Ways to deal with the child labour menace in India

Recently, I read an article in ‘The Economist’ regarding child labour in Bangladesh. That set me thinking that we don’t fare much better in India. We have often seen rampant child labour practices in textile, small scale industries, gems and jewellery etc and mostly in domestic help sector. Though we have child labour laws prohibiting such exploitation of children put not much is put into use. And putting absolute curbs is again a double edged sword for developing countries like India and Bangladesh.

People living below poverty line and the exploding population makes labour very cheap and for the sake of earning a living, people are ready to work for lesser and lesser wages. As the families grapple with household expenses, it almost becomes a necessity for them to send their children to fend for themselves and also add to the family income. Most of such families argue that how they can send their children for education when they can hardly afford to feed them. And even though education is free as provided by the government they find it more useful if their child earns some money rather than whiling away his time in studies which they feel won’t help them much in future.

I feel that putting stringent laws is no solution for this problem. What is needed is to study the social pressure that make parents take such steps and formulate policies that brings out changes in the current social structure and mindset. I would like to put forward some points in that aspect.

• Firstly child labour is a population problem according to me. Why do poor who cannot earn for themselves want to have a plethora of kids whom they cannot feed? Rampant mass education is needed for such people making them aware of the problems that arise because of their misguided faith that makes them produce one offspring after another. I don’t think that ‘hum do humare do’ campaign has affected too many people in the lower strata of our country. Most of them still use their reproductory system to the hilt often citing excuses such as religion or that more the number of working hands in the family more will be their sources of income. The latter reason being the root cause of child labour. I feel that if any child caught working has more than one sibling then their parents should be put in jail for producing children that they cannot afford to raise. If stringent laws have to applied they should be applied here at the root cause and not at the last leg of problem.

• Understanding the socio economic factors in a country like India is very important. For some children it’s imperative to work for sustainability. Therefore I feel that the child labour prohibition age should be brought to 14 where no child is allowed to work below 14 but from 14 to 18 they should be allowed to work with some clauses that need to be maintained by their employers. Clauses like putting a maximum permissible limit to the hours of work they can do, putting up government centres where these labours can report abuse freely without going first to the police, ensuring that such labour is part time and children have enough time to pursue their studies, ensure that the owners provide for adequate meals. Infact I feel that the government should issue licenses to businesses who want to employ children between the ages of 14-18 and subject them to official raids to check if all conditions are being met. This includes registration of domestic helpers.

• Just bookish knowledge is not often termed as helpful by poor children or their parents. They find it difficult to understand that how this education will help them to earn a living in future. Hence, its important that in government schools apart from the usual curriculum, few skills like craft, carpentry, home science, automobile, cooking, computer skills etc are imparted to them which can help them to earn a living in future.

These suggestions may look infeasible at the face of it but I feel if the government feels strongly about eradication of child labour it can make a dedicated ministry to remove the menace from our society. That ministry can then dedicatedly look into the problems and envisage policies and overlook its successful implementation. All that is needed is a strong will in the people that have the authority to make decisions.

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