Child labour is the act of employing and engaging children in the economic activ

ities like in the exploitative industry, illegal business, etc on part-time or f

ull-time basis.
ESSAY ON CHILD LABOUR
Child labour is a big social issue in our country as well as abroad which everyo
ne must be aware of. Let your kids and children know what is child labour, its c
auses and what prevention measures are. These child labour essay are written in
very simple words especially for the use of children and students going to schoo
l. By using such essay on Child Labour, students can easily win the essay writin
g competition because all are written in very easy English language.
CHILD LABOUR ESSAY 1 (100 WORDS)
Child labour is the service paid by the children in their childhood in any field
of work. This is done by the child own due to the lack of resources for the lif
e survival, irresponsibility of the parents or forcefully by the owner for incre
asing their return on investment at low investment. It does not matter the cause
of child labour as all the causes force children to live their life without chi
ldhood. Childhood is the great and happiest period of the lives of everyone duri
ng which one learns about the basic strategy of the life from parents, loved one
s and nature. Child labour interferes with the proper growth and development of
the children in all aspects like mentally, physically, socially and intellectual
ly.
Child Labour
CHILD LABOUR ESSAY 2 (150 WORDS)
Child labour is the full work taken by the children in any field of work. It is
a forceful act either by the parents, bad events or owners. Childhood is the bir
th rights of everyone which he/she must live under the love and care of their pa
rents however this illegal act of child labour forces a child to live life like
elder. It causes lack of many important things in the life of child like imprope
r physical growth and development, inappropriate development of the mind, social
ly and intellectually unhealthy.
Child labour keeps a child away from all the benefits of the childhood, a happie
st and memorable period of the life of everyone. It interferes with the ability
of attending regular school which makes them socially dangerous and harmful citi
zen of the country. This illegal activity of the child labour is increasing day
by day even after lots of the rules and regulations against this by the governme
nt to completely prohibit the act of child labour.
CHILD LABOUR ESSAY 3 (200 WORDS)
Child labour has become a biggest social issue in India which needs to be solved
on regular basis. It is not the responsibility of the government only, it shoul
d be solved and taken care by all the parents, owners and other social organizat
ions. It is the issue of everyone which should be solved personally as it can be
happened with the child of any person.
In many developing countries child labour is very common because of the existenc
e of high level of poverty and poor schooling opportunities for the children. Th
e highest incidence rate of the child labour is still more than 50 percent in wh
ich children of age group 5 to 14 are working in the developing country. The rat
e of child labour is high in the agriculture field which is mostly found in the
rural and informal urban economy where most of the children are predominantly em
ployed into the agriculture work by their own parents instead of sending them to
the school and free them to play with friends.
The issue of the child labour has now been an international concern as it highly
involved in inhibiting the growth and development of the country. Healthy child
ren are the bright future and power of any country thus child labour is damaging
, spoiling and destroying the future of the children and finally the country.
CHILD LABOUR ESSAY 4 (250 WORDS)
Child labour is the crime to humanity which has become a curse to the society an
d big issue preventing the country growth and development. Childhood is the most
memorable period of the life which everyone has right to live from birth. Child
ren have full rights to play with friends, go to school, feel the love and care
of parents and touch beauty of the nature. However, just because of the improper
understandings of the people (parents, owners, etc), children are forced to liv
e life of the elder. They are forced to arrange all the resources for life survi
val in their childhood.
Parents want to make them very responsible towards their family in the early chi
ldhood of their kids. They do not understand that their kids need love and care,
they need proper schooling and play with friends to grow properly. Such parents
understand that their kids are the only property of them, they can use them as
they want. But really, every parents need to understand that they have some resp
onsibility towards their country too. They need to make their kids healthy in ev
ery aspect to make the future of the country bright.
Parents should take all the responsibility of the family by own and let their ki
ds to live their childhood with lots of love and care. The main causes of the ch
ild labour all over the world are poverty, parents, society, low salary, jobless
ness, poor living standard and understanding, social injustice, lack of schools,
backwardness, ineffective laws which are directly affecting the development of
the country.
CHILD LABOUR ESSAY 5 (300 WORDS)
Child labour involves the regular working of children in their childhood at very
young age from five to fourteen years. Children in many developing countries ar
e forced to work hard for full day against their will at very low pay for their
survival. They want to go school, play with their friends and need love and care
by their parent like other children living in rich houses. But unfortunately, t
hey are forced to do something against their will.
In developing countries, the rate of the child labour is high because of the pov
erty, low level awareness for education and poor schooling opportunities. Most o
f the children of age group 5 to 14 are found to be involved in the agriculture
by their parents in the rural areas. Poverty and lack of schools are the primary
reasons of child labour in any developing country all across the world.
Childhood is considered as the happiest and vital experience in the life of ever
yone as childhood is the most important and friendly period of learning. Childre
n have full rights to get proper attention from their parents, love and care fro
m their parents, proper schooling, guidance, playing with friends and other happ
iful moments. Child labour is corrupting the lives of many precious children eve
ry day. It is the high level of illegal act for which one should be punished but
because of the ineffective rules and regulations it is going side by side.
Nothing effective is happening to prevent the child labour from society as quick
ly as possible. Children are too young, cute and innocent to realize the things
happening to them in the early age. They are unable to recognise that what is wr
ong and illegal for them instead they become happy getting small money for their
work. Unknowingly they become interested in the getting money on daily basis an
d ruining their whole life and future.
CHILD LABOUR ESSAY 6 (400 WORDS)
Children are conserved as the most important asset of their country however impr
oper understanding of the parents and poverty making them the reason for the wea
kness of the country instead of being the power of the country. Most of the chil
dren under poverty line are forced to do the child labour daily even after the l
ots of awareness program run by the government and future welfare of society tow
ards the welfare of the child.
Children are the new flower with powerful fragrance of any nation however some p
eople are declining the power and destroying the future of the country just for
earning small money by illegally involving the growing kids. They are playing wi
th the moral of the innocent people and their kids. Protecting children from the
child labour is the responsibility of each and every citizen living in the coun
try. Child labour is the socio-economic issue which is coming from long ago and
now need to be solved on ultimate basis.
After the independence of the country, various laws and regulations has been imp
lemented regarding the child labour however it did not found its end in the coun
try. Child labour ruining the innocence of the kids by directly destroying their
health physically, mentally, socially and intellectually. Children are the love
ly creation of the nature but it is not fair that due to some bad circumstances
they are forced to do hard labour before their appropriate age.
Child labour is the global issue which is more common in the underdeveloped coun
tries. Poor parents or parents under poverty line are unable to afford the educa
tion expenses of their kids and they own unable to earn enough money for the fam
ily survival. So, they better choose to involve their kids in hard work to fulfi
l their needs instead of sending them to school. They understand that schooling
is a waste of time and earning money in early age is good for their family. It i
s the urgent need to aware the poor people as well as rich people (to not use as
set of country in wrong way) about the bad effects of the child labour. They mus
t be availed with all the resources which they lack. It should be done by the en
d of everyone. Rich people should help the poor people so that their children to
o can get all the required things in childhood. It needs some effective rules an
d regulations by the government to completely end its roots forever.
