Child labor is a serious blot on our efforts to
project India as a dynamic country on the move. According to
International Labor Organization (ILO) statistics, India has perhaps
the largest child labor force in the world, which is around 16.5
million. Unofficially however the estimate is around 45 million of
which around 20 percent are in urban areas and the rest in rural areas.
In a country where much of the people live below the
poverty line, it is simply not easy to eliminate this social problem.
The root of child labor is always poverty and to some extent ignorance.
But it is a stark truth that without getting into an employment these
child labors would starve to death. Their parents cannot afford to feed
them on their own and these little, children are simply forced to work.
To acquire this basic necessity of life, the family forgets all their
sense of morality and sends their children to work in factories and
small scale industries. These children, deprived of the precious
memories of childhood, grow up into ignorant adults with hardly any
type of intellectual gain.
In the past, measures taken by the developed world
against the developing countries to check this social evil hardly had
any impact because the developing countries simply did not bother. The
problem continued to grow. The fact that this social evil is
inextricably intertwined with other common problems such as poverty,
female literacy etc. make it a vicious circle. To eradicate this social
evil was laws were made and a national body was set up against child
exploitation. However, the situation worsened. Article 24 of the Indian
constitution dealing with fundamental rights says ‘No child below the
age of 18 years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or be
engaged in any hazardous employment’. But this provision also remains
ideal. The problem of child labor has also started affecting Indian
economy. It is likely to threaten Indian exports. Germany put pressure
on India to stop export of products made by children. United States
also banned Indian exports of products involving child labor.
International labor Rights Funds also accused and threatened India that
if Indian Carpet Industry did not adopt Rugmark label, that guaranteed
that no child labor was used, they have to Indian into line with a
boycott like what was organizes by the child Labor coalition against
Bangladesh.
It was then the country decided to take a hard and
serious look into the issue. But to their dismay, the government found
that bringing in adequate legislative measures to curb child labor is
easy, but implementing them is another matter altogether. Education and
economic prosperity are the only solution to fight against this
problem. The problem facing the implementation policy is defining what
exactly a hazardous job is and which kinds of jobs actually exploit
children. With modernization and globalization of the economy, the
working conditions have considerably improved, so the jobs which were
considered hazardous yesterday are not at all hazardous today.
Secondly, children are exploited due to many advantages. They are very
cheap. Child laborers are often paid Rs. 3 per day when an adult takes
the minimum wages of Rs. 1,400 per month as per law. Children never
fight for their rights. They are meek and easily submissive.
At many places child labor has consumed a sinister
form. In Mumbai and Goa sex with children is available as
‘Pleasure-packages’. It is estimated that 20 percent of the one lakh
prostitutes in Mumbai alone are below 18 years of age. In Tamil Nadu
Children are employed in the highly hazardous small scale match and
firework factories. Around 30 lakh children work in the Saree industry
in Varanasi. More than 10 lakh children work in brick-pits stone
guarries o the banks of the Ganges. The carpet belt of India employ
about 1.5 lakh and hundreds of children work in bidi-rolling factories
in Tamil Nadu and so on.
The tough step taken by European governments against
import of goods whose manufacture involve child labor has forced the
authorities to take some concrete steps to eradicate child labor.
Serious measures are being taken such as providing education for
children is made a topmost priority and punishment is ensured through
legal means to those who violate the child labor Act. Special attention
should be drown towards the plight of bonded child laborers who are
worse than the free child laborers and such policies should be
discouraged in which allowing non-formal education for two hours or so
and then sending the children to work. Full use of mass communication
such as Doordarshan, press, Akashwani etc. should be made.
However, the task of eradicating child labor is not
an impossible one because European and the other developed countries
have eradicated this evil. The first and foremost task is to create
awareness about the magnitude of the problem and this can be achieved
through economic liberalization.
The Supreme Court in its historic judgment, given on 10th
December, 1996, ordered the employers to pay Rs.20 thousand to each
child-laborer due to the disobeyance of child-labor law. In its 36 page
judgment the court clearly started that an adult from the family of
every child-laborer will be given a job so that parents will not be
compelled to send their child to work. These measures should be started
immediately and children working in hazardous condition should be given
priority.
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