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Child labour is the harmful practice of engaging children in economic activities, depriving them of their childhood and hindering their physical and mental development. This article explores the causes, industries, and impact of child labour in India and worldwide.
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CHILD LABOUR BY, Ms. Nithyashree B V Lecturer Department of community hyealthnursing
INTRODUCTION Child labour is the practice of having children engage in economic activity, on part or full-time basis. The practice deprives children of their childhood, and is harmful to their physical and mental development. Poverty, lack of good schools and growth of informal economy are considered as the important causes of child labour in India.
What is child labor? • “Child labour” is generally speaking, work for children that harms them or exploits them in someway (physically, mentally, morally or by blocking access to education). • It is the work that exceeds a minimum number of hours depending on the age of a child and on the type of work.
The term “child labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. It refers to work that: • is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and • interferes with their schooling by: • depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; • obliging them to leave school prematurely; or • requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.
Where do children work? • The Fireworks Industry. • The Glass Industry. • The Bidi Making Industry. • The Carpet Making industry. • The Silk industry
Agriculture • Of the 250 million child laborers worldwide, it is estimated that at least half of them work in agriculture alone. • There are many different types of agricultural work. One of them is picking fruits and vegetables. • The work is physically demanding because the children must bend down, kneel, climb ladders, carry heavy loads of fruit, and other things.
They also are exposed to dangerous tools and have to use unsafe machinery they don't know how to operate. • Children who work in agriculture often experience back pain from bending over so much, and also have blistered and callused hands from operating machinery and using tools such as rakes, hoes, and shovels all day long.
The Fireworks Industry • Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu state, about 45,000-50,000 children working in the fireworks industry • Children earn about 15-18 rupees a day on piece-rates • When an inspector visits a factory, child workers are bundled into store-rooms and sheds • When asked if the long hours derived her of the pleasures of childhood, 12-year-old Kavitha gave a resigned look. • When asked if she would like to go to school like other girls, she shot back: "Who will feed me, then?" Fireworks
Beedi Industry • Over 1.7 million children work as laborers in India’s beedi-rolling industry. • Children are engaged as their nimble fingers are more adept at rolling beedis. • Children are made to work up to 14 hours a day with no breaks or holidays. • Earning is as little as Rs.30 per 1,000 beedis on an average and the children hardly get anything. • Suffer from tuberculosis, postural and eye problems, anemia, lung and skin diseases.
Some times children are abandoned by their parents or sold to factory owners • 70-80% of the 8,000 to 50,000 children work in the glass industry in Ferozabad. • The two hazardous types of furnaces used are the Pot furnaces the Tank furnaces • One of the most dangerous industries, where many deaths and mishaps occur on a regular basis, makes it imperative for the employers to hire mafia gangs to hush up the occurrence of such incidents. Glass Making
Carpet Industry • 300,000 children employed in this industry. • Low wages and docile acceptance. • Work for 10-16 hours a day in terrible conditions. • Vast majority of migrant child workers sleep alongside of their loom, further inviting sickness and poor health. • Eyesight is damaged and lung diseases are common as a result of the dust and fluff from the wool.
Silk Industry • Over 50,000 children between the ages of 5 and 13 slog it out in the silk-weaving industry in Kancheepuram and Tiruvannamalai districts of Tamil Nadu. • Many work seven days a week round the year. • Average monthly income ranges from Rs.80 to Rs.250. • Require to dip hands in boiling hot water causing blisters. • Handle dead worms breeding infections. • Twist thread injuring their fingers .
How many are there? • 61% in Asia, 32% in Africa, and 7% in Latin America, 1% in US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations. • In Asia, 22% of the workforce is children. In Latin America, 17% of the workforce is children. • 246 million child workers aged 5 and 17 were involved in child labor. • Out of which 171 million were involved in work that by its nature is hazardous. • According to certain experts approximately 10 million bonded children labourers are working as dome In South Asia. • Beyond this there are almost 55 million bonded child labourers hired across various other industries. • Less than 5% of child laborers make products for export to other countries.
Child labor in India • INDIA accounts for the second highest number where child labor in the world. • Africa accounts for the highest number of children employed and exploited. • According to certain experts approximately 10 million bonded children laborers are working as domestic servants in India. • Beyond this there are almost 55 million bonded child laborers hired across various other industries.
CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA According to the Census 2001 figures there are 1.26 crore working children in the age group of 5-14 as compared to the total child population of 25.2 crore. There are approximately 12 lacs children working in the hazardous occupations/processes which are covered under the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act i.e. 18 occupations and 65 processes. However, as per survey conducted by National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) in 2004-05, the number of working children is estimated at 90.75 lakh. It shows that the efforts of the Government have borne the desired fruits.
Child Labour Fact Sheet • 73 million working children are less than 10 years old. • While buffaloes may cost up to 15,000 rupees , children are sold at prices between 500 and 2,000 rupees. • 47 out of 100 children in India enrolled in class I reach class VIII, putting the dropout rate at 52.79%. • Approximately 16.64% of villages in the country do not have facilities for primary schooling. (UNICEF) • 42 million children in the age-group 6-14 years do not attend school in India.
FACTS • According to the Indian census of 1991, there are 11.28 million working children under the age of fourteen years in India. • Over 85% of this child labour is in the country's rural areas, working in agricultural activities such as fanning, livestock rearing, forestry and fisheries. • The world’s highest number of working children is in India. ILO estimates that 218 million children were involved in child labour in 2004, of which 126 million were engaged in hazardous work.
The Hindi belt, including Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, account for 1.27 crore working children in the country, engaged in both hazardous and non-hazardous occupations and processes. • Over 19 lakh child labourers in the 5-14 age group are in Uttar Pradesh.
