CHILD LABOUR
Even as India gallops toward First World status with its booming economy, roaring stock market and rapid progress in autos and steel--it is still a giant back-yard sweatshop to the world, full of underage boys and girls working to earn a living.
The Menace of Child Labour
• “Government says that I have a right to live. I want to go to school and to achieve something in life. But the situation in my house makes it compulsory for me to go to work,” says 12 year old Mukesh. This is a common plight of India. Innumerable children being deprived of their childhood inspite of the fact that our political leaders make tall promises to alter the situation.
• The government says that it should provide for the physical, mental and social development of children. But what has the government actually done about this? A large number of children are mentally and physically challenged. When will the government provide the best for children's health? Will it take one, two or three years or twenty years or what????
• Apparently the fact remains that Child labour is widely practised in almost every part of the world.
• Child Labor is referred to as Child Abuse. This is because the Child needs the energy to grow up but all the energy is spent in the work leaving no energy to grow up physically, mentally and socially.
• The disadvantage of child labor is that you are taking the short lived time out of a child's life when he should be getting a good education and having fun with his peers.
• Every time you buy an imported handmade carpet, an embroidered pair of jeans, a beaded purse, a decorated box there's a good chance you're acquiring something fashioned by a child.
• “There are many, many household items that are produced with forced labour and not just child labour," says Bama Athreya, executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum in Washington, D.C. It's a fact of a global economy, and will continue to be, as long as Americans incomes in emerging economies remain low. If a child is enslaved, it's because his parents are desperately poor.
REASONS
• The first cause is illiteracy where some parents never went to school thus they find it very difficult to educate children since they do not know the importance of learning.
• This causes children to be helping parents in doing home activities alongwith earning a livelihood.
• Young girls who are forced into early marriages have to work to fend for themselves.
• In cases where both parents are dead, the orphans usually lack some support which is vital in their upbringing, so they end up doing jobs while they are still very young in order to survive.
• Poverty is another cause for the parents not attaining basic needs or school fees for their children, the children then decide to get employed somewhere in order to earn a living.
• Lack of employment due to which parents lack jobs and are unable to support their families. Thus forcing the children to look for jobs so as to increase the family’s income.
• The government spends crores of rupees in conducting surveys about the number of children involved in Child Labour. But the fact remains that the money wasted on the survey can be spent more usefully on their basic problems.
Ways to combat the problem
• If the rights of children are protected - from the village level to the national level –the situation will change.
• They should get education which is appropriate and which will help them in their life.
• Working children cannot be abruptly pulled out from work. Before that, alternative arrangements have to be made because all children have a right to survival.
• If the government carries out all its work keeping the good of children in mind, children will automatically realise their right to social security.
• Child labour can be eradicated if parents would send their children to schools to get education which will be of use to them in future in getting jobs.
• Children should be encouraged to have a positive attitude towards education.
• The Government should assist those in need and should encourage people to work hard to reduce poverty.
• Orphaned children should be assisted and brought up by their relatives so as not to go to waste.
• Parents should work to cater for their family needs and not send young children to work so that they can assist them.
• Early marriages should be banned especially in cases where the girls are still schooling.
• Job opportunities should be availed to reduce lack of employment especially to people who have families to cater for.
• Teaching people (and especially parents) the disadvantages of child labour through mass media,
• Making strict laws concerning child labour and punishing severely all those who try to disobey the law or are found employing kids should serve a heavy punishment
• Improvements should be made on the economy and free basic education should be offered.
• The gap between the poor and the rich should be minimized. This can be done by eradicating poverty by creating more job opportunities.
• Also it should ensure that the economy of the country goes up so that even the common citizen can manage his family well.
• It should also ensure that expenses for school are not so high to enable the lower class man to send his son or daughter to school instead of sending them to look for jobs.
• Non-governmental organizations should also give a helping hand by collaborating with the government to educate the nation about the dangers of child labour .
