Right against Discrimination - Child Labour

Children are important assets of any society and nation. They are not only the future citizens of any nation but also its strength in reserve. Protection of children is crucial to their survival, health, and well-being. Everyday millions of children are exploited, abused, or are victims of violence. Bought and sold like commodities, children are forced to be soldiers, prostitutes, sweatshop workers, and servants. Abuse, exploitation and violence, occurring usually in private, are often elements in organized crime and corruption.

Whenever we talk on discrimination against children first thing which generally strikes is Child labour. Child labour is perceived to be an economic necessity of poor households and the exploitative aspect in children’s work is associated with the profit maximizing motive of commercial enterprises, wherein children are made to work long hours, paid low wages and denied opportunities for education. International Labour Organization (ILO) defines Child labour as

“…include children leading permanently adult lives, working long hours for low wages under conditions damaging to their health, and physical and mental development, sometimes separated from their families, frequently deprived of meaningful educational and training opportunities that could open up to them a better future ”

India is an overpopulated and a low-income country has the vulnerability of falling prey to the menace of child labour, because of multiple factors. Parents for instance, because of their low income often put greater weight age on the quantity of children rather than on the quality. They often treat children as an asset- a source of supplementing family’s income as well as means of mortgage, apart from providing the supposed old age security to them. Thus, their own parents exploit the children not intentionally but as a part of their culture.

In India no major groups within or outside the government are considered with enforcing child labor laws or making education compulsory, for no particular group is moved by theological, ideological, moral or even self interest considerations. The government officials are fully aware of the international embarrassment that comes with having the world’s largest population of child laborers and adult illiterates, but they ascribe the failure to achieve universal education as a result of the country’s poverty rather than the government’s failure.

Thus, the demand of Children are so much high that their emergence within the workforce reduces the demand of adult manual workers, which eventually leads to adult unemployment, the competition is such that it reduces their wages as a result of which they too face poverty. If we say child labor is simply the single most important source of child exploitation and child abuse in the World today that would be accepted without any doubt. And we can also add our propositions firmly that the working children suffer significant growth deficits compared to children in school. They grow up shorter and underweight, and their body size continues to be smaller even in adulthood. The non-enrolment and school dropouts are also be considered the mirror images, which are reflecting the jerky uneven socio-economic development of a country. There is a need for multiplicity of actions both by government and non-government social organizations. The poor implementation of the legislation makes the problem more severe. The enforcement machineries should be strengthened in this regard to effectively implement the legalities for the social justice to the child.

We know that development is the major concern of all the nations; the path must be very genuine without the arbitrary manipulations of the human resources, particularly the children. Because they are not only the future of any country but also future of the world.