CHILD LABOUR ESSAY 7 (1000 WORDS)
What is Child Labour
Child labour is a type crime in which children are forced to work in their very
early age and perform the responsibilities just like adults by taking part in th
e economic activities. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO),
there is an age limit applied to the children that children up to age fifteen w
ill not involve in any type of work forcefully. It is an employment of the child
ren in any type of work which makes children deprived of childhood, proper educa
tion, physical, mental and social well being. It is completely forbidden in some
countries however has been an international concern in most of the countries as
it is destroying the future of children to a great extent.
It is a serious matter (a big social problem) in most of the developing countrie
s. Small age group children are being involved in the child labor hugely by the
people of high status. They are avoiding the fact that children are the big hope
and future of the nation. Millions of children have been deprived of the childh
ood and proper education in our country which is a dangerous sign. Such children
do not get the chance of living a healthy life as they are not satisfied physic
ally, mentally and socially from their childhood.
According to the Indian law, children below the age of 14 years cannot be employ
ed to any type of work forcefully whether by the parents or owner in a factories
, offices or restaurants. It is a common practice in India as well as other deve
loping countries in a small scale industry, domestic aid, restaurant service, st
one breaking, shopkeeper s assistant, every house-hold industry, book binding, etc
.
What are the Causes of Child Labour
There are various reasons of child labor in our country. Some of the causes of g
lobal child labor are similar however differ country to country. Most common rea
sons are like poverty, repression of child rights, improper education, limited r
ules and laws on child labor, etc. Following are some important points regarding
causes of child labour:
Poverty and high level of unemployment in the developing countries are the main
reason of child labor.
According to the U.N. statistics of 2005, more than 1/4th of people worldwide ar
e living in extreme poverty.
Lack of access to the regular education in many countries. It was found in 2006
that around 75 million children were away from the school life.
Violating laws regarding child labour give the way to increased child labor in a
ny developing country.
Inadequate social control gives rise to the child labor in the agriculture or do
mestic work.
Limited child or workers rights which affect labor standards and living standards
to a great extent in order to eliminate child labor.
Small children get involved in the child labor in order to increase income of th
eir family to manage two times food.
They are hired by the industries to get more work at reduced labor cost.
What are the Solutions to Child Labour
In order to eliminate the social issue of child labor, there is need to follow s
ome effective solutions on urgent basis to save the future of any developing cou
ntry. Following are some solutions to prevent child labor:
Creating more unions may help in preventing the child labor as it will encourage
more people to help against child labor.
All the children should be given first priority by their parents to take proper
and regular education from their early childhood. This step needs much cooperati
on by the parents as well as schools to free children for education and take adm
ission of children from all walks of life respectively.
Child labour needs high level social awareness with the proper statistics of hug
e loss in the future for any developing country.
Every family must earn their minimum income in order to survive and prevent chil
d labour. It will reduce the level of poverty and thus child labour.
Family control will also help in controlling the child labour by reducing the fa
milies burden of child care and education.
There is need of more effective and strict government laws against child labour
in order to prevent children from working in their little age.
Child trafficking should be completely abolished by the governments of all count
ries.
Child workers should be replaced by the adult workers as almost 800 million adul
ts are unemployed in this world. In this way adult will get job and children wil
l be free from child labour.
Employment opportunities should be increased for adults in order to overcome pro
blem of poverty and child labor.
Business owners of factories, industries, mines, etc should take the pledge of n
ot involving children in any type of labour.
Child Labour as a Crime
Child labour is still practiced in many countries even after being a big crime.
Business owners of the industries, mines, factories, etc are using child labour
at great level in order to get more work at low labour cost. Poor children are m
ore prone to be involved in the child labour as they are forced by parents to ea
rn some money to give economic help to their family in the very young age (too y
oung to realize their responsibilities towards family) instead of getting proper
education and play with friends in childhood.
Conclusion
Child labour is a big social problem which needs to be solved on urgent basis by
 the support of both, people (especially parents and teachers) and government. C
hildren are very little however they carry a prosperous future of any developing
country. So, they are the big responsibility of all the adult citizens and shou
ld not be used in negative ways. They should get proper chance to develop and gr
ow within the happy environment of family and school. They should not be limited
by the parents only to maintain the economical balance of the family and by the
businesses to get labour at low cost.

Short Essay on Child Labor

On November 25, 2013 By Bijoy Basak
Category: National Issues of India
Child Labor
Child labor has been an international concern because it damages, spoils and des
troys the future of children. The problem of child labor is a serious matter not
only in India but also in other developing countries. It is great social proble
m. Children are the hope and future of a nation. Yet, there are millions deprive
d children in our country who have never known a normal, carefree childhood.
The law in Indian soil says that any child below age of 14 cannot be employed ei
ther in a factory or office or restaurant. In fact, India s international business
has been severely affected in many cases because child labors, violating human
rights, have been used in some stage or the other in manufacturing, packaging a
transport of those items. And, in a large number of cases of export of ready-mad
e garments, prawn and several other items from India has been rejected on ground
s of child labor being used.
Truly speaking child labor is frequently utilized in India in various places of
production and service e.g., small scale industry, restaurant service, domestic
aid, shopkeeper s assistant, stone breaking, book binding, in fact in every house-
hold industry.
Causes of Child Labor
Now what is the background of engaging child labor,
To have or increase the income of a poor family
To reduce the labor cost in a production organization
Misc. reasons for engaging as domestic aid as the children are less doubtful abo
ut dishonesty or less liable to misbehave or be violent.
In a developed society where every citizen counts and all citizens have to have
proper education, health care supports, games and entertainment and complete his
education so that when he is a fully grown adult he can get a full employment w
ith standard salary.
Solutions to Child Labor
The solution to the problem of Child Labor are:
The Child labor laws need to be strictly enforced by the Government.
The general public need to be made aware of the severe consequences of Child lab
or.
An increase in employment opportunity for adults would help in overcoming the pr
oblem of poverty and child labor.
Government should ensure that every child gets the opportunity to go to school.
The owners of factories and mines should take the pledge of not engaging child i
n their place of business.
Conclusion
If the boy or girl takes up a small job as a domestic help or restaurant boy aga
inst a nominal salary of Rs. 750-1800 per month, he does not get enough time tim
e for primary and secondary education and is most likely to remain completely il
literate, unskilled, perhaps with a weak health and will have to remain unemploy
ed or be engaged as an unskilled labor when he is grown up. Hence in his own ben
efit and interest no child should be engaged as labor both from legal point of v
iew as well as the child s future interest.
We Indians take pride in the fact that India is rapidly emerging as a leading de
veloping nation. Prosperity is reaching several segments of people and the benef
its have reached out to large parts of the country where none existed just a few
decades ago. No mean achievement this. But the story is not entirely green. The
re is a dark underbelly that has and is contributing to this growth. It s the use
of child labour.
As a nation we have long accepted this very cruel practice of using children as
very cheap, and often, free labour. We have turned a blind eye to children being
denied their right to be in school and an opportunity to better their lives. Th
is problem is across both urban and rural areas and we have been by and large li
ving with this black truth.
Consequences of child labour in India
The picture that emerges is dark. Children are working in hazardous export orien
ted industries like fireworks, match works, electroplating, beedi rolling, glass
blowing, brassware, lock making, glass blowing, lead mining and stone quarrying
amongst several others. These are places that have a severe negative impact on
the health of anyone working there. In the case of children, by the time they be
gin touching their teens, they are already inflicted with several life threateni
ng diseases.
