CHILD LABOUR
CHILD LABOUR
According to the ILO, there are around 12.9 million Indian children engaged in work between the ages of 7 to 17 years old. When children are employed or doing unpaid work, they are less likely to attend school or attend only intermittingly, trapping them in the cycle of poverty. Millions of Indian girls and boys are going to work every day in quarries and factories, or selling cigarettes on the street. The majority of these children are between 12 and 17 years old and work up to 16 hours a day to help their families make ends meet. But child labour in India can start even earlier with an estimated 10.1 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 years-old engaged in work.
As children get older, their involvement in employment also increases. In India, 20 percent of all children aged 15 to 17 years old are involved in hazardous industries and jobs . Measuring the exact scale of child labour in India is difficult as it is often hidden and under-reported. There are almost 18 million children between the ages of 7 to 17 years old who are considered “inactive” in India, neither in employment nor in school. These missing girls and boys in India are potentially subject to some of the worst forms of child labour.
According to a study by the ILO, the majority of the world's child labour (around 71 percent) is done in the agriculture sector, including cotton plantations and rice fields. Around 17 percent are employed as service staff, mainly as domestic workers or in restaurants, and another 12 percent of child labour is spread across jobs in the industry sector, including dangerous activities in mines.
Many child labourers in India are working for starvation wages in textile factories, helping with the processing of carpets, or doing back breaking work in brick making factories and quarries. Other child labourers work selling cigarettes, called "Bidis", on the street for the tobacco industry. Children are also used for cheap labour in industries such as steel extraction, gem polishing and carpet manufacturing. A staggering number of girls are victims of child trafficking in India, whether through traditional bondage or through organized crime. The commercial sexual exploitation of children is among the worst forms of child labour and in India there are around 1.2 million children involved in prostitu
Despite the recent economic boom in India, more than a third of all Indians still live below the poverty line. The technical innovations and developments in the IT sector have not created jobs in poverty-stricken areas. People from rural areas with little education often see no alternative but to take their children out of school and put them to work to help feed their family. Due to the dire situation of many families, children are sold by their fathers and mothers to child traffickers or parents abandon their children in the countryside while they look for work in a big city. These children are especially vulnerable and are often exploited by traffickers who force the boys and girls to work for very low wages or nothing at all.
The Indian Government enacted a law against child labour in 1993 prohibiting dangerous work or activities that could harm the mental, spiritual, moral or social development of girls and boys under the age of 18. However, child labour continues for a number of reasons, for example people exploit loopholes in the law which allows the employment of children if the work is part of a family business. Thus, having children sell cigarettes on the street could be considered legal if it is part of a family business. In addition, numerous business leaders, such as mine owners, hold political office and have considerable influence. Companies may not be interested in banishing the cheap labour from within their business operations.
In 2006 and again in 2016, the laws against child labour were tightened to ensure that children under the age of 14 were prohibited from working as domestic help or service staff in restaurants and hotels. However, child labour in family businesses remains acceptable. In addition, the law does not apply to 15 to 17 year-olds who are only prohibited from doing "dangerous" work. These laws also do not exclude activities such as field work where children are exposed to pesticides or physically exhausting work like carpet weaving.
To ensure the enforcement of these laws, the Indian government is currently developing another law which would increase the punishment for employers who use child labourers under the age of 14, changing the penalty from a fine to a prison sentence which would last several ye
Much more has to be done in the political landscape to stop exploitative child labour in India: the laws against child labour must be further tightened and more strictly enforced. In addition, it is important to combat extreme poverty, a root cause of child labour. Addressing poverty and inequality is crucial to end child labour in India.
Access to education is also vital to break the vicious cycle of poverty and child labour. As children complete higher levels of education, they are more likely to find decent work in adulthood and can use their income to care for themselves and their families without relying on child labour. Although education is compulsory and free in India for children up to the age of 14, widespread poverty forces families to prioritize putting food on the table over sending their children to school. As a result, many children attend school irregularly or not at all because they have to work inste
In order to stop exploitative child labour, SOS Children's Villages in India are focusing on education and providing support for families.
For example, parents are provided with vocational training courses which help them build their skills and capacity so they can generate additional family income. With the ability to supplement their current income, the family is no longer reliant on having their children work just so that they can make ends meet.
With a stable family income, the economic barrier to sending their children to school is removed. The SOS Family Strengthening Programs also helps in covering the costs for school supplies and uniforms to make education more accessible to those in need.
The SOS Family Strengthening Program and Social Centres are active in 31 locations across India where the need is greatest: in poor rural areas and in the slums in larger cities. Altogether, 33,000 family members are currently receiving support so vulnerable children in India can receive the care and education they need to break the cycle of child labour.
If children can no longer stay with their parents or extended family, SOS Children’s Villages India will invite them to live in one of its SOS Villages where they are provided with a loving SOS mother, quality education, healthcare, nutritious food and all the things necessary for a bright future. In 2011 , the national census of India found that the total number of child labourers, aged [5–14], to be at 10.1 million, out of the total of 259.64 million children in that age group.[2] The child labour problem is not unique to India; worldwide, about 217 million children work, many full-time.[3]
As per the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, amended in 2016 ("CLPR Act"), a "Child" is defined as any person below the age of 14, and the CLPR Act prohibits employment of a Child in any employment including as a domestic help. It is a cognizable criminal offence to employ a Child for any work. Children between age of 14 and 18 are defined as "Adolescent" and the law allows Adolescent to be employed except in the listed hazardous occupation and processes which include mining, inflammable substance and explosives related work and any other hazardous process as per the Factories Act, 1948.[4] In 2001, an estimated 1% of all child workers, or about 1,20,000 children in India were in a hazardous job.[5] Notably, the Constitution of India prohibits child labour in hazardous industries (but not in non-hazardous industries) as a Fundamental Right under Article 24.[6] UNICEF estimates that India with its larger population, has the highest number of labourers in the world under 14 years of age, while sub-Saharan African countries have the highest percentage of children who are deployed as child labourers.[7][8][9] The International Labour Organization estimates that agriculture, at 60 percent, is the largest employer of child labour in the world,[10] while the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates 70% of child labour is deployed in agriculture and related activities.[11] Outside of agriculture, child labour is observed in almost all informal sectors of the Indian economy.
Companies including Gap,[15] Primark,[16] Monsanto[17] have been criticised for child labour in their products. The companies claim they have strict policies against selling products made by underage children for their own profit, but there are many links in a supply chain making it difficult to oversee them all.[17] In 2011, after three years of Primark's effort, BBC acknowledged that its award-winning investigative journalism report of Indian child labour use by Primark was a fake. The BBC apologised to Primark, to Indian suppliers and all its viewers.[18][19] Another company that has come under much scrutiny was Nike. Nike was under pressure to speak up about alleged sweatshops that harbored children that the company was exploiting to make their sneakers. Since then Nike has come out with a separate web page that specifically points out where they get their products from and where their products are manufactured.
In December 2014, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor and India figured among 74 countries where a significant incidence of critical working conditions has been observed. Unlike any other country[clarification needed], 23 goods were attributed to India, the majority of which are produced by child labour in the manufacturing sector.
In addition to the constitutional prohibition of hazardous child labour, various laws in India, such as the Juvenile Justice (care and protection) of Children Act-2000, and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Abolition) Act-1986 provide a basis in law to identify, prosecute and stop child labour in India.[20]
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