At least one child out of every four in the developing world is tailing under conditions resembling slavery, according to the UN Children Fund
(UNICEF). Although child labour is commonly thought of as a problem of
the developing world. However it is by no means a thing of the past in the
rich countries. “Child labour is so grave an abuse of human rights that the
world must come to regard it in the way it does slavery as something
unjustifiable under any circumstances”. says UNICEF Executive Director
Coral Bellamy.
An estimated 250 million children aged 5-14 years are engaged in
hazardous work, prostitution, and banded labour, according to the 1997
State of the world’s children report released in Geneva by UN on 4th
December 1996. The 107 pages study report says that four of the most
persistent myths that help perpetuate child labour throughout the world.
On myth is that children work only in poor countries. In the United States,
one of the world’s richest countries, a high proportion or ethnic minority
families. Majority of children work for their families or in agriculture or
hidden away in houses, far from the reach of law. Recent study in
Bangladesh identified 300 such occupations, ranging from brick making
and stone breaking to street hawking and rag-picking.
On 10th December 1996 Supreme Court of India has called for a
fund to be set up to help free around 100 million child workers by the year
of 2000. The Court ordered for setting up of the fund with contributions of
Rs. 25000 from every offending employer, to make India-child-labour free
by the end of the century. India has the world’s largest force of young
workers. The Court also ordered offenders to pay Rs. 20,000 to each child
workers as compensation and employ an adult from the child’s family.
“We have the fond hope that the closing years of the 20th century would
see us keep the promise made to our children by our constitution half a
century ago”, the 83 pages ruling said. The Court ruling said, “let the
child of the 21st century find himself into that heaven of freedom which
our poet laureate Rabindranath Tagare has spoken of”.
Tagare, a poet philosopher who was the first Indian to win the
Noble Prize, deplored child labour and spoke of a Utopian world “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high”.
Selected Essays
It is quite possible that Pakistan would not have had to face the
barrage of criticism and curbs on imports form the west had the
government ensured the existing laws on child labour were maintained,
There always had been corpus laws that defined child labour, laid down
for their infringement. These laws were promulgated by the British as a
rules and regulations governing such labour and pronounced the penalties
Iminor reflection of the large scale social and labour reform that were
taking place in Britain.. The huge profits that were being garnered by the carpet and
industries where child labour was not only found to be most suitable for
the work but highly economical ultimately led to the burgeoning of the
scandal that has shocked the west. In absence of any apparent concern of
the government a few social workers interested in this field, the motley
company of labour officials, industrialists and others of their ilk had field
day. Today, the country is reaping an embarrassing harvest..
If this failure to ensure that laws concerning child labour were
followed, was not bad enough, what was even more shocking was that the
government though it fit to deny the matter all together. The publicity
machinery was pressed into proving wrong what was already public
knowledge abroad because foreign and local NGOs involved in protecting
child labour and thoroughly done their home work. The west particularly
the European states took the matter far more seriously.
The Vice President of the European Commission, Mr. Manual
Marin, during his visit to Pakistan adopted a cooperative approach. He
offered help to eradicate the problem and tried to remove the impression
that the criticism was Pakistan specific. He offered some sound advice,
and our authorities would do well to be more pragmatic about the issue
rather than continue to follow a myopic policy.
Ms Nelien Haspels, a child labour expert with the Internation
Project for Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), Geneva, has said that he
organisation is planning to launch an action programme in cooperatio
with the ILO, various NGOs and other world fora and the manufactures
Pakistan to prohibit child labour in the football industry of Sialkot.
Addressing member of Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Indust
(SCCI), she added that ILO had already initiated a detailed programme plan, efforts would be made to ensure that a child should go to school
the eradication of child labour from different countries under an action
instead of stitching footballs.
Labour policies should have to be designed and implement in such a
way that the employment of children in hazardous jobs and their
exploitation by the unscrupulous employers are checked and such practices
are positively discouraged.
Satyarthi, whose South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS)
has freed thousands of government apathy and a lack of political will had
made India “a blot on the face of humanity”..
“It is the country’s greatest shame that more than 60 million
children work in India today, after 50 years of independence.” he said,
“child labour, according to government statistics has increased by 25
percent every decade”.
Child labour is the employment of children as wage earners. This
said problem is associated with the rise of industrial production and the
appearance of capitalism. This is not to imply that children did not work in
earlier ages. Children on the medieval manor helped in agriculture almost
as soon as they could toddle; illustrated manuscripts show children
working beside their parents in the field, and contracts between land lord
and serf specifically mentioned the obligation of children to work.
The movement to regulate child labour began in Great Britain at the
close of the 18th century, when the rapid development of large scale
manufacturing had resulted in the exploitation of very young children in
mining and industrial work.
Experts in the ILO (International Labour Organization) have assisted
government in drafting labour codes and laws containing basic provisions,
in setting up labour inspections services, and in training staffs. Regional
conference have given special attention to the problem of young workers
in agriculture, coal mines, chemical and glass industries and to elementary
protective measures needed in Middle East, Asia and Latin America.