Sitting at home in a city, we have no idea of the terrible conditions that these
children are made to work in and for more than ten to twelve hours a day. In ma
ny cases, these children are offered by the parents in lieu of a loan that they
may have taken from the factory owner. So it s a barter deal; loan in cash that is
repaid in kind through the child. Not all are barter deals. Some work for money
where the pay is as little as ten rupees per day!
There are other situations where children are made to work. These are typically
home run cottage industries like handloom and carpet weaving. This author has pe
rsonally visited carpet weaving centers in Bhadohi and Mirzapur, in eastern U.P.
and has seen children working alongside their parents, in virtually all homes l
ying in interior rural areas. The typical explanation given by the parents are t
hat they see the child as an additional resource for income generation.
This is a necessity given the abject poverty prevailing in rural areas and in th
e absence of any social security system. People look at raising children as addi
tional manpower, which further exacerbates the population problem that India is
reeling under. It s a Catch-22 situation! A poor villager can t afford to raise chil
dren but continues to produce them in the hope that they will add to the income
while also providing an income security in his old age. This is one of the prima
ry reasons one sees large families in rural areas where deep poverty prevails.
While this situation is still understandable even if not justifiable, what about
child labour and abuse in urban and semi urban cities and towns?
What about our homes?
This gets murkier. Remember the recent case in Vasant Kunj, a South Delhi middle t
o-upper-middle class colony, where a maid from Jharkhand was locked up at home,
and was beaten and tortured for over several months. She was denied food and whe
n she couldn t take it anymore, she barely managed to scream for help. When the po
lice along with representatives of a NGO finally managed to get an entry, they w
ere horrified to find a starving sick girl with scars on her body that included
burn marks. She was filthy, having skin infections, and was in traumatized state
. All this in the home of a lady working in a senior position in a well-paid MNC
. And we think that child labour and abuse happens only in the villages? This is
right here in the heart of India s capital and in the home of a so called highly
educated and highly paid executive.
How can we live with this?
So what makes a person living in an urban area do this, especially in an age of
high awareness of the laws, active roles played by NGOs, and a hyper active medi
a? Despite this, we still have people employing children as domestic labour and
abusing them! What has made us so cold and cruel? Why have we allowed our inner
conscience to die? What legacy of morality and ethics do we leave for our childr
en when a child s first education is supposed to start from home? The very home wh
ere another child is denied his basic fundamental right to education and a life
of dignity.
A nation stands on the legs of its society and the citizens that live within it.
If we have to build a nation where the next generation can live with dignity an
d fairness, where there is equal opportunity to prosper for all, then we have to
ensure that we lay the very core of that society on a strong foundation i.e. ou
r home.
If there is a child labour happening in our home or in our vicinity, it is our m
oral right to raise our voice against it. If we don t, we would lose our moral rig
ht to look into our children s eyes and expect respect from them. We cannot raise
one child s future while denying another one. No way.

Child Labour in India essay

Problems of childhood and child labour are being actively discussed in domestic
and foreign sociological literature. Sociologists and anthropologists examine th
e history of child labour and the impact of social institutions in it. Experts i
n the field of sociology of labour and economic sociology analyze the motivation
and value orientations of adolescents in the workforce, standards and working c
onditions, attitudes toward work and its effectiveness. Psychologists and hygien
ists describe the harmful effects of the environment and the adverse factors on
the child s body.
However, despite some elaboration of the problem it can be stated that a systema
tic approach to child labour has not yet emerged in terms of sociology in the li
terature, and many countries continue to use child labour illegally. According t
o data taken from the report of the U.S. government presented in Caulfield s (2009
) work we see that India has the highest rate of child and forced labour in fiel
ds such as gold mining, collecting cocoa and tailoring. Thus, the main aim of th
is project is to focus on child labour in India, taking into account its legal a
nd illegal sides; to discuss different ways how Indian government can overcome t
he problem and who should be responsible for children employment in this country
.
Nowadays millions of children around the world are working to help their familie
s. Sometimes this work is neither harmful nor exploitative, but not in India. Ac
cording to statistical data based on different researches Bales (2000) said that
every sixth child at the age from 5 to 14 years, that is about 16% of the total
child population of the planet of this age group, is involved in child labour i
n developing countries. Let us examine the fact that in the least developed coun
tries almost 30% of all children are engaged in child labour. Grinding poverty g
ives rise to exploitation, especially in times of war. According to the Lichtens
tein (2003), there were over 250,000 children-soldiers in such countries as Libe
ria, Iraq and Afghanistan several years ago. Compa (2003) stated that other 126
million of children can barely make ends meet by working in hazardous occupation
s such as brick factories in China or mines of diamonds in Sierra Leone. Thinkin
g about India we see that it ranks the second in the world in the number of work
ing children.
Paying more attention to this question Mosley (2010) stated that child labour in
India is a grave and extensive problem. Children under the age of 14 are forced
to work in glass-blowing, fireworks, and most commonly, carpet-making factories.
 While the Government of India reports about 20 million children labourers, othe
r non-governmental organizations estimate the number to be closer to 50 million.
Most prevalent in the northern part of India, the exploitation of child labour
has become an accepted practice, and is viewed by the local population as necess
ary to overcome the extreme poverty in the region.
Observing legislation base it is possible to mention that child labour is prohib
ited, but such cases are practically not investigated. Therefore, for example, t
he use of children at construction sites is growing dramatically almost in all r
egions of India. According to Shurmer-Smith (2000), the next awful point is the
fact that nearly 1.2 millions of children a year fall into the clutches of traff
ickers who sell them to other countries, forcing to drag slavish existence, earn
ing their living in prostitution or theft.
Defining the term of child labour we see that it is a kind of work performed by ch
ildren, which by its nature or the circumstances of its execution may do harm to
health, development, morality or interfere with the child s education. Gross (200
6) proclaimed that any child has the right to be protected from economic exploit
ation and work that could be dangerous for him or interfere with his education,
harming health, and physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. No
wadays working children and adolescents in many countries do not fit the definit
ion of the labour force. They belong to the so-called peripheral workers, becaus
e they are involved in a peripheral, secondary labour market. It is characterize
d by a large number of low-paying jobs, lack of prospects for promotion, persona
lized relationship between management and subordinates, instability and high tur
nover. Grootaert and Kanbur (1995) are sure that exactly children and teenagers
are among the most vulnerable groups of workers on a par with women, ethnic and
religious minorities, the elderly and foreigners without documents. Rules that p
rotect working experience of representatives of the primary labour market do not
apply to the secondary market.
Discussing child labour it is possible to say that it may have both forced and v
oluntary character. In the first case, the child is forced to work by his own pa
rents, because the family can not survive without the revenue that the child bri
ngs. In some cases, the earnings of the child are the only way to pay for his/he
r education. However, schools are often in poor condition and prospects for prof
essional growth are negligible there. As a result, parents who have started to w
ork when they were children considered that the best way to solve problems in th
e family is to send their children to work instead of going to school. In some f
amilies, as soon as the income of the parents begins to grow, the scale of force
d child labour is declining.
