Amid a threat of third Covid wave looming large, which health experts say will hit children, the World Day against Child Labour assumes significance in a different way. The fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic in its first two phases has had a devastating effect on the lives and livelihoods. Specifically speaking, the virus has triggered never-seen-before socio-economic changes which are having direct bearing on the lives of the children. The situation is more frightening as a new generation of children is on the brink of facing a risk of losing protection of the rights guaranteed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
A report published by the International Labour Organization (ILO) on the occasion of World Day against Child Labour on June 12, has revealed an ‘alarming’ increase in child labour with an addition of 8.4 million children in the last four years. The ILO report attributes the ‘alarming’ increase to the ongoing pandemic. As on date, the number of children in child labour has been reported at 160 million worldwide. The report has also found that the number of children between five and 17 exposed to hazardous work has risen by 6.5 million to 79 million since 2016. Notably, UNICEF recently warned that the COVID-19 pandemic is becoming a child rights crisis.
Remarkably, addressing the need to put an end to the menace of child labour, the theme for the year is “Act Now: End Child Labour”. However, the year 2021 would also be the “International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour”.
Even as the world has been fighting to eradicate the evil practice of child labour, the fact is that over a period of time the number of working children is only burgeoning. It’s origin from an act of ‘exploitation’ has graduated into a ‘compulsion’ where a working child has now assumed the status of a serious bread-earner for the family. Here, a Twitter post by António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the UN on the occasion of Child Labour Day is worth mentioning. He said: “Child labour should have no place in today’s world, but sadly, it remains a reality for 160 million children”. This post speaks the helplessness in curbing the child labour despite making efforts to curb it. In a way, the post subtly endorses the economic compulsions behind the surge in the number of working children.
In India, we have laws in place that prohibit child labour and lays down punishment if a person violates it. However, these laws do not completely ban the employment of children in certain sectors. Teenagers above 14 years of age can be hired for jobs not considered as hazardous. This is what is contained in the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill 2016.
Precisely, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016, regulates the laws related to child Labour. It also prohibits the employment of children between the age group of 14-18 years in dangerous occupations. Even as this law provides a protection to the children, the mass engagement of children working in hazardous fields is a common sight and all this is happening under the nose of authorities.
Now, let’s look at our own place. Every passing day we see children taking up menial jobs to carve out their living. It’s a scene which makes you believe that all constitutional safeguards have failed to curb child labour and in actual terms, the situation reflects that neither education is made compulsory nor child labour considered illegal.
However, there is another side of the story. Various compulsive factors such as poverty forces households to make their children work and contribute to the family earnings. In a way, it’s the poverty factor which pushes children into a job and makes them miss out on the opportunity of gaining education. It’s a sort of catch-22 situation for the families. If they stop their children from working and make them pursue education, they would be forced to starve.
Just lay your hands on any child worker to know what made him/her to work at such a tender age instead of going to a school. You will come across stunning facts. Most of them would be school dropouts as their parents (bread earners) were consumed by the conflict and were left with no option but to take up some menial job to feed the family. In many cases, you will find the parents of the child were crippled due to illness and the pressure on such children was enormous to meet their treatment expenses. There is also a section of child workers who are regular school and college goers, but use their spare time to earn for themselves. These are basically the ‘minor teachers’ segment of child workers. You would find them exposed to severe health problems. And the current situation is very grave for them as they are most vulnerable to the Covid-19 infection.
Precisely, child labour is present in every field, as for instance, automobile workshops, transport operations, tea stalls, hotels and restaurants, handicrafts, particularly carpet industry, small vending, black smithy, copper smithy and so on. Surprisingly, carpet industry considered as one of the backbones of our economy, has spinal cord in the child labour.
In other words, child labour has assumed significance of a ‘necessary evil’. In absolute poverty conditions, child labour would at least guard them against starvation. In the appropriate work environment, for a working child, it would be similar to apprenticeship that will serve him well as he becomes an adult. They would also develop socialization skills on the job and would prevent them from evil activities thievery, begging, etc.
Obviously, this kind of ‘necessity’ has to be backed by adequate safeguards to protect the working children from all forms of abuse. This is where focus is needed
So, with all these arguments child labour will remain there. At the moment we don’t see its total eradication. It makes sense that instead of entirely focusing on wiping out evil, there’s a need to initiate programmes where better working conditions are put in place for these child workers.
Since working at a tender age poses several health problems for the child’s development, the government needs to ensure that at least their employers extend special health-care facilities to them. The working hours also need to be under check as long working hours would develop abnormal socialization skills in them. There is also a dire need to bring these child workers under the ambit of insurance cover. Non-governmental organizations can be roped in to tailor solutions to see better working conditions and simultaneously making some arrangements for their education needs.
Meanwhile, the theme of this year’s World Day against Child Labour preaching elimination of the child labour is simply customary in nature. In the given circumstance created by the Covid-19 pandemic, the end to child labour is far from reality. It’s simply an impossible task. The socio-economic landscape is now on a different pedestal with millions of households either losing their source of income completely or have faced drastic cuts in their incomes. In such a dismal economic scenario, the households have no option but to make their children work and keep the domestic budget afloat.
So, in the Covid-induced new norm, the World Day against Child Labour should have focused more on protecting the rights of the working children at their workplaces rather than making a customary pledge to end it.
In short, there is a need to formulate and implement relative instead of universal strategies to safeguard the rights of working children. At the same time, the law enforcing authorities, especially the police, need to make a mark by lodging FIRs against those who compel a child to work. The action against the violators needs to be highlighted to serve as a deterrent for those who deny rights to the children and forcibly make them work.
(The views are of the author & not the institution he works for)
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.