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.
Below are a few more prominent causes of child labour in India:
Below are a few more prominent causes of child labour in India:
Poverty and unemployment levels are high.
Poor children and their families may rely upon child labor in order to improve their chances of attaining basic necessities. More than one-fourth of the world's people live in extreme poverty, according to 2005 U.N. statistics. The intensified poverty in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America causes many children there to become child laborers.
Access to compulsory, free education is limited.
In 2006, approximately 75 million children were not in school, limiting future opportunities for the children and their communities. A 2009 report by the United Nations estimated that achieving universal education for the world's children would cost $10-30 billion -- about 0.7% - 2.0% of the annual cost of global military spending.
Existing laws or codes of conduct are often violated.
Even when laws or codes of conduct exist, they are often violated. For example, the manufacture and export of products often involves multiple layers of production and outsourcing, which can make it difficult to monitor who is performing labor at each step of the process. Extensive subcontracting can intentionally or unintentionally hide the use of child labor.
Laws and enforcement are often inadequate.
Child labor laws around the world are often not enforced or include exemptions that allow for child labor to persist in certain sectors, such as agriculture or domestic work. Even in countries where strong child labor laws exist, labor departments and labor inspection offices are often under-funded and under-staffed, or courts may fail to enforce the laws. Similarly, many state governments allocate few resources to enforcing child labor laws.
Workers’ rights are repressed.
Workers’ abilities to organize unions affect the international protection of core labor standards, including child labor. Attacks on workers’ abilities to organize make it more difficult to improve labor standards and living standards in order to eliminate child labor. For example, in 2010, 5,000 workers were fired and 2,500 workers were arrested as a result of their union activity, according to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
The global economy intensifies the effects of some factors.
Photo: David Parker
As multinational corporations expand across borders, countries often compete for jobs, investment, and industry. This competition sometimes slows child labor reform by encouraging corporations and governments to seek low labor costs by resisting international standards. Some U.S. legislation has begun to include labor standards and child labor as criteria for preferential trade and federal contracts. However, international free trade rules may prohibit consideration of child labor or workers’ rights.
The effects of poverty in developing countries are often worsened by the large interest payments on development loans. The structural adjustments associated with these loans often require governments to cut education, health, and other public programs, further harming children and increasing pressure on them to become child laborers.
Some proposed solutions for this are:
- Union and Community Organizing
- Free Education for All Children
- Campaigns to Change Public Opinion
- Universal Minimum Standards
- Promoting access to education
- Filing suit against corporations for labor rights abuses abroad
- Campaigning for institutions to adopt and enforce codes of conduct
- Implementing and supporting fair trade or labeling initiatives
- Using collective bargaining strategies
- Promoting global labor standards in trade agreements
- Supporting workers’ struggles to organize unions and reject child labor
We must acknowledge that childhood is the most beautiful time in a person's life.It is also a very impressionable age at which these children are forced to work long hours in unhealthy and taxing working conditions.Child labour is wrong on moral,physical,emotional and humanitarian grounds.It must not be promoted.Necessary measures must be taken by concerned authorities to bring an end to this social evil.
Sources: www.wikipedia.org
www.continuetolearn.iowa.edu
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