Answering the question whether abolishing of child labour in India would be righ
t it is necessary to say that if we look attentively at the law on employment of
children we will find that it is illegal to use child labour. Drze and Sen (1995
) demonstrated that The Indian Government has taken some steps to alleviate this
monumental problem. In 1989, India invoked a law that made the employment of chi
ldren under age 14 illegal, except in family-owned factories. However, this law
is rarely followed, and does not apply to the employment of family members. Thus
, factories often circumvent the law through claims of hiring distant family. Al
so, in rural areas, there are few enforcement mechanisms, and punishment for fac
tories violating the mandate is minimal, if not nonexistent. Nevertheless, many b
elieve that it is better for children who have no other alternatives to work tha
n to be involved in prostitution or theft. Despite, the last statement it seems
that every child should have good childhood and opportunity to study, thus the a
bolishing of child labour is a right decision.
Child labour is evaluated negatively despite its quite acceptable forms, develop
ing intelligence and some work skills of a child. Indeed, the majority of childr
en involved in the process of labour is engaged in hard, dangerous and immoral a
ctivity. Observing governmental activity Burton, D. (1995) showed that the main p
olicy of the government is to ban employment of children below the age of fourte
en years in factories, mines and hazardous employment and to regulate the workin
g conditions of children in other employment.
Discussing the international law Cigno and Rosati mentionad that In international
law, labor issues have been reserved for the International Labour Organization
(ILO). In the traditional perspective of the ILO, child labor must be eradicated
from the labor market. Hence, from its establishment, the ILO strategy to comba
t child labor was to secure international agreements on a minimum working age fo
r children. During the 1920s and 1930s a series of international treaties coveri
ng different sectors urged states to set a minimum working age. In 1973 these in
struments combined into the Convention concerning Minimum Age for Admission to E
mployment. The overall aim, as stated in Article 1, was to ensure the effective a
bolition of child labour (Cigno and Rosati, 2005).
In India in 2009, the Act on child labour, prohibiting work for children below t
he age of 14 years who earn their living as domestic servants, staff of various
hotels and public entertainment facilities, employees of tea, roadside eateries
and restaurants, came into force. The initiator of the new law was Prime Ministe
r of India who was greatly interested in the problem of child labour in his coun
try. Exploitation of child labour in most cases is due to the fact that even tho
se parents who would like to send their children to school, often can not afford
to pay child s way to school, purchase forms, or abandon the additional earnings.
As a result, children are sent to work in the fields, factories and even in the
mines. Violators of the law on child labour in India face a fine of up to $ 450
and imprisonment from three months to two years. As a compensation state provid
es to pay subsidies for laid-off children. In total, India has about 12.6 millio
n working children and International Labour Organization has estimated that the
replacement of child labour with education programs will cost $ 760 billion for
the country, however, the economic effect of this measure will outweigh the cost
s in the nearest future.
Observing this problem from the other side Cigno and Rosati (2005) presented the
next solution for the problem connected with child labour: The simplest decision
sequence includes three steps, or decision stages. At stage 0, would-be parents
choose the level of birth control. This conditions the probability that a child
is born. Stage 1 comes if and when a child is actually born. At that point, par
ents decide how much food, attention, and medical care to give each child. That
will in turn condition the child s probability of surviving to the next stage. Sta
ge 2 occurs if and when a child reaches school age. At that stage, parents decid
e whether to send their children to school or work, and how much food, education
, and medical care each child should get. In addition Cigno and Rosati (2005) sai
d that Since premature mortality is heavily concentrated in the early years, we s
hall assume that, if a child survives to school age, he will live to be an adult
. Stage-2 decisions determine the stock of human capital and other assets with w
hich the child will enter adult life. Beyond that, decisions will be taken by th
e children themselves. The decision problem is solved by backward induction.
Thinking about responsibilities in the question of child labour it is impossible
to say that only government or only corporations that employ children are respo
nsible for the situation that takes place in India. It is necessary to mention t
hat any of those cases when the huge material and human resources are gathered i
n one direction the company s management, nevertheless, is probably trying to get
as much information about how big will be the exposure of possible irregularitie
s. Many companies always have to balance between their obligations in the sphere
of social responsibility and a desire to ensure low production costs. Thinking
about companies, who are going to put their factories in India we see that there
is a number of conditions that accompany the company s decision to place its manu
facturing capacity in a given country. The Government of India is trying to cont
rol situation in the sphere of child labour and doing it in India, the company r
isks to find itself in a situation when one or another link in the network of it
s suppliers would be able to use child labour.
Thus, basing on the above discussed information it is possible to say that the p
roblem of child labour goes into the depth of history in India. Child labour was
considered to be a normal phenomenon in the framework of traditional values. It
was observed not as exploitation of the child, but as a part of skills acquisit
ion associated with the caste occupation of his family. Now the situation is ch
anging to some extent. But, the successes achieved in recent years to expand the
access to education and eradication of child labour may be offset under the inf
luence of the current global economic and financial crisis, which threatens furt
her progress in this direction.
In conclusion, most studies have indicated that the main cause of child labour i
s poverty. Children are forced to work to survive and help their families. Pover
ty, illiteracy, lack of health care, limited employment opportunities every of t
he above numerated factors leads to the exploitation of child labour. Neverthele
ss, some poor countries managed to achieve significant progress in combating chi
ld labour until its complete elimination. Thinking about India it is possible to
suppose that the best governmental strategy in the fight against child labour e
xploitation is the reduction of poverty, increasing employment and welfare of ru
ral and other residents, solving the problems of health and human safety when ca
rrying different kinds of activities, improvement of techniques, as well as sust
ainable country s development.

Essay # 1. The Paradox of Child Labour in India:

Irrespective of what children do and what they think of what they do, modern soc
iety sets children apart ideologically as a category of people excluded from the
production of value.
The dissociation of childhood from the performance of valued work is considered
a yardstick of modernity, and a high incidence of child labour is considered a s
ign of underdevelopment. The problem with defining children s roles in this way, h
owever, is that it denies their agency in the creation and negotiation of value.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Illuminating the complexity of the work patterns of children in developing count
ries, recent anthropological research has begun to demonstrate the need to criti
cally examine the relation between the condemnation of child labour on the one h
and and children s everyday work practice on the other.
The emerging paradox is that the moral condemnation of child labour assumes that
children s place in modern society must perforce be one of dependency and passivi
ty. This denial of their capacity to legitimately act upon their environment by
undertaking valuable work makes children altogether dependent upon entitlements
guaranteed by the state.
Yet we must question the state s role as the evidence on growing child poverty cause
d by cuts in social spending has illuminated in carrying-out its ion:
(a) A discussion of the theoretical perspectives adopted by development theory a
s it has dealt with poverty and child labour,
ADVERTISEMENTS:
(b) An assessment of the contribution of anthropology to the child labour debate
, and
(c) A discussion of the need of future research based on the idea of work as one
of the most critical domains in which poor children can contest and negotiate c
hildhood.
First, in the section on Approaches to Children s Work, Olga Nieuwenhuys argues th
at from its inception the notion of child labour has been associated with factor
y work and hence was limited to western countries.
The interest in children s work in the developing world can be traced back to theo
ries of socialization, a preoccupation with population growth, and unfair econom
ic competition.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The section on Children s Work and Anthropology probes the paradox of the market i
mpinging upon locally accepted forms of child work without transforming it into c
hild labour . Here, discussion is how anthropologists have criticized the simplist
ic views of child labour espoused by western development experts.
Approaches to children s work undertaken from the anthropological perspective high
light the very complex interplay of gender and age in determining a child s work a
llocation.
