CHILD LABOUR - IS NOT A NECESSARY EVIL

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) there is an estimated 165 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 whom are actively involved in child labor. Just over a month ago on June 11th we celebrated World Day against Child Labor. The 2009 theme for World Day against Child Labor was: ‘Education: The right response to child labor’. This year the ILO’s International Programmed on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) has established the campaign to tackle the right to education for all children to break the chain of child labor that envelops millions of children worldwide. As in the country there is the direct relation between all problems like poverty, literacy, unemployment & child labor. As if we try to work out on any one of the problem definitely the other related problems will be improved. So as the child labor is also one of the great problems for the country. This problem directly produces an impact on the poverty and it impact on economy of the country. Therefore it is a cycle that goes unbroken for generations & generations. The recent survey states, about 75 million children in world are without primary education.

Clearly in the real world child labor will not stop overnight - there aren’t the schools, hostels etc to accommodate and rehabilitate these children even if the government had the manpower to round them up - but it’s no bad thing to make a statement of intent. It might work a lot that will help to raise awareness & also to change the attitude.

There many NGOs who are working to eradicate this problem, but they also want some help from government & the public then it is possible to achieve that target. There are mostly in India, they treat their servant’s well- but sometimes it doesn’t occur to them to ask whether they should be keeping school age children as domestic helps at all.

The one country is continuing to fall short in this battle against child labor is India. Despite the establishment of law 2006 which banned the child labor for domestic purpose India remains the worst offender, as the country has more child labor the anywhere around the globe. Government has found only 6,782 child workers but we there are millions of kids are, “ Kailash Satyagrahi, who founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the child hood movement) one of India’s leading child rights groups, stated. “From this, there has only been 1,680 prosecutions launched against employers but not a single conviction has taken place.”

The reason for the slow enforcement of the law is our cultural view, where we any crime doing children as a provider for a family. The other obstacle is the lack of will on the part of law enforcement.

School children wear 'Stop Child Labor' masks in Hyderabad, India, on June 12, 2008 NOAH SEELAM / AFP / Getty Images.

The 2006 law is not the first attempt by Indian state to enact laws to address the child labor problem. In India government try to eradicate this problem by enforcing the Child Labor laws in India including 1986 Child Labor Prohibition & Regulation Act that state children less than 14 years of age were prohibited to be employed in occupations deemed hazardous.

As the recent survey states that about 12 million children under the age of 14 years remain employed as domestic, servants, miners, carpet weavers, tea sellers, street paddlers in spite of 2006 law. . The governments figures also fail to address those who continue to be forced to work in situations of hard labor, such as in mining often forces to break stones with their bare hands, or left to work in the textiles industry, such as to embroider saris.

The fight against child labor is going on, as millions of child toil away in hazardous & abusive conditions.