Kursheed Raja
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic and labour market shocks are having a huge impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. Unfortunately, children are often the first to suffer. The crisis can push millions of vulnerable children into child labour. The child labour day is celebrated every year on 12 June. ” Child labour “is generally about the work children are forced to do for the purposes of exploiting them physically, mentally, morally which finally deprived them of the right to access to education. World Child labour Day A 2020 is focused on the impact of crisis on child labour. The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic and labour market shocks are having a huge impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. Unfortunately, children are often the first to suffer. The crisis can push millions of vulnerable children into child labour. Already, 152 million children are forced to work and 72 million of them are working in hazardous places. These children are now at even greater risk of facing circumstances that are even more difficult and working longer hours. This year, the World Day is conducted as a virtual campaign and is being organized jointly with the Global March Against Child Labour and the International Partnership for Cooperation on Child Labour in Agriculture (IPCCLA) .Child labourers are exploited, exposed to hazardous work conditions and paid a pittance for their long hours of work. They belong to unorganized labour force. Seventy nine percent working children are in the rural areas. Two third of the working children belong to 12-15 years age group and the rest are below 12 years. Child labourer refers to the employment of children in any work that deprives them of their childhood rights, interferes with their ability to attend regular schools and that is mentally, physically, socially and morally dangerous and harmful. The discrimination that working girls’ and boys’ face shows discrimination in society as a whole. We know the discrimination helps the cause of child labour. We know that there are many people in the world who are living below the poverty line .They hardly have access to the basic requirements of life and it clearly indicates they are unable to send their children to schools and finally their children are forced to work at a very minor age to earn money for carrying on with their routine life. We see in our surroundings the small children work in different fields the cause is poverty. Some children who belong to poor families are deprived of the right to basic educational resources and they give up education early age and get engaged themselves in work in different fields. There are also some children who work to earn money even at the cost of their lives. Some parents send their children to work places as they want their children to work for their basic needs and as don’t show interest even in their basic education.
Most of the children are involved in the child labours in the fields like agriculture, factories, home- based assembly and other services. Some of them work in night shifts as they are forced to work more for earning more for the purposes of improving the financial status of their families. So low income is also an important cause of child labour, as it deprives children of underprivileged classes of right to pursue education in schools equipped with proper.
Some parents who force their children to work do not have any idea about the importance of education and employment of their children. We can say that poverty is the major cause of child labour. Poverty pushes the children to do any work for their basic need as it has also been seen that some parents think that boys need more investment than girls. This is another cause of child labour. Child labour is the full work taken up by child in any field of work. Child labour is the cause of a forceful act either by parents. Childhood is the birth right of everyone which he or she must live under the love and care of their parents. The illegal act of child labour forces a child to work and it’s immediate consequences include improper physical growth and social and intellectual backwardness. Child labour keeps a child away from all the rights of the childhood which is a happiest and memorable period of the life, Inability to attend school makes children socially dangerous and intellectually bankrupt. Most of the children are involved in the child labours in the fields like agriculture, factories, home- based assembly and other services. Some of them work in night shifts as they are forced to work more for earning more for the purposes of improving the financial status of their families. So low income is also an important cause of child labour, as it deprives children of underprivileged classes of right to pursue education in schools equipped with proper. Illiteracy of parents largely contributes to this mess. Both the government and the civil society have to work in tandem to reach out to children earning their livelihood in exploitive working conditions and support them for the purposes of adequate education as the constitution of our country says that ;
a) No child below the age of 14 years shall be employed to work in any hazardous employment.
b) Child and youth are to be protested against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment.
c) The state shall endeavour to provide within a period of 10 years from the commencement of the constitution free and compulsory education for all children until they have completed the age of 14 years.
Finally there is need to mobilise public opinion against the growing menace of child labour.
(The author is a freelancer. Views are his own, [email protected])
