Child Labour in India essay
Problems of childhood and child labour are being actively discussed in domestic and foreign sociological literature. Sociologists and anthropologists examine the history of child labour and the impact of social institutions in it. Experts in the field of sociology of labour and economic sociology analyze the motivation and value orientations of adolescents in the workforce, standards and working conditions, attitudes toward work and its effectiveness. Psychologists and hygienists describe the harmful effects of the environment and the adverse factors on the child’s body.
However, despite some elaboration of the problem it can be stated that a systematic approach to child labour has not yet emerged in terms of sociology in the literature, and many countries continue to use child labour illegally. According to data taken from the report of the U.S. government presented in Caulfield’s (2009) work we see that India has the highest rate of child and forced labour in fields such as gold mining, collecting cocoa and tailoring. Thus, the main aim of this project is to focus on child labour in India, taking into account its legal and illegal sides; to discuss different ways how Indian government can overcome the problem and who should be responsible for children employment in this country.
Nowadays millions of children around the world are working to help their families. Sometimes this work is neither harmful nor exploitative, but not in India. According to statistical data based on different researches Bales (2000) said that every sixth child at the age from 5 to 14 years, that is about 16% of the total child population of the planet of this age group, is involved in child labour in developing countries. Let us examine the fact that in the least developed countries almost 30% of all children are engaged in child labour. Grinding poverty gives rise to exploitation, especially in times of war. According to the Lichtenstein (2003), there were over 250,000 children-soldiers in such countries as Liberia, Iraq and Afghanistan several years ago. Compa (2003) stated that other 126 million of children can barely make ends meet by working in hazardous occupations such as brick factories in China or mines of diamonds in Sierra Leone. Thinking about India we see that it ranks the second in the world in the number of working children.
Paying more attention to this question Mosley (2010) stated that “child labour in India is a grave and extensive problem. Children under the age of 14 are forced to work in glass-blowing, fireworks, and most commonly, carpet-making factories. While the Government of India reports about 20 million children labourers, other non-governmental organizations estimate the number to be closer to 50 million. Most prevalent in the northern part of India, the exploitation of child labour has become an accepted practice, and is viewed by the local population as necessary to overcome the extreme poverty in the region.”
Observing legislation base it is possible to mention that child labour is prohibited, but such cases are practically not investigated. Therefore, for example, the use of children at construction sites is growing dramatically almost in all regions of India. According to Shurmer-Smith (2000), the next awful point is the fact that nearly 1.2 millions of children a year fall into the clutches of traffickers who sell them to other countries, forcing to drag slavish existence, earning their living in prostitution or theft.
Defining the term of ‘child labour’ we see that it is a kind of work performed by children, which by its nature or the circumstances of its execution may do harm to health, development, morality or interfere with the child’s education. Gross (2006) proclaimed that any child has the right to be protected from economic exploitation and work that could be dangerous for him or interfere with his education, harming health, and physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. Nowadays working children and adolescents in many countries do not fit the definition of the labour force. They belong to the so-called peripheral workers, because they are involved in a peripheral, secondary labour market. It is characterized by a large number of low-paying jobs, lack of prospects for promotion, personalized relationship between management and subordinates, instability and high turnover. Grootaert and Kanbur (1995) are sure that exactly children and teenagers are among the most vulnerable groups of workers on a par with women, ethnic and religious minorities, the elderly and foreigners without documents. Rules that protect working experience of representatives of the primary labour market do not apply to the secondary market.
Discussing child labour it is possible to say that it may have both forced and voluntary character. In the first case, the child is forced to work by his own parents, because the family can not survive without the revenue that the child brings. In some cases, the earnings of the child are the only way to pay for his/her education. However, schools are often in poor condition and prospects for professional growth are negligible there. As a result, parents who have started to work when they were children considered that the best way to solve problems in the family is to send their children to work instead of going to school. In some families, as soon as the income of the parents begins to grow, the scale of forced child labour is declining.
Answering the question whether abolishing of child labour in India would be right it is necessary to say that if we look attentively at the law on employment of children we will find that it is illegal to use child labour. Drèze and Sen (1995) demonstrated that “The Indian Government has taken some steps to alleviate this monumental problem. In 1989, India invoked a law that made the employment of children under age 14 illegal, except in family-owned factories. However, this law is rarely followed, and does not apply to the employment of family members. Thus, factories often circumvent the law through claims of hiring distant family. Also, in rural areas, there are few enforcement mechanisms, and punishment for factories violating the mandate is minimal, if not nonexistent.” Nevertheless, many believe that it is better for children who have no other alternatives to work than to be involved in prostitution or theft. Despite, the last statement it seems that every child should have good childhood and opportunity to study, thus the abolishing of child labour is a right decision.