Third, in the section The Negotiation of Childhood, is proposed to enlarge the n
otion of children s exploitation to include the more mundane aspects of work. Fina
lly, it is outlined that the direction future research should take to enable us
to understand not only how children s work is negotiated and acquires its meaning
but children s own agency therein.
Essay # 2. Approaches to Children s Work:
The recent concern with child labour draws on a shared understanding among devel
opment experts of how, from the mid-nineteenth century onward, western industria
l society began to eliminate through legislation the exploitation of children.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
However, historians still debate more deep-seated reasons for the nineteenth-cen
tury outcry in Western Europe and the United States against child labour, which
is probably as old as childhood itself. For instance, Nardinelii (1990) has ques
tioned the assumption that this outcry was inspired, as some authors have argued
, by the brutal treatment of children working in factories.
Besides humanitarian reasons, Nardinelii (1990) argued that there was a desire t
o protect initiatives to mechanize the textile industry from the uncontrolled co
mpetition of a labour force composed almost entirely of children.
Another equally important reason was the fear of political instability created b
y a youthful working class not to be disciplined by the army, schools, or the ch
urch.
While some believe compulsory education was the single most important instrument
leading to the elimination of child labour, others have argued that changes in
the perceived roles of children and the increase in family income, played a more
decisive role.
Progressive state legislation has marked the major steps of child labour aboliti
on in the West. However, while such legislation defined child labour as waged wo
rk undertaken by a child under a certain age, it also established the borderline
between morally desirable and pedagogically sensible activities on the one hand
, and the exploitation of children on the other.
While condemning the relatively uncommon forms of waged labour as exploitation,
it sanctioned a broad spectrum of other activities, including housekeeping, chil
d minding, helping adults for no pay on family farms and in small shops, domesti
c service, street selling, running errands, delivering newspapers, seasonal work
on farms, working as trainees in workshops, etc. In contrast with child labour,
these activities were lauded for their socializing and training aspects.
The distinction between harmful and suitable if not desirable work as defined by wes
tern legislation has become the main frame of reference of most contemporary gov
ernmental and bureaucratic approaches to children s work.
Many countries in the world have now either ratified or adopted modified version
s of child labour legislation prepared and propagated by the International Labou
r Organization (ILO) (ILO 1988, 1991). The implications are far-reaching.
Legislation links child labour quite arbitrarily to work in the factory and excl
udes a wide range of non-factory work. It therefore sanctifies unpaid work in th
e home or under parental supervision, regardless of its implications for the chi
ld. In the words of an ILO -report:
We have no problem with the little girl who helps her mother with the housework
or cooking, or the boy or girl who does unpaid work in a small family business.
The same is true of those odd jobs that children may occasionally take on to ear
n a little pocket money to buy something they really want.
Many of the odd jobs mentioned here, as in the case of helping on the family far
m or in shops and hotels, though strictly not prohibited, are felt by both child
ren and the public at large to be exploitative. Legislation also selects chronol
ogical age as the universal measure of biological and psychological maturity, an
d it rejects cultural and social meanings attached to local systems of age ranki
ng (La Fontaine 1978).
More specifically, it denies the value of an early introduction to artisanal cra
fts or traditional occupations that may be crucial in a child s socialization. Fin
ally, legislation condemns any work undertaken by a child for his/her own upkeep w
ith the notable exception of work undertaken to obtain pocket money.
The denial of gainful employment is the more paradoxical in that the family and
the state often fail to provide children with what they need to lead a normal li
fe. These are some of the reasons why the industrial countries, despite much lip
service to the contrary, have not succeeded in eliminating all forms of child w
ork.
Given the factory origins of the notion of child labour, it is hardly surprising
that children s work in the erstwhile colonies caused no concern. Most colonial a
dministrations passed factory acts excluding children under 14 from the premises
soon after they had been passed at home. However, these laws carried only symbo
lic value.
The colonies were merely seen as sources of cheap raw materials and semi-manufac
tured goods produced by rural villagers, while the factory system of production
was energetically discouraged.
The administration s main preoccupation was that the local rural population men, wom
en, and children continue to find in the old forms of subsistence the means of sur
viving while delivering the agricultural goods necessary to maintain the colonia
l revenue.
This may explain why in the West social activists expressed outrage about child
labour at home, while anthropologists romanticized the work of rural children in
the colonies as a form of socialization well adapted to the economic and social
level of pre-industrial society.
Engrossed with the intricacies of age ranking and passage rites, anthropologists
seldom hinted at what this meant in terms of work and services required by elde
rs from youngsters. The high premium put on the solidarity of the extended famil
y as the corner-stone of pre-capitalist society overshadowed the possibility of
exploitation occurring within the family or the village.
This perception changed with the identification in post-War development theory o
f population growth as the main obstacle to the eradication of poverty in the new
nations of the Third World. Celebrated as an antidote to poverty during the col
onial period, children s work contributions to the family economy came to be perce
ived as an indicator of poverty, if not its cause.
In the 1960s and 1970s, a burgeoning literature on the population explosion tried
to show that the fast-growing numbers of poor children non-workers with escalating
expectations were to be held responsible for consuming the developing world s scan
t resources.
These allegations often masked the fear that the mounting frustrations of youngs
ters would fester into eruptions of violence and extremism and thereby threaten th
e stability of the post-War world order.
Large-scale foreign-funded research programmes were introduced in high-fertility
countries to induce poor couples to control births. However, resistance to birt
h control was unexpectedly staunch. By the mid-1970s, research began to provide
clues that the poor desired a large family because children represented an impor
tant source of free labour.
Mamdani s seminal work on the importance of children s work contribution for the rep
roduction of the peasant household in the Green Revolution areas of the Punjab c
ast an entirely new light on high fertility by suggesting that India s peasants ne
eded many children to meet their labour demands.
Mamdani s research inspired a fresh approach to children s work in terms of its util
ity to the peasant household. During the 1970s, anthropologists carried out exte
nsive and painstaking time-allocation and family-budget studies to show that eve
n young children were contributing to their own sustenance by undertaking a whol
e range of activities in the subsistence sphere of the peasant economy.
The ensuing debate on the determinants of high fertility in peasant economies sh
owed, however, that the claim that poor peasants desire for children would be ins
pired by their value as workers was premature. Caldwell s (1976, 1981, 1982) work
on Nigeria and India was particularly influential in mapping the wider setting o
f children s historical, social, and cultural roles.
Research on intra-household relations also questioned the concept of the househo
ld as an unproblematic unit, highlighting the outspoken inequality that exists n
ot only between males and females but between seniors and juniors.
Another criticism of the cost-benefit analysis has been its exclusive focus on dec
ision making at the level of the household; it ignores the larger context in whi
ch the actions of its members occur.
In spite of such criticism, the neoclassical belief that child labour is essenti
ally a problem of household economics has continued to be espoused in the studie
s of child labour published under the auspices of international agencies such as
the United Nations International Children s Educational Fund (UNICEF), the World
Health Organization (WHO), and the ILO following the International Year of the C
hild in 1979.
Similar views are expressed in the documents produced by international charities
devoted to the welfare of children such as the International Catholic Bureau, S
ave the Children, Defence of Children International, Anti-Slavery International.
Typical of these publications is a moral preoccupation with abolition through leg
islation and a zealous belief in the desirability of extending western childhood
ideals to poor families worldwide. Their merit lies essentially in having stake
d out child labour as a new and legitimate field of global political and academi
c concern.
