The Hindu Business Line : Child labour

CHILD labour is a vexed issue, since it is seen to be utterly destructive of human potential. Childhood is the stage of human development when the seeds of self-actualisation are sown in the form of education and inculcation of the right values, habits and attitudes.

There can be no denying the deadening effect on children of long hours of hard toil at deliberately depressed wages, often in inhuman conditions, apart from the social cost to the nation.

India has the largest number — close to 120 million — of children being wasted away in this manner in sectors such as agriculture, plantation, manufacturing, processing, service and repairs, mining and quarrying, construction, trade and commerce, transport, storage and communication, and other services (including domestic help).

Constitutions of most countries, including India, have provisions forbidding child labour. Its elimination is one of the Millennium Development Goals adopted unanimously by the UN. Many industrial countries have instituted trade embargoes on goods produced by child labour.

Despite campaigns mounted against it worldwide, it has been next to impossible to make a perceptible dent on the practice because it is indispensable for the very survival of poor households with no alternative sources of income, and even where there are other earning members, the additional income comes in handy to meet emergent needs. Yet another contributory factor is that finding work is easier for children than it is for the elders in the family.

There are any number of studies showing a strong correlation between child labour and poverty. In this sense, putting an end to of child labour will be possible only with the eradication of poverty.

Interestingly, there is some ambivalence among researchers on the question whether abolishing child labour is in the children's own best interests and whether working children can be said to be truly disadvantaged. They are seen to enjoy better nutritional status, and many of them are able to combine working with schooling.

Also, working can in itself be a learning process, enabling the child to acquire skills of social integration. It is, therefore, argued by some that the real remedy is not to deprive the families of essential resources but to make education relevant and accessible to working children.

B. S. Raghavan

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Policy sans power

Why every community needs capital

Making good manners a part of core competence

Banking on technology

Time for India to draw FDI into R&D

WTO: The countdown to Hong Kong