Child labour is evaluated negatively despite its quite acceptable forms, developing intelligence and some work skills of a child. Indeed, the majority of children involved in the process of labour is engaged in hard, dangerous and immoral activity. Observing governmental activity Burton, D. (1995) showed that “the main policy of the government is to ban employment of children below the age of fourteen years in factories, mines and hazardous employment and to regulate the working conditions of children in other employment.”
Discussing the international law Cigno and Rosati mentionad that “In international law, labor issues have been reserved for the International Labour Organization (ILO). In the traditional perspective of the ILO, child labor must be eradicated from the labor market. Hence, from its establishment, the ILO strategy to combat child labor was to secure international agreements on a minimum working age for children. During the 1920s and 1930s a series of international treaties covering different sectors urged states to set a minimum working age. In 1973 these instruments combined into the Convention concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment. The overall aim, as stated in Article 1, was to “ensure the effective abolition of child labour” (Cigno and Rosati, 2005).
In India in 2009, the Act on child labour, prohibiting work for children below the age of 14 years who earn their living as domestic servants, staff of various hotels and public entertainment facilities, employees of tea, roadside eateries and restaurants, came into force. The initiator of the new law was Prime Minister of India who was greatly interested in the problem of child labour in his country. Exploitation of child labour in most cases is due to the fact that even those parents who would like to send their children to school, often can not afford to pay child’s way to school, purchase forms, or abandon the additional earnings. As a result, children are sent to work in the fields, factories and even in the mines. Violators of the law on child labour in India face a fine of up to $ 450 and imprisonment from three months to two years. As a compensation state provides to pay subsidies for laid-off children. In total, India has about 12.6 million working children and International Labour Organization has estimated that the replacement of child labour with education programs will cost $ 760 billion for the country, however, the economic effect of this measure will outweigh the costs in the nearest future.
Observing this problem from the other side Cigno and Rosati (2005) presented the next solution for the problem connected with child labour: “The simplest decision sequence includes three steps, or decision stages. At stage 0, would-be parents choose the level of birth control. This conditions the probability that a child is born. Stage 1 comes if and when a child is actually born. At that point, parents decide how much food, attention, and medical care to give each child. That will in turn condition the child’s probability of surviving to the next stage. Stage 2 occurs if and when a child reaches school age. At that stage, parents decide whether to send their children to school or work, and how much food, education, and medical care each child should get.” In addition Cigno and Rosati (2005) said that “Since premature mortality is heavily concentrated in the early years, we shall assume that, if a child survives to school age, he will live to be an adult. Stage-2 decisions determine the stock of human capital and other assets with which the child will enter adult life. Beyond that, decisions will be taken by the children themselves. The decision problem is solved by backward induction.”
Thinking about responsibilities in the question of child labour it is impossible to say that only government or only corporations that employ children are responsible for the situation that takes place in India. It is necessary to mention that any of those cases when the huge material and human resources are gathered in one direction – the company’s management, nevertheless, is probably trying to get as much information about how big will be the exposure of possible irregularities. Many companies always have to balance between their obligations in the sphere of social responsibility and a desire to ensure low production costs. Thinking about companies, who are going to put their factories in India we see that there is a number of conditions that accompany the company’s decision to place its manufacturing capacity in a given country. The Government of India is trying to control situation in the sphere of child labour and doing it in India, the company risks to find itself in a situation when one or another link in the network of its suppliers would be able to use child labour.
Thus, basing on the above discussed information it is possible to say that the problem of child labour goes into the depth of history in India. Child labour was considered to be a normal phenomenon in the framework of traditional values. It was observed not as exploitation of the child, but as a part of skills acquisition associated with the caste occupation of his family. Now the situation is changing to some extent. But, the successes achieved in recent years to expand the access to education and eradication of child labour may be offset under the influence of the current global economic and financial crisis, which threatens further progress in this direction.
In conclusion, most studies have indicated that the main cause of child labour is poverty. Children are forced to work to survive and help their families. Poverty, illiteracy, lack of health care