As aptly stated by Morice and Schlemmer (1994), the continuous reference to (west
ern) moral values, however, all too often not only supplants scientific analysis
but may at times mask its very need. The emerging picture is one of conceptual
confusion, in which ill-grasped notions from diverse analytical fields are indis
criminately used.
The most glaring confusion is undoubtedly the one between the moral oppression a
nd the economic exploitation of children. Reference to broad and ahistorical caus
es of the oppression of children such as poverty, illiteracy, backwardness, greed
, and cruelty fail to go beyond the mere description of oppression and ignore th
e historical and social conditioning of exploitation.
As a global solution to eliminate child labour, development experts are now prop
osing a standard based on the sanctity of the nuclear family on the one hand and
the school on the other as the only legitimate spaces for growing up.
If this becomes a universal standard, there is a danger of negating the worth of
often precious mechanisms for survival, and penalizing or even criminalizing th
e ways the poor bring up their children. This criminalization is made more malev
olent as modern economies increasingly display their unwillingness to protect po
or children from the adverse effects of neoliberal trade policies.
Essay # 3. Children s Work and Anthropology :
Children s lives have been a constant theme in anthropology. However, in-depth stu
dies of their work remain few and have been inspired, as I have argued, by a cri
tical concern with the neoclassical approach to the value of children. Two main
areas of research have elicited anthropologists interest: the family context of w
ork and the relation between socialization, work, and schooling.
One of the leading themes of economic anthropology has been the conceptualizatio
n of work and its cultural meanings. The growing numbers of publications on chil
d labour in the developing world have invoked renewed interest in the family con
text of work.
Central to some of the most notable studies has been how children s work is constr
ained by hierarchies based on kinship, age, and gender, a constraint that result
s in its typically rural, flexible, and personalized character.
Rather than a widespread form of exploitation, child employment is mostly limite
d by the free-labour requirement of families that is satisfied by giving childre
n unremunerated and lowly valued tasks.
Considering the low cost of children s labour, it is indeed surprising that employ
ers do not avail themselves more fully of this phenomenal source of profit.
Despite more than 100 million children in the age bracket 5 to 15 living in abje
ct poverty in India, for example, a mere 16 million are employed, the vast major
ity of whom are teenagers who work in agriculture. About 10 per cent are employe
d by industries, largely producing substandard if not inferior products for the
local market.
There is more and more evidence that poor children who are not employed perform
crucial work, often in the domestic arena, in subsistence agriculture, and in th
e urban informal sector. Theories explaining underdevelopment in terms of the pe
rsistence of pre-capitalist labour relations provide some clues about why these
children are not employed.
The crucial aspect of underdevelopment in these theories is the unequal exchange
realized in the market between goods produced in capitalist firms, where labour
is valued according to its exchange value, and goods produced by the peasantry
and the urban informal sector, where the use value of labour predominates.
The latter group is paid only a fraction of its real cost because households are
able to survive by pooling incomes from a variety of sources, undertaking subsi
stence activities and using the work of women and children to save on the costs
of reproduction. The unpaid work of children in the domestic arena, which turns
them into in-actives , is seen as crucial for the developing world s low labour cost
rationality.
The reasons children are more likely than adults to be allotted unpaid work in a
griculture or the household can be gauged by the work of feminist researchers th
at highlights how ideologies of gender and age interact to constrain, in particu
lar, girls to perform unpaid domestic work.
The ideology of gender permits the persistence of an unequal system in which wom
en are excluded from crucial economic and political activities and their positio
ns of wives and mothers are associated with a lower status than men.
The valuation of girls work is so low that it has been discovered by feminist anthr
opologists making a conscious choice to include housework and child care in thei
r definition of work.
Girls are trained early to accept and internalize the feminine ideals of devotio
n to the family. The role of caretaker of younger siblings has not only the prac
tical advantage of freeing adult women for wage work, it also charges girls work
with emotional gratifications that can make up for the lack of monetary rewards.
Elson (1982) has argued that seniority explains why children s work is largely val
ued as inferior: Inferiority is not only attached to the nature of the work but
to the person who performs it as well. Poor children are not perceived as worker
s because what they do is submerged in the low status realm of the domestic.
The effect of seniority is not limited to the control of children s work within th
e nuclear family Anthropologists have also uncovered how children s work plays a c
ardinal role in the intricate and extensive kinship and pseudo-kinship patterns
that are at the core of support systems in the developing world.
While servicing the immediate household is young children s mandatory task, poor c
hildren coming of age may also be sent to work as domestics and apprentices for
wealthier kin. For the parent-employer, this is a source of status and prestige.
The widespread African practice of fostering the children of poorer (pseudo-)rel
atives is just one example of the intricate way family loyalty and socialization
practices combine to shape how poor children are put to work.
Another example is the practice among the poor in some areas of India of pledgin
g their children s work against a loan. Although the object of much negative publi
city, the practice is seen by parents as a useful form of training, a source of
security, and a way of cutting household expenditures.
Old crafts such as carpet weaving, embroidery, silk reeling, artisanal fishing,
and metal work lend themselves to protracted periods of apprenticeship in which
a child is made to accept long hours of work and low pay in the hope of becoming
master.
While often exacting, children may experience apprenticeship or living in anothe
r household as valuable, particularly if it helps them learn a trade or visit a
school. Children s valuation of the practice is nevertheless ambiguous, and they m
ay prefer employment to servicing their kin.
There is a persistent belief, which finds its origins in the neoclassical approa
ch, that schooling is the best antidote to child labour. However, one consequenc
e of the personalized character of children s work patterns is that this work is o
ften combined with going to school.
Reynolds (1991) study of the Zambezi Valley describes how Tonga children need to
work in subsistence agriculture while attending school simply to survive. Insecu
rity about the value of diplomas and marriage strategies is among the reasons gi
rls in Lagos, Nigeria, spend much out-of-school time acquiring street-trading sk
ills .
In Kerala, India, where attending school is mandatory, children spend much time
earning cash for books, clothes, and food. Around the world children undertake a
ll kinds of odd jobs, not only to help their families but to defray the fast-ris
ing costs of schooling, be it for themselves or for a younger sibling. However,
children may also simply dislike school and prefer to work and earn cash instead
.
Although to some extent schools and work can coexist as separate arenas of child
hood, schooling is changing the world orientation of both children and parents.
Among the most critical effects is the lowering of birth rates, which has been e
xplained by the non-availability of girls for child care.
Another explanation, inspired by the neoclassical approach of balancing children s
costs against the returns, is related to what Caldwell (1981) has called the int
ergenerational flow of wealth. This notion suggests that schooling increases the
costs of child rearing while reducing children s inclination to perform mandatory
tasks for the circle of kin.
The traditional flow of wealth from juniors to seniors is thus reversed. Perhaps
of greater importance, schooling despite the heavy sacrifices it may demand provide
s children with a space in which they can identify with the parameters of modern
childhood. It makes possible negotiations with elders for better clothes and fo
od; time for school, homework, and recreation; and often payment for domestic wo
rk.
The proponents of compulsory education have also argued that literate youngsters
are likely to be more productive later in life than uneducated ones, who may ha
ve damaged their health by early entrance into the labour market. For Purdy (199
2), schooling reinforces the useful learning imparted by parents at home and may
, for some children, be the only useful form of learning.
