CHILD LABOUR

 

What is Child Labour?

Before actually dwelling on the essay on child labour, let us first explore and understand what does this term means. The term “child labour” is typically described by the International Labour Organization (ILO) as work that:

• deprives children of their childhood, their potential, and their dignity, and is destructive to their physical and mental development. It refers to employment that is risky and damaging to children on a mental, physical, social, or moral level; and/or
• interferes with their education by denying them the opportunity to attend school; forcing them to leave school early, or causing them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.

Child Labour in India

As per the International Labour Organisation, Child Labour is defined as:

“Work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.”

Referred to as a social evil, child labour in India is an imperative issue that the country has been tackling for years. While writing an essay on child labour, it is important to familiarize yourself with the topic and its related aspects so that you will be able to formulate it in a better way. Toiling in mines, factories or doing petty jobs to earn some pennies, you might have come across many children left out in the world in harsh situations just to get some money and feed their families.

 Let’s first explore the key causes of Child Labour:

• High unemployment and poverty levels which lead to poor families sending children to work.
• Inadequate laws and rules and regulations against child labour.
• Violation of the existing labour laws on child labour.
• Access to compulsory education is still limited in rural areas.
• Increasing numbers of dropouts of school students from poor communities and areas.

Child labour is one of the social issues in India. Child Labour is often described as work that deprives children of their childhood, dignity and potential. It refers to labour that is harmful to the physical and mental development of children. One of the major causes of child labour, despite economic growth in India, is the nation faces a poverty problem. More than a third of the country’s population is below the poverty line. Due to poor living standards, low levels of income, and a lack of employment opportunities and poor job diversity, impoverished families send their children to work instead of educating them to contribute to the family’s additional income required to sustain. Children worldwide are routinely engaged in paid and unpaid forms of work that are not harmful to them. More than one out of four children (ages 5 to 17) are involved in labour considered dangerous to them in the least developed countries. The leading cause of child Labour in India is the high poverty rate, where children work to earn bread for a day. As per UNICEF’s report, children from the impoverished and rural parts of the world have no available alternatives such as teachers and schools. Children stuck in the vicious circle of child labour can be seen working at restaurants, households, factories, constructions, etc. In India, you might have come across small children selling pens, candies, flowers and other things on the streets and traffic lights as well. Due to financial issues in their families, they are forced to pursue menial jobs and step into the harsh realities of the world at an early age.

The worst forms of child labour involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses and/or left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities – often at a very early age.

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