CHILD LABOUR PROBLEMS AND PANACEA

As a very rough weather destroys the buds of the spring, so does to early an experience
of lifes hard oil blight the younger promise of a childs faculties, and render any true
education impossible. How true these words of Pope Leo XIII sound in the context of
children being forced to work.

Despite planning , welfare programmes, legislation and administrative action in the past
few decades , a large majority od children of the age group of 5-14 years continue to
remain in distress and turmoil. Child laboures are exploited, exposed to hazardous work
conditions and paid a pittance for their long hours of work. They are forced to leave
schooling ,shouldering responsibilities for beyond their years. But no one steps forward
to this. On june 17, 1999 the member states of the ILO unanimously voted to adopt
convention 182 on the world forms of child labour. It was recognized that ending the
commercial exploitation of children must be one of the mankinds to priorities. NGOs
trade unions and various social service organization have launced innovative programmes
to crub the problem of child labour.

Definitional Inadequacy

There is a definitional inadequacy of child labour. The conventional definition of a

worker adopted by National sample survey organization and population census lead to an
under enumeration od child workers as these data sources do not count the unpaid
workers in the family enterprises. Although certain work can be benefical and can
enhance a childs physical, mental, moral and social development without interfering in
schooling and recreation. Studies have shown that helping parents in their household
activities or other activities after school in their free time contributes positively to the all
round development of a child. When such work is truly a part of the labour, either paid or
unpaid and is working within or outside the family; basically, a child who is deprived of
the right to education and childhood.

Child labour is a nrgative concept. It hampers the normal physical, intellectual and
emotional development of a child. UNICEF classified the problems of child labour inti
three categories, namely (i) Physical (ii) cognative (iii) Emotional, social and moral.

ILOs Recent Survey

There are 5.59 million child laborers toiling in the Philippines and almost all of them are
working in hazardous conditions, according to a survey financed by the ILO.

The 2011 survey on children conducted by the National Statistics office (NSO) abd
released Tuesday showed that out of the 29.019 million Filipino children aged 5-17 years
old, about 18.9% or 5.59% million, were already working.

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This is higher than the 4 million Filipino working children registered in a 2001 survey
conducted by the ILO and the US Dept of labour. Of those 5.59 million children at work,
3.028 million were considered as child laborers and 2.993 million were reported to be
exposed to hazardous child labour.

Worst forms of labour

The regions which had the highest incidence of child labour were central Luzon, Bicol,
western visayas, Northern Mindanao, and Central Visayas, the survey showed.

Ericta said the 2.993 million child laborers exposed to hazardous conditions could
include those involved in the worst forms of child labor- the sex trade, drug trafficking,
other illicit activities and armed confilict.

They could be include but they re not labeled as such. This is because when you ask
them where they work, they could say theyre waitresses when they are actually
prostituted children.

These (2.993 million) are the ones exposed to chemicals biological hazards like bacteria
that cause diseases or physical hazards.

The Philippines has pledged to reduce by 75% all worst forms of child labor by 2015,
which is anchored on the united Nations millennium development goal of achieving
universal education.

Child Labour in India

It is difficult to say an exact figure for the number of children engaged in childs labour in
India. This difficulty is attributed to the fact that the Indian Government has been
negligent to collect and analyze the relevant data regarding the incidence of child labour.
Census data shows an overall child work participation rate of 12.69% in 1961 and 7.13%
in 1971. This data is misleading because the difinations of child labour are different in the
two censuses ( unpaid workers are not included in the 1971 census), thus a comparision
cannot be completely valid. The 1981 census reports that there were 13.6 million child
labourers in India. Government extrapolation of this 1981 data place the current number
od child labourers between seventeen and twenty million (Human Rights watch 1996).
This extrapolation seems highly unlikely as the official National sample survey of 1983
of India reports 17.4 million child ladourers, while a study sponsored by the labour
ministry, concluded that the child-labour force was 44 million in 1983. A universal
difficulty in obtaining accurate data may be that individual fail to report child labour
participation during survey, for fear of legal action. Moreover, all these estimates fall
short of the actual figures for a number of other reasons like multiplicity of definations,
different methods of computation, diverse sources of data, lack of information on the vast
unorganized sector of the economy. These estimates of the magnitude of child labour in
India vary

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 13.6 million The 1981 census
17.36 million The planning commission, 1983
44 million The operation research group, Baroda, 1983
20 Million Labour Ministry, August 1994
12.5 million The 2001 census.