Schools are also said to have a negative impact. Illness, lack of support at hom
e, or heavy work make poor children s performance often inadequate and repetition
and dropping out common. Competition in the classroom helps breed a sense of inf
eriority and personal failure in poor children, turning their work assignments i
nto a source of shame.
The high costs of schooling, including the need to look respectable in dress and
appearance, incites poor children to engage in remunerative work, which contrad
icts the belief that compulsory education would work as an antidote to child lab
our.
In the past few years, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) concerned with chil
dren have been encouraged to develop low-cost solutions to address the problem o
f child labour. The solutions are based on a combination of work and school and
recognize the need of poor children to contribute to their own upkeep.
The approach has gained support within the ILO, the organization that until rece
ntly was the most staunch defender of prohibition by legislation.
The poor quality of the education imparted, the heavy demands of studying after
work, and above all the fact that they leave untouched the unjust social system
that perpetrates children s exploitation are among the most problematic aspects of
NGOs interventions.
The articulation of gender, age, and kinship plays a cardinal role in the valuat
ion of poor children s work and is instrumental in explaining why some work is con
demned as unsuitable and some is lauded as salutary. Hierarchies based on gender
, age, and kinship combine to define children s mandatory tasks as salutary work a
nd condemn paid work.
By legitimizing children s obligation to contribute to survival and denying them t
heir right to seek personal gain, these hierarchies effectively constrain them t
o a position of inferiority within the family It is then not so much their facto
ry employment as their engagement in low-productivity and domestic tasks that de
fines the ubiquitous way poor children are exploited in today s developing world.
Anthropology has sought to explain the apparent inability of the market to avail
itself more fully of the vast reservoir of cheap child labour by pointing out t
hat the free-labour requirements of poor families are satisfied by giving childr
en lowly valued tasks.
This explanation questions child labour studies conceptualization of the exploitat
ion of poor children. Employment is clearly not the only nor the most important
way children s work is exploited: child work contributions to the family are instr
umental in its subsistence and in the production of goods that reach the market
at prices far below their labour value.
The moral assumption that poor children s socialization should occur through the p
erformance of non-monetized work excludes this work from the same economic realm
that includes child labour; it is as much a part of children s exploitation.
Essay # 4. The Negotiation of Childhood:
Irrespective of what they do and what they think about what they do, the mere fa
ct of their being children sets children ideologically apart as a category of pe
ople excluded from the production of value. The dissociation of childhood from t
he performance of valued work has been increasingly considered a yardstick of mo
dernity.
International agencies and highly industrialized countries now turn this yardsti
ck into a tool to condemn as backward and undemocratic those countries with a hi
gh incidence of child labour (Bureau of International Affairs, US Department of
Labor 1994). The problem with this way of defining the ideal of childhood, howev
er, is that it denies children s agency in the creation and negotiation of value.
The view that childhood precludes an association with monetary gain is an ideal
of modern industrial society. Historians highlight the bourgeois origins of this
ideal and question its avowed universal validity not only across cultures but a
cross distinctions of gender, ethnicity, and class.
Some have argued that this ideal is threatened at the very core of capitalism an
d may be giving way to more diversified patterns of upbringing or even to the dis
appearance of childhood .
The current debate over children s rights is symptomatic of the discredit bourgeoi
s notions of parental rights and childhood incompetence seem to have suffered. T
he exposure of child abuse in the western media during the 1980s and 1990s has,
in this line, been explained as a display of excessive anxiety sparked by the gr
owing fragility of personal relationships in late-modern society that cannot but
also affect childhood.
Late- modern experiences of childhood suggest that the basic source of trust in
society lies in the child. Advances in children s rights or media campaigns agains
t child labour or sex tourism would point to a growing sanctity of the child in
late modernity.
This sanctity, however, is essentially symbolic and is contradicted by actual so
cial and financial policies, as borne out by the harshness with which structural
adjustment programmes have hit poor children in developing countries and caused
a marked increase in child mortality, morbidity, illiteracy, and labour .
Under these conditions it is no wonder that, as noted by Jenks (1994), late-mode
rn visions of childhood are now increasingly split between futurity and nostalgia .
As childhood becomes a contested domain, the legitimacy of directing children in
to economically useless activities is losing ground. The need to direct children
into these activities is linked to a system of parental authority and family dis
cipline that was instrumental in preserving established bourgeois social order.
The price of maintaining this order is high, because it requires, among other co
mmitments, money to support the institutions at the basis of the childhood ideal
, such as free education, cheap housing, free health care, sports and recreation
facilities and family welfare and support services.
Developing economies will unlikely be able to generate in the near future the so
cial surplus that the maintenance of these institutions requires. As the neolibe
ral critique of the welfare state gains popularity, wealthy economies also becom
e reluctant to continue shouldering childhood institutions.
It is interesting to note that with the retreat of the state, the market itself h
as begun to address children as consumers more and more, explicitly linking thei
r status to the possession of expensive goods, thereby inducing poor children to
seek self-esteem through paid work.
Working children find themselves clashing with the childhood ideology that place
s a higher value on the performance of economically useless work. Although worki
ng for pay offers opportunities for self-respect, it also entails sacrificing ch
ildhood, which exposes children to the negative stereotyping attached to the los
s of innocence this sacrifice is supposed to cause.
Rethinking the paradoxical relation between neoliberal and global childhood ideo
logy is one of the most promising areas for research. Research should especially
seek to uncover how the need of poor children to realize self-esteem through pa
id work impinges upon the moral condemnation of child labour as one of the funda
mental principles of modernity In stark contrast with what happened in the ninet
eenth-century West, the future may very well see employers, parents, children, a
nd the state disputing the legitimacy of this moral condemnation.
Women, in particular, as they expose the construction of gender roles as instrum
ental in their discrimination in the labour market, are likely to be girls foremo
st allies in contesting modern childhood s ideal of economic uselessness.
The ways children devise to create and negotiate the value of their work and how
they invade structures of constraint based on seniority are other promising are
as of future anthropological research.
This type of research is even more relevant in that it may not only enrich our k
nowledge of children s agency but may prove seminal in understanding the process b
y which work acquires its meaning and is transformed into value.

The effects of child labor in India

Child labor has been a constant menace plaguing Indian society for centuries. As
the Indian economy develops at a dramatic pace to become one of the world's fut
ure economic superpowers, it is becoming extremely important to protect the futu
re generation of this country, which are undoubtedly the children. Child labor h
olds a disgusting picture in today's India. India tops the list in the world of
having the highest number of child laborers, under the age of 14, of about 100-1
50 million out of which at least 44 million are engaged in hazardous jobs (Larso
n, 2004). Even though the Indian Constitution prohibits children younger than 14
to be employed in any occupation or hazardous environment, child labor exists i
n this country (Ram, 2009). They often work for long hours in hazardous and unhy
gienic environment and receive meager pay (Forastieri, 2002). These young childr
en deserve to be educated and benefit from their childhood rather than work at e
arly age and face abuse. The Indian government should enforce their law of prohi
biting child labor to eliminate this problem. It is extremely important to tackl
e this menace if children's rights are to be protected and a vibrant, mentally s
trong and educated youth is to be ensured for the future.
