentage of children in child labour is highest in low-income countries, their numbers are actually greater in middle-income countries. 9% all children in lower-middle-income countries, and 7% of all children in upper-middle-income countries, are in child labour.
Statistics on the absolute number of children in child labour in each national income grouping indicate that 84 million children in child labour, accounting for 56% of all those in child labour, actually live in middle-income countries, and an additional 2 million live in high-income countries. According to the estimates by International Labour Organisation (ILO), there are about 10.1 million working children between the age of 5 to 14 in India. In addition, more than 42.7 million children in India are out of school.
Causes
Worldwide, the causes of child labour are basically the same. Wars, armed conflicts, and crises have overstrained communities globally, causing mass migrations, poverty, and many other crises. Poverty is one of the most essential causes of child labour. Children who were born in poverty, for any reason, grow as unskilled workers and find themselves forced to child labour to survive with their families.
Through the last decade; many crises took place worldwide; Economic crises, natural disasters, armed conflicts in many countries in the world, along with the mass migration caused by it, comes COVID-19 at the top of it all, making millions of people around the world fall victims to all these crises.
And the most vulnerable victims in all those circumstances are the children who found themselves obliged to child labour. Armed conflicts have affected schools and schooling, leaving no option for children in the conflict regions to attend schools and learn. Due to those conflicts, millions of families were obliged to leave their homes and move elsewhere, in a form of mass migration worldwide.
As families are struggling for life, all family members found themselves obliged to work in order to have the essential needs of living, having no option but to send their children to work instead of schools. The lack of funding to sponsor the educational projects supported by organizations puts the educational process in remission in many regions. Going to schools is no longer an option in-hand for millions of children worldwide, especially in conflict regions. With millions of displaced and poor families, finding a school to enrol their children in has become like a dream.
Child labour has many serious danger and disadvantages on children’s lives; it can lead to extreme physical and mental harm and put children through some severe emotional difficulties, which can lead even to death. Child labour refrains children from schooling and health care, restricting their fundamental rights and threatening their futures.
Victims of child labour usually suffer from depression and anxiety, pushing them to destructive habits like smoking, alcoholism, or drug abuse. Abusive abuse environments also trigger a lifetime of low self-esteem, depression, and relationship difficulties.
Walking over child labour, like it’s nothing, we will be destroying our future communities because those children are part of our community today, as much as tomorrow. So instead of making our society vulnerable with such a generation to lead, let us handle this matter now and prepare these children to participate positively in our community in the future.
The problem of child labour continues to pose a challenge before the nation. Government has been taking various pro-active measures to tackle this problem. However, considering the magnitude and extent of the problem and that it is essentially a socio-economic problem inextricably linked to poverty and illiteracy, it requires concerted efforts from all sections of the society to make a dent in the problem
Abolition
The principle of the effective abolition of child labour means ensuring that every girl and boy has the opportunity to develop physically and mentally to her or his full potential. Its aim is to stop all work by children that jeopardises their education and development.
This does not mean stopping all work performed by children. International labour standards allow the distinction to be made between what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable forms of work for children at different ages and stages of development. One of the most effective ways of stopping child labour is to ensure that all children have access to education. When children are in school, they are not working, and they are also learning essential life skills that will help them succeed as adults.
Another way to stop is to put laws and regulations prohibiting this exploitation and protecting workers’ rights. The Child labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 defines a “child” as a person who has not completed the fourteenth year of his age. It is a pervasive problem that violates the most fundamental right of children- the right to education.
These laws help ensure that children are not exploited and are working in safe conditions. It is also essential to enforce the laws and regulations that are in place to stop child enslavement. This implies that businesses and employers who are caught exploiting children may face fines or perhaps closure.
Raising public awareness about the issue can also help to stop it. When people are aware of the problem, they can be more likely to support laws and regulations that prohibit child enslavement. They can also help ensure that companies are not using kids by buying products from companies that do not use it. Many campaigns aim to stop this. These campaigns often work to raise public awareness about the issue and to pressure companies and governments to do more to stop child labour.
Government should accordingly take proactive steps to tackle this problem through strict enforcement of legislative provisions along with simultaneous rehabilitative measures. State Governments, which are the appropriate implementing authorities, should conduct regular inspections and raids to detect cases of violations.
Since poverty is the root cause of this problem, and enforcement alone cannot help solve it, Government should thrust a lot of emphasis on the rehabilitation of these children and on improving the economic conditions of their families. Once parents are economically strong they shall send their children to schools instead to labour market.
A child’s hand is too precious to be doing work; they look good holding a mighty pencil.
(The author hails from Srinagar and is an educationist)
KV News