CAUSES • PRIMARY CAUSES • CULTURAL CAUSES • MACROECONOMIC CAUSES
PRIMARY CAUSES International Labour Organization (ILO) suggests poverty is the greatest single cause behind child labour. For impoverished households, income from a child's work is usually crucial for his or her own survival or for that of the household.
Income from working children, even if small, may be between 25 to 40% of these household income. • Other scholars such as Harsch on African child labour, and Edmonds and Pavcnik on global child labour have reached the same conclusion.
CULTURAL CAUSES In European history when child labour was common, as well as in contemporary child labour of modern world, certain cultural beliefs have rationalized child labour and thereby encouraged it. Some view that work is good for the character-building and skill development of children.
In many cultures, particular where informal economy and small household businesses thrive, the cultural tradition is that children follow in their parents' footsteps; child labour then is a means to learn and practice that trade from a very early age. • Similarly, in many cultures the education of girls is less valued or girls are simply not expected to need formal schooling, and these girls pushed into child labour such as providing domestic services.
MACROECONOMIC CAUSES • Biggeri and Mehrotra have studied the macroeconomic factors that encourage child labour. They focus their study on five Asian nations including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. They suggest that child labour is a serious problem in all five, but it is not a new problem. • Macroeconomic causes encouraged widespread child labour across the world, over most of human history. They suggest that the causes for child labour include both the demand and the supply side.
While poverty and unavailability of good schools explain the child labour supply side, they suggest that the growth of low paying informal economy rather than higher paying formal economy is amongst the causes of the demand side. • Other scholars too suggest that inflexible labour market, size of informal economy, inability of industries to scale up and lack of modern manufacturing technologies are major macroeconomic factors affecting demand and acceptability of child labour.
OVER POPULATION: limited resources and more mouths to feed, Children are employed in various forms of work. • ILLITERACY :Illiterate parents do not realize the need for a proper physical,emotional and cognitive development of a child. • POVERTY: Many a time poverty forces parents to send their children to hazardous jobs. • URBANIZATION: MNC's and export industries in the developing world employ child workers, particularly in the garment industry.
ORPHANS: Children born out of wedlock, children with no parents and relatives, often do not find anyone to support them. Thus they are forced to work for their own living. • WILLINGNESS TO EXPLOIT CHILDREN: This is at the root of the problem Even if a family is very poor, the incidence of child labour will be very low unless there are people willing to exploit these children. • UNEMPLOYMENT OF ELDERS: Elders often find it difficult to get jobs. The industrialists and factory owners find it profitable to employ children. This is so because they can pay less and extract more work. They will also not create union problem. • Lack of schooling and daily care. • Limited choices for women
Consequences For Children.. • Physical injuries and mutilations are caused by badly maintained machinery on farms and in factories, machete accidents in plantations, and any number of hazards encountered in industries such as mining, ceramics and fireworks manufacture • Pesticide poisoning is one of the biggest killers of child laborers. In Sri Lanka, pesticides kill more children than diphtheria, malaria, polio and tetanus combined. The global death toll each year from pesticides is supposed to be approximately 40'000 • Growth deficiency is prevalent among working children, who tend to be shorter and lighter than other children; these deficiencies also impact on their adult life
Consequences For Children.. • Long-term health problems, such as respiratory disease, asbestosis and a variety of cancers, are common in countries where children are forced to work with dangerous chemicals • HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases are rife among the one million children forced into prostitution every year; pregnancy, drug addiction and mental illness are also common among child prostitutes • Exhaustion and malnutrition are a result of underdeveloped children performing heavy manual labour, working long hours in unbearable conditions and not earning enough to feed themselves adequately
Child labour laws & initiatives • After its independence from colonial rule, India has passed a number of constitutional protections and laws on child labour. • The Constitution of India in the Fundamental Rights and the Directive of State Policy prohibits child labour below the age of 14 years in any factory or mine or castle or engaged in any other hazardous employment (Article 24). • The constitution also envisioned that India shall, by 1960, provide infrastructure and resources for free and compulsory education to all children of the age six to 14 years. (Article 21-A and Article 45).
CHILD LABOUR LAWS IN INDIA Various laws have been made in our country since 1933 to control child labour: 1. Children (Pledging of labour) Act 1933. 2. Employment of child Act 1938. 3. The Bombay shop and establishment Act 1948. 4. The Indian factories Act 1948. 5. Plantation labour Act 1951. 6. The mines Act 1952. 7. Merchant shipping Act 1958 8. The apprentice Act 1961 9. The motor transport workers Act 1961 10. The atomic energy Act 1962 11. Bidi and cigar workers (condition of employment) Act 1966
12. State shops and establishment Act 13. The child labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986. 14. The juvenile justice (care and protection) of children Act, 2000. 15. Article 24 of our constitution and section 67 of the factories Act, explicitly direct that children below the age of 14 years are not allowed to work in factories. 16. Article 21A (added by the 86th amendment Act 2002) provides that state shall provide free and compulsory education to children of age group 6-14 years. 17. Article 45 provides for free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14 years
The major national legislative developments include the following: The Factories Act of 1948: The Act prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 years in any factory. The law also placed rules on who, when and how long can pre-adults aged 15–18 years be employed in any factory. The Mines Act of 1952: The Act prohibits the employment of children below 18 years of age in a mine. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986: The Act prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 years in hazardous occupations identified in a list by the law. The list was expanded in 2006, and again in 2008.
The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) of Children Act of 2000: This law made it a crime, punishable with a prison term, for anyone to procure or employ a child in any hazardous employment or in bondage. • The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009: The law mandates free and compulsory education to all children aged 6 to 14 years. This legislation also mandated that 25 percent of seats in every private school must be allocated for children from disadvantaged groups and physically challenged children.