To begin with, child labor is a gross violation of human rights. Firstly, it vio
lates the constitutional law of India (Ram, 2009). Secondly, it also violates th
e UNICEF'S 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child whose article 32 "include[
s] the child's right to freedom from economic exploitation and from performing a
ny work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's educatio
n, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral
or social development" (UNICEF, 2001, p. 6). Moreover, the International Labour
Organisation (ILO)'s Convention number 182 also aims at eliminating child labor
(Fyfe, 2007). Due to the lack of enforcement of law by the Indian government, th
e 100 to 150 million children are not getting the national and universal human r
ights they are entitled to.
When the thought of childhood comes to our mind, images like children playing an
d running around in school uniforms emerge. However for child laborers in India,
its images of factory smoke, wounded fingers, and abuse that emerge. These chil
dren work for long hours inhaling smoke, working with dangerous machines, and fa
cing abusive employers. The labor market in which these children work, the "[lab
or] supply exceeds demand, and, therefore, they lack bargaining power with the b
alance always tilted in favor of the employers leading to exploitation" (Mishra,
2000, p. 56). Also, since children are more vulnerable compared to adults and i
n weaker positions to negotiate, they face further mistreatment, abuse and get p
aid less. Some are even abducted, sold into labor and are forced into servitude
with no hope of getting out (Schmitz, Traver, & Larson, 2004).
When children start working at such a young age and undergo through the above me
ntioned abuses and economic exploitation, it negatively affects their emotional
and physical capabilities (Larson, 2004). In one case, a 10 year-old girl named
Mina had her fingers almost worn to the bone because of working many hours rolli
ng cigarettes for a 'beedi' (rolled cigarettes) company (Larson, 2004). In the s
ame 'beedi' industry, another girl narrated that her work was not only hard but
it was also painful for her to sit and continue for hours without any break to a
chieve her target of 3000 beedis per day, for a meager wage of 3 rupees per day.
Surprisingly, an adult can hardly make 2500 beedis in the same time (Mishra, 20
00).
In "Child Labour in India," Mishra (2000) mentioned a disheartening case of a 12
-year old boy in a matchbox factory. The boy complained that his employer would
beat him for minor mistakes and insult his parents in a filthy language which wo
uld cause him a lot of pain since it was no fault of theirs. He also said:
My employer used to put a match box on my neck in order to bend it down sufficie
ntly to concentrate on the work. This prevented me from raising and turning my h
ead on either side. I was beaten several times by him for having raised and turn
ed my head. The turning of my head was very well indicated by the fall of the ma
tch box from my neck. Sometimes he beats me with the help of a wire in an unkind
manner. (p. 71)
Companies find it profitable to use child labor because it helps them produce at
lower costs and the innocent children can be trained to do dangerous work under
unsafe and unsatisfactory conditions. Many children in India who are child labo
rers work in industries such as glass-blowing, matchsticks, fireworks and also t
he carpet-making industry (Larson, 2004). An example of the terrible working con
ditions can be seen in the fireworks industry. Factories labeled as 'D' grade ar
e legally binded not to employ more than 22 people in their factory. However, ma
ny of such factories employ around 20 to 150 people, including children! The 'D'
graded match box factories are legally allowed to produce at most 80 units of m
atchboxes but they produce upto 100 to 300 units (Mishra, 2000). These firms are
breaking legal rules and the Indian government should step in to enforce their
laws.
Poverty-stricken parents in India who borrow loans often give their children to
their debtor so that he can exploit the children by making them work and help in
paying off the debt. The meager pay these children receive is not enough to cov
er up the amount of money to be repaid for the loan. In addition to this, the in
terest on the loan keeps increasing, which increases the repayment amount, and t
hen the working child takes many years to pay off the debt (Larson, 2004).
It is often pointed out that child labor helps pull people out of poverty by off
ering a source of income and survival for a poor family (Larson, 2004). However,
this 'income' comes at a huge cost as they are abused for work which affects th
eir present and future life. An example can be seen above in the way children ar
e abused as 'collateral' for loans. The constant abuse child laborers have to go
through in exchange for a small amount of income makes their life not worth liv
ing.It does not make much of a difference whether the child is earning money whi
le working in a hazardous job or not, since every type of work involves a degree
of stress. Hazardous work "cripples the health, psyche, and personality of a ch
ild," and non-hazardous work causes forms of deprivation "such as denial of acce
ss to education and denial of the pleasurable activities associated with childho
od" (Mishra, 2000, p. 14). Therefore, the child laborer who is working at a youn
g age to earn some amount of income for his family also does not get educated, w
hich makes him unfit to grow up and get a well paid, decent job in the future. C
hild labor can even start a cycle as an uneducated illiterate parent will also s
tart sending his young child to work as a child laborer, who in turn will also g
row up uneducated, and use his child also as a source of income. Therefore, the
Indian government should make an effort to enforce their child labor law in orde
r to save these children, break this vicious cycle and protect its future genera
tions.
Having a formal education is the birth right of every child in this world. But c
hild labor has stolen this right from these 44 million children. These children
in India who are involved in child labor are not able to have time to go to scho
ol due to the intense and long working hours. According to the International Lab
our Organization's report, "Child labour leads to reduced primary school enrolme
nt and negatively affects literacy rates among youth" (ILO, 2008). The report al
so found strong evidence that in a situation where school and work was combined,
school attendance falls as the number of hours at work increases (ILO, 2008). T
his goes on to prove that working children in India involved in labor struggle t
o attend school due to their harsh and exploitive working hours which causes the
m continuous fatigue. As India has the highest level of child labor in the world
, it is due to this reason that India's rank in the Education Development Index
(EDI) is a disappointing 102nd out of the 129 countries in the index (UNESCO, 20
09). The EDI measures a country's performance on universal primary education. Hi
gh level of child labor in a country is often related with its low and unsatisfa
ctory performance on the index (ILO, 2008). The Indian government should start e
nforcing their law against child labor so that these children can go to school e
asily.
A working child also often gets deprived of having a bright and lively childhood
due to lack of leisure activities. In a research conducted by Dr. D.V.P Raja, F
ounder and Director of the Madurai Institute of Social Sciences in India, more t
han 90% of the working children who were interviewed "stated that they do not ha
ve enough leisure to play and engage in other recreational activities. This star
tling finding signifies that these children spend virtually all their waking hou
rs working and are thereby totally denied any of the excitement and pleasures of
childhood" (Mishra, 2000, p. 48). The interviewees also stated that while at wo
rk, they did not acquire or learn any new skills. This goes on to say that the i
mpact of child labor on the development and creative side of the child is quite
disturbing. These children do not find their work enjoyable but rather than that
they find it difficult and boring; but, however, they still continue to stick w
ith these jobs because they don't have a choice nor do they find any other suita
ble alternative for them (Mishra, 2000). The government of India should now wake
up and save these children before more of them become victims of a lost childho
od.
The problem of child labor has done enough damage to the lives and health of man
y innocent children in India over centuries by stealing away their many rights.
It is now evident that child laborers are heavily losing out on all fronts and a
re becoming terribly incompetent to live future life as child labor negatively a
ffects their mental, emotional and psychological capabilities .Child labor shoul
d be brought to an end now. It is high time that the Indian government starts ta
king this issue seriously and starts enforcing its own constitutional law agains
t child labor so that India's present and future generation of young citizens ha
ve their rights protected and are able to live their lives healthy and secure.