-By Akash Pandey :
Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation worldwide, although these laws do not consider all work by children as child labour; exceptions include work by child artists, family duties, supervised training.
History
With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the late 18th century, there was a rapid increase in the industrial exploitation of labour, including child labour. Child labour played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its outset, often brought about by economic hardship. The children of the poor were expected to contribute to their family income. In 19th-century Great Britain, one-third of poor families were without a breadwinner, as a result of death or abandonment, obliging many children to work from a young age. In England and Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered cotton mills were described as children. A high number of children also worked as prostitutes. The author Charles Dickens worked at the age of 12 in a blacking factory, with his family in debtor’s prison.
Child wages were often low, the wages were as little as 10–20% of an adult male’s wage. Karl Marx was an outspoken opponent of child labour, saying British industries “could but live by sucking blood, and children’s blood too”, and that U.S. capital was financed by the “capitalized blood of children”.
In the early 20th century, thousands of boys were employed in glass making industries. Glass making was a dangerous and tough job especially without the current technologies. The process of making glass includes intense heat to melt glass (3133 °F). When the boys are at work, they are exposed to this heat. This could cause eye trouble, lung ailments, heat exhaustion, cuts, and burns. Since workers were paid by the piece, they had to work productively for hours without a break. Since furnaces had to be constantly burning, there were night shifts from 5:00 pm to 3:00 am. Many factory owners preferred boys under 16 years of age. Child labour is still common in many parts of the world. Estimates for child labour vary. It ranges between 250 and 304 million, if children aged 5–17 involved in any economic activity are counted. If light occasional work is excluded, ILO estimates there were 153 million child labourers aged 5–14 worldwide.
Causes
International Labour Organization (ILO) suggests poverty is the greatest single cause behind child labour. For impoverished households, income from a child’s work is usually crucial for his or her own survival or for that of the household. Income from working children, even if small, may be between 25 and 40% of the household income.
Cultural
In history when child labour was common, as well as in contemporary child labour of modern world, certain cultural beliefs have rationalised child labour and thereby encouraged it. Some view that work is good for the character-building and skill development of children. In many cultures, particular where the informal economy and small household businesses thrive, the cultural tradition is that children follow in their parents’ footsteps; child labour then is a means to learn and practice that trade from a very early age. Similarly, in many cultures the education of girls is less valued or girls are simply not expected to need formal schooling, and these girls pushed into child labour such as providing domestic services.
Macroeconomics
Biggeri and Mehrotra have studied the macroeconomic factors that encourage child labour. They focus their study on five Asian nations including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. They suggest that child labour is a serious problem in all five, but it is not a new problem. Macroeconomic causes encouraged widespread child labour across the world, over most of human history. They suggest that the causes for child labour include both the demand and the supply side. While poverty and unavailability of good schools explain the child labour supply side, they suggest that the growth of low-paying informal economy rather than higher paying formal economy is amongst the causes of the demand side. Other scholars too suggest that inflexible labour market, size of informal economy, inability of industries to scale up and lack of modern manufacturing technologies are major macroeconomic factors affecting demand and acceptability of child labour.
Present Situation and Prevailing Laws
The country of India is home to the largest number of children who are working illegally in various industrial industries. Agriculture in India is the largest sector where many children work at early ages to help support their family. Many of these children are forced to work at young ages due to many family factors such as unemployment, large families, poverty, and lack of parental education. This is often the major cause of the high rate of child labour in India. A variety of Indian social scientists as well as the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have done extensive research on the numeric figures of child labour found in India and determined that India contributes to one-third of Asia’s child labour and one-fourth of the world’s child labour. Due to many children being illegally employed, the Indian government began to take extensive actions to reduce the number of children working, and to focus on the importance of facilitating the proper growth and development of children. International influences help to encourage legal actions to be taken in India, such as the Geneva Declaration of the Right of Children Act was passed in 1924. This act was followed by The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 to which incorporated the basic human rights and needs of children for proper progression and growth in their younger years. These international acts encouraged major changes to the workforce in India which occurred in 1986 when the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act was put into place. This act prohibited hiring children younger than the age of 14, and from working in hazardous conditions.
The main object of the Child Labour ( Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 is to address the social concern and prohibit the engagement of children who have not completed 14th year of age in certain employments and to regulate the conditions of work of children has been prohibited in occupations relating to (i) transport of passengers, goods or mails by railways (ii) bidi making (iii) carpet weaving (iv) manufacturing of matches, explosives and fire (v) soap manufacture (vi) wool cleaning (vii) building and construction industry. The Government has also prohibited employment of children in the following occupations or processes: (i) Abattoirs/Slaughter houses (ii) hazardous processes and dangerous operations as notified (iii) printing, as defined, (iv) cashew and cashew nut descaling and processing v) soldering processes in electronic industry. The Act prohibits employment of child in about 13 occupations and about 51 processes. The Fundamental Rights mentioned in the Constitution of India (the law of land) in the Article 24 under Right Against Exploitation also mentions for prohibition of employment of children in factories, etc.
Provisions relating to Child workers under various Acts:
Factories Act, 1948 [3] :
Section 22 of the Act mentions that no young person can be shall be allowed to clean, lubricate or adjust any part of machine which thereof would expose the young person to risk of injury from any moving part either of that machine or of any adjacent machinery.
Section 23 of the Act defines that no young person is allowed to be employable on dangerous machines.
Section 27 of the Act prohibits employment of children in any part of a factory for pressing cotton in which a cotton-opener is at work.
The Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act, 1966:
Section 24 of the Act defines that employment of child under in this industry is strictly prohibited under this Act.
Plantation Labour Act, 1951:
Section 25 of the Act specifies that Women and children can be employed only between the hours of 6a.m and 7p.m. They can be employed beyond these hours only with the permission of the State Government.
Domestic Workers (Registration Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2008:
Section 14 of the Act specifies that no child shall be employed as a domestic worker or for any such incidental or ancillary work which is prohibited under any law.
Provision for Penalties under the Act:
Any employer:
- For employing any child in contravention of the provisions of the Act – imprisonment for not less than 3 months extending to 1 year or with fine not less than Rs. 10000 extending to Rs. 20000, or both.
- For second offence of like nature – imprisonment for not less than 6 months which may extend to 2 years.
- Failure to maintain a register – simple imprisonment which may extend to 1 month or with fine which may extend to Rs. 10000, or both.
Way Forward
By spreading awareness among people, we can eradicate child labour.
Generally the child of poor families works as Child labour.
So, there must be more employment among the poor people.
By reducing poverty we can eradicate the child labour, promoting education in the rural and Poor areas, supplying food in those rural and Poor families.
The National Population Policy 2000 strongly focused on this problem. It also takes many steps to eradicate the child labour.
It strongly focused on educating the children of age 6-14.
It provides mid-day meals also in government schools so that the children do not work for getting food.
Much more has to be done in the political environment in India to put an end to exploitative child labour: laws against child labour must be strengthened and severely enforced. Furthermore, it is critical to address extreme poverty, which is a core cause of child labour. Ending child labour in India requires addressing poverty and inequality. Access to education is also critical for breaking the cycle of poverty and child labour.