Think about a child, don’t give them the responsibility to earn a living, don’t punish them because they are born in poor illiterate family, try not to strangle their freedom with the rope of under development and poverty, this is not their fault.
In 1986, the Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act came into force, establishing the awaited framework to abolish child labor in our country. [Wikipedia] Eleven years later, the issue remains unsolved, the legal framework that has been created is openly overlooked by the employers and the enforcement apparatus is still inexistent. The government, in the last notification only recognized 6669 child laborers against the 12.67 million child laborers in India [PTI report 2011]. The situation unfolds a series of questions that demand urgent explanations for understanding the gap between regulation enforcement, poverty and child exploitation. How to address the child labor cause so as to eradicate practice in the developing countries? To what extent legislation can be recalled by the stakeholders, and to what extent can child current situation can be reversed. These are the certain questions that need to be answered.
Our country has been utterly recognized as the world’s safe haven for child labor, which is wrongly justified by one of the most recurrent myths behind this problem that falls blindly on the poverty and the underdeveloped- country argument, without acknowledging the entangled dynamics surrounding the child labor problem. Some of the misguided justification for child labor includes the idea that poor families need children to contribute economically to their survival, since it may be a priority to have something to eat before even thinking on investing in education or that the cheaper cost that child labor implies for employers may contribute for the economic growth of the country. Here I would like to quote the example of two states, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala. The percentage of people falling under poverty are approx same but then also Kerala have 90%+ literacy rate [India Today survey 2010]. UP is lacking far behind.
Today six million children are working [Indian Labor Law]. One child labor is earning approximately Rs 20 per day which means about Rs 120 million and the value is just one fifth of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of our country. On the other hand an adult is working a minimum of five times more. Perhaps with that amount he will be able to fulfill his basic needs of schooling food and dressing. This will help our country to eradicate unemployment, poverty and illiteracy. In this way Social justice and peace can easily be achieved. And if I am not wrong it will also drop down the crime rate as child will become friendlier.
On the other hand we can find some other arguments that in addition to poorly analyzing the problem, they support the child labor as a right under the specific conditions of being well paid and avoiding hazardous situations, claiming that children need some specialized training before becoming active members of the national unprofessional labor force. Each of these statements fails to notice the underlying problems, which is not unidirectional but multilayered, and implies a vicious circle that can derive into a virtuous one if and only if co-ordination, conceptualization and proper acknowledgment is internalized as part of the process for policy change.
The aforementioned cruel circle interconnects poverty, lack of education and abandonment of human development-led policies, being the last element one of the least understood concepts. The line between poverty and child labor is not direct neither proportional, but certainly important. In this sense, the fact that a big percentage of the population remains under the poverty line certainly increases the propensity to employ children whose parents cannot find jobs because of the lack of opportunities and the lack of professionalism, but it is not exclusive of poor countries but associated to low human development, since education is not widespread, not even in the elementary level, sanitary facilities are limited, opportunities restricted to portion of the population and policies are favoring other priorities which respond to traditional economic development paradigms such as economic growth rates.
At the policy making levels, the lack of understanding, compromise and connectedness in addressing education, poverty alleviation and child labor is a ‘top-down’ matter. It starts with inter-governmental organizations and reaches all the way ‘down’ to local self governance.
In policy making, regarding program delivery, poverty alleviation is now dealt with largely under the umbrella of the millennium development goals. This work is officially facilitated by the World Bank and UN development Programme.
World Approach
The World Bank also leads the education for all fast track initiative, facilitating additional resource mobilization to fill financing gaps for developing countries. Secondly there is overall Dakar Education for All goals with UNESCO the lead agency. UNICEF is also undertaking major initiatives to bring girl children into school. Thirdly, the International Labor Organization is involved in putting an end to the worst forms of child labor through its convention 182.
However, coordination and integration among the three processes are very rare. In relation to the multilateral and bilateral aid, developing countries are supposed to implement Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and country plans. Ironically, child labor eradication hardly figures in the PRSP of any country. For the implementation of education for all, each country is supposed to make concrete and time bound national action plans to achieve the goals by 2015. But poverty reduction program in most countries do not have strong linkage with EFA.
The same applies to the work of many civil society organizations and government institutions at national level. They tend to run projects on child labor with a narrow vision, whereas this work should be located within the broader economic environment affecting families and communities, the state of labor markets, poverty related policies, existing developments paradigms, and process of trade liberalization, privatization and globalization.
Remedies On its way
However this brutal circle can be reversed by the triangular paradigm, which involved in a horizontal effort, poverty alleviation, education and child labor eradication. Those who believe that the problem of child labor can be solved merely by the enforcement of laws should know that it is not so simple. Free, quality, meaningful and compulsory education is one of the most effective and sustainable strategies for the eradication of child labor. It is the only preventive, curative and rehabilitative way.
The situation therefore demands that we build a triangular development paradigm and translate it into action. All agencies, governments and ministries need a better understanding of the push pull factors that link child labor, education and poverty. We need systematic approaches to address all three issues together. In addition to suffering severe economic hardships, families are disintegrating. The outcome includes increased child labor, rising drop-out rates and even young delinquency. These issues are not fully captured in the poverty alleviation strategies.
A multi-dimensional approach consisting of awareness building and consciousness raising, community participation, alternative and viable social economic rehabilitation , and enforcement of national and international legal instruments in relation to children and other similar plans is needed for linking the elimination of child labor with the overall poverty alleviation and education strategies. There is need for a synergy in policy planning and programmes that addresses these three vital issues that affect the lives of millions of children for a sustainable development.
Parents give birth, but it is each one of us who carves our space in this world with our deeds, the fruits of good work are always good. We need to make commitment to provide all children of this world with an environment for their full and harmonious development to lead a life in the spirit of peace dignity tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity. (291)
