Nobel Prize and Child Labour

Dr.T.V.Rao MD
I think the Nobel peace prize award this year (2014) is more than practical with real issues of Neglect
of girl child in education and abolishing the child labour What made Kailash to change his career as,
On his first day in school Kailash Satyarthi saw a young boy polishing shoes outside the school gates.
The memory of that incident stayed with him, he said, leading him to give up a career in engineering
to spend his life fighting India's endemic child labour. It was a very sharp contrast," he says of
watching that boy, unable to go to school, clean the shoes of other little children who had the
"hopes and aspirations" that education brings. India is sadly the home to the largest number of child
labourers in the world.. We do not have facts about true statistics in India. In India many of these
poor children work in unorganized sector Poverty and lack of social security are the main causes of
child labour. The increasing gap between the rich and the poor, privatization of basic services and
the neo-liberal economic policies are causes major sections of the population out of employment
and without basic needs. This adversely affects children more than any other group. Entry of multi-
national corporations into industry without proper mechanisms to hold them accountable has led to
the use of child labour. Lack of quality universal education has also contributed to children dropping
out of school and entering the labour force. A major concern is that the actual number of child
labourers goes un-detected. Laws that are meant to protect children from hazardous labour are
ineffective and not implemented correctly. Child labour involves at least one of the following
characteristics:
Violates a nations minimum age laws
Threatens childrens physical, mental, or emotional well-being
Involves intolerable abuse, such as child slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor, or
illicit activities
Prevents children from going to school
Uses children to undermine labour standards
Millions of children are involved in work that, under any circumstance, is considered unacceptable
for children, including the sale and trafficking of children into debt bondage, serfdom, and forced
labour. It includes the forced recruitment of children for armed conflict, commercial sexual
exploitation, and illicit activities, such as producing and trafficking drugs. In 2005, an estimated 5.7
million children were in forced and bonded labouring 2013, India made a moderate advancement in
efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour. The Government continues to implement its
National Child Labour Project, its project to assist bonded labourers through the provision of loans
and alternative livelihoods, and several social protection schemes that address many of the root
causes of child labour. In 2013, the Government passed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, which
protects children from sexual offenses and children and adults from trafficking and forced labour
and issued guidelines to each state on how to handle cases of child labour trafficking. The
Government also launched the Crime and Criminal Tracking and Networking System, which connects
all of India's 15,000 police stations. Legislation to prohibit work by children under the age of 14 and
to proscribe hazardous work for children under 18 was introduced in Parliament in 2012 but has yet
to be passed. Satyarthi, 60, who won the Peace Prize on Friday along with 17-year-old Pakistani
Malala Yousafzai, accepts that "a lot of work still remains" before children l no longer have to work.
Child slavery is a crime against humanity. Humanity itself is at stake here. A lot of work still remains
but I will see the end of child labour in my lifetime," Satyarthi says. We Doctors and Teachers can still
contribute more by not employing the Helpless children and support a little to children of our
employees for better education to their children, I think three most appreciated Nobel prize winners
continues to be Mother Theresa and the present winners Kailash Satyarthi, , and Malala Yousafzai,
they really carry message to humanity that we should carry the mission further
Ref - Issues of Child Labour A UN Report
Dr.T.V.Rao MD Professor of Microbiology Freelance writer