On October 10th, India introduced a new law in the country regarding child labor. According to that law, children under fourteen years of age will not be employed in any kind of physical works. It will be exactly three months including today since the new law has been introduced and the tragedy is that child laborers are still found all over India. Recently, government officials have found 750 children working in restaurants, shops and in various other places. I am quoting from the report published in Reuters:
India has rescued over 750 children employed in street food stalls, restaurants and homes following a ban on such work by children below the age of 14, but activists said millions remained beyond the reach of law.
The children have been returned to their families or sent to shelter homes and 60 people are being prosecuted for violating the ban introduced in October, the labour ministry said on Friday.
Officials say there are more than 12 million child labourers under 14 in India, but voluntary groups put the number at five times higher or more.
According to the report published in BBC, there are confusions regarding this new law. A police superintendent said that the law only applies when children under fourteen years of age are not paid or trafficked but other experts are saying that the new child labor law bars children under 14 from all kinds of works.
Child labor is not a problem in India only. In other South Asian countries like Maldives, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal small children are engaged in various works and some of these are very risky for them. I think this problem of child labor cannot be eradicated only by making laws. This issue is connected with other problems such as poverty and illiteracy. Most of the South Asian countries have large number of people living in extreme poverty. Many of them can not even buy foods three times a day for their family. The children of these families are left with no other options but to work. If Indian government is really serious about eradicating child labor, it should consider these problems and take necessary steps. What do you think?
Related articles:
BBC
Reuters
The Peninsula
Dear Mehdi Hassan,
Child labor is not a country specific problem. It is the problem of this planet earth. So, India alone by implementing laws cannot eradicate child labor.
Parents, if paid fairly for their job, they will not send their kids to work.
Parents are not getting paid fairly becuase the employer is not getting fair prices for their produce/products.
Employers are not getting fair price for their products in INternational markets, because other countries are applying unfair methods to boost their exports and make profits. So to withstand the competition, Indian exporters pay less and try to survive.
Take for example Brazil. Brazil is the largest exporter of Sugar. They are able to manage huge exports of sugar by unfair practices. Their farmers are forced to produce more and are paid less. So, Sugar exporters to International markets from other countries have to compete with Brazil by applying same methods resulting in less pay to farmers. Thus farmers end up sending their kids to work and thus we see a child labor problem.
The same can be said about other products and markets. I have just taken one example of Sugar.
If WTO is implemented successfully then 50+ percentage of Child labor can be eradicated.
We cannot blam India for this global symptom. We cannot even blam manufacturers, factories too.
Hope i made my point clear.
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Best regards
sri
Posted by: sri | December 10, 2006 10:40 AM | Permalink to Comment