Shocking Revelation

Acc to 2001 census, the states where child worker population is more than one
million were Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh , Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh
,while the ratio of working children to the total workers was highest in Andhara
Pradesh followed by Karnataka ,Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan. Several studies indicate
that a majority of the working children are concentrated in the rural area. About 60%
oh them are below the age of 10 years. The surveys of the meteropolitan and Mega-
cities make shocking revelations. Mumbai has the largest number of child labourers.
The number of children in urban areas who work in the canteens and restaurants or
engaged in picking rags and hawking goods is vast but unrecorded. Among the most
unfortunate ones are those who are employed in hazardous industries for instance, the
fire works and match box units. Pencil industry, glass industry and so on. Most of
these children work in dhabas, tea stalls and restaurants on a meager daily wage basis.
Perferences for the child workers are most common in unorganized sector because
here it is easy for the employers to circumvent laws.

Children especially girls are trafficked each year across international borders. They
are deprived of the most fundamental human victum and are subjected to thread of
violence. Victums trafficking are made to toil under horrific conditions in sweat-
shops, on construction sites, in fields and in brothels. Women and children some as
young as seven to eleven years old, are forced to become sex workers where they
suffer physical and mental abuse and are exposed to disease, including infection by
the HIV virus.

Poverty and child labour

Poverty has an obvious relationship with child labour and several studies have
revealed a positive correlation, child labour is a source on income for poor families in
India. Childrens work is considered essential to maintaining the economic level of
households, either in the form for wages. Or to help in household enterprises or in
household courses on order to free adult household member for economic activity
elsewhere. For the same type of work children are paid less than their adult
counterpart. What was apparent is the fact that child labourers are being exploited,
evident by the pay that they receive.

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Besides poverty one major factor which has a strong relationship with child labour in
India is caste. If the data on child labour are compared with the caste structure of the
country, it would be evident that a comparatively higher proportion of schedule caste
children work at a younger age for their own and their families. Lower caste children
tend to be pushed into child labour because of their familys poverty. The
combination of poverty and the lack of a social security network is also responsible
for bonded child labour. For the poor, there are few credit sources, and even if there
are sources like cooperative loan, bank loan etc available, only few poor families
manage to satisfy the essential criteria released to access those. Here enters local
moneylender, with ex-orbitant high interest rates. Most of the times if is not possible
for the poor to return back these loans and the parents exchange their childs labour to
local moneylenders. Since the earnings of bonded child labourers are less than the
interest on the loans, these bonded children ate forced to work, while interest on their
loans goes on accumulating. Even if bonded child labourers are released, The same
conditions of poverty that caused the initial debt cause to slip back into bondage.
Lastly but not the least, the attitude of parents also contribute to child labour, some
parents feel that children should work in order to develop skills useful in the job
market, instead of taking advantage of a formal education. Some scholars even argue
that the economic justification cited for child labour must be seen less a phenomena
of poverty and more of social attitudes and sensibilities. But these arguments are
weak in themselves as they seek to compare the growth stages of developing
countries to that with the developing countries.

Government efforts

Non-availability of accurate and up-to-date on child labour has been a major handicap
in planned intervention for eradication of this social evil. However, from the time of
independence, India has committed itself to contain child labour and has stood
through constitutional, and development measures that are required to eliminate child
labour. Article 24 of the Indian constitution clearly states that No child below the
age of fourteen years shall be employed to work in any factory on mine or employed
in any hazardous employment. Article 39 (e) directs state policy towards securing :
the health and strength of orkers and the tender age of children are not abused and
that citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter a vocation unsuited to their
age of strength. The Indian government implemented the child labour act in 1986.
The purpose of this act is to prohibit the employment of children who have no
completed their 14 years in specified hazardous occupations and prosesses. Besided
this govt has announced the National policy on child labour in August 1987. The
Action plan under the policy included:

Focusing of general development programmes for benefiting children whenever

possible.
Project based actions plans in areas of high concentration of child labour engaged
in wage/ quasi wage employment.

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 August 1994, when Prime Minister Narasima Rao announced his proposal of the
elimination of child labour programme. This program was designed to end child
labour for two million children in hazardous industries as defined in the chilf labour
act on 1986, by the year 2000. The programme revolves around an incentive for
children to quit their work and enter non-formal schooling: a one hundred rupees
payment as well as one meal a day for attending school.

Conclusion

Despite a plethora of laws and regulations to check this evil, the real problem is in
implementation .it is clear that unless overall economic conditions in the country
improve, the problem cannot be solved. Coupled with economic growth, there should
also be an awareness drive to educate the middle class, entrepreneurs and other
employers about taking measures to see that they do not in any way encourage this
ugly phenomenon.

We have to accept the truth that we, the citizens of this country , are equally
responsible for perpetuating this social evil. We have to extend a helping hand to the
gonernment agencies, NGOs and other voluntary organizations that are involved in
the mission to eradicate this menance.

Bibliography- News papers, Latest ILO websites. Bibhash kumar sharma article related
to child labour

NAME- ROHIN KOTWAL