Curbing child labor - are we taking enough actions?

Curbing child labor – are we taking enough actions?

There are many forms in which child labour takes place; they may be any kind of domestic work like agricultural, industrial or begging for that matter, working in mines and quarries, forced labour, child trafficking. At times it can be straightforwardly recognized but most of the times it is concealed and becomes more treacherous and detrimental for the child. Not all kinds of work is child labour; child labour is basically when a child is leaving his school and studies to earn full time work, but if a child helps the mother in household chores after school hours or earn pocket money after school hours or in the vacation, or attending office to understand family business will not be characterised as child labour and instead is often beneficial for the development of the child.

Child Labour is very much prevalent in the lower strata of the society, where children are being forced into child labour to earn money and support the family. Although the government has taken strict actions to ban any kind of child labour below the age of 14, yet there are many families who ruthlessly force their child into labour. Matchbox industry, carpet making industry, residential houses as domestic help, mines and construction sites are common places where you can easily find child labour doing some or the other kind of labour. In spite of so many laws and regulations yet child labour is not coming to an end, instead with the increasing expenses child labour is also increasing gradually. The root cause for child labour is extreme poverty, huge families, unemployment, etc.

There are not many actions that we are taking to curb child labour completely. Every now and then you get to read in the paper that a girl was made hostage in a house and made to do the domestic chores, and was terrorised to the extent that she even lied to her mother that the employers take good care of her and give her good food and clothing. You go to any factory or small hotels, dhabas; you will get a lot of children who are working as waiters out there. Why is there no enforcement or implication of penalty on those people who hire children as their labour? The society where I reside, there are so many flats where people have engaged small girls who do full time work at their houses, this is a hidden form of child labour and no law can identify this and stop. It should be the people who should be aware of these facets and not employ child as their labour. In case of domestic help, if the mother gets her daughter to work, the employer should flatly say a no that they will not get the work done from the child and if that happens then it will be assumed as a holiday and their wages shall be deducted.

To conclude with, it is just not the law, police or any guarded security only who has to take the responsibility of curbing child labour, it has to be a move which should come from the natives also. Until and unless they do not stop employing, child labour cannot be curbed easily. Even though if the parents of the child want the child to work, it should be the employer’s duty to refuse and instead fine or fire the parent employee as well. To curb child labour completely, it has to be joint effort put in by the law as well as the general public.