Why Are We Still Impotent In Eradicating Child Labour From India ?

Child labor in India is a human right issue for the whole world. It is a serious and extensive problem, with many children under the age of fourteen working in carpet making factories, glass blowing units and making fireworks with bare little hands. According to the statistics given by Indian government there are 20 million child laborers in the country, while other agencies claim that it is 50 million.

The Indian Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that some 215 million children are trapped in child labour. Many of these children work long hours, often in dangerous conditions. Child labour is closely associated with poverty and denies children their right to education. Many poor families are unable to afford school fees or other school costs. The family may depend on the contribution that a working child makes to the household’s income, and place more importance on work than on education. When a family has to make a choice between sending either a boy or girl to school, it is often the girl who loses out.

The theme of the World Day for 2011 is “Children in hazardous work”. More than half of child labourers worldwide–an estimated 115 million–are involved in forms of employment that are likely to harm their health, safety or morals. This problem affects a wide variety of jobs and industries and is widespread in both developed and developing nations. The international community has identified hazardous work as among the worst forms of child labour it has targeted for eradication by 2016. The World Day Against Child Labour is intended to focus global attention on this practice and call for urgent action to combat it.

In Northern India the exploitation of little children for labor is an accepted practice and perceived by the local population as a necessity to alleviate poverty. Carpet weaving industries pay very low wages to child laborers and make them work for long hours in unhygienic conditions. Children working in such units are mainly migrant workers from Northern India, who are shunted here by their families to earn some money and send it to them. Their families dependence on their income, forces them to endure the onerous work conditions in the carpet factories.

The situation of child laborers in India is desperate. Children work for eight hours at a stretch with only a small break for meals. The meals are also frugal and the children are ill nourished. Most of the migrant children who cannot go home, sleep at their work place, which is very bad for their health and development. Seventy five percent of Indian population still resides in rural areas and are very poor. Children in rural families who are ailing with poverty perceive their children as an income generating resource to supplement the family income. Parents sacrifice their children’s education to the growing needs of their younger siblings in such families and view them as wage earners for the entire clan.

The Indian government has tried to take some steps to alleviate the problem of child labor in recent years by invoking a law that makes the employment of children below 14 illegal, except in family owned enterprises. However this law is rarely adhered to due to practical difficulties. Factories usually find loopholes and circumvent the law by declaring that the child laborer is a distant family member. Also in villages there is no law implementing mechanism, and any punitive actions for commercial enterprises violating these laws is almost non existent.

Child labor is a conspicuous problem in India. Its prevalence is evident in the child work participation rate, which is more than that of other developing countries. Poverty is the reason for child labor in India. The meager income of child laborers is also absorbed by their families. The paucity of organized banking in the rural areas creates a void in taking facilities, forcing poor families to push their children in harsh labor, the harshest being bonded labor.

Bonded labor traps the growing child in a hostage like condition for years. The importance of formal education is also not realized, as the child can be absorbed in economically beneficial activities at a young age. Moreover there is no access to proper education in the remote areas of rural India for most people, which leaves the children with no choice.

The venerable Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore has said time and again, that every country is absolutely bound by its duty to provide free primary education to its children. It is important to remember that industrialization can afford to wait but youth cannot be captured for long. It is imperative that the basic tenet made in article 24 of the Indian constitution – prohibiting the employment of any child below fourteen years of age, in a factory, mine or any other hazardous employment be stopped – be adhered to. There should be no ambiguity in ensuring the right of every child to free basic education and the promise of the constitution should be fully implemented in the here and now.

The future of a community is in the well being of its children. The above fact is beautifully expressed by Wordsworth in his famous lines “child is father of the man”. So it becomes imperative for the health of a nation to protect its children from premature labor which is hazardous to their mental, physical, educational and spiritual development needs. It is urgently required to save children from the murderous clutches of social injustice and educational deprivation, and ensure that they are given opportunities for healthy, normal and happy growth.

The future of our community is in the well-being of its children. Why are we still impotent in eradicating the menace called ‘Child Labour’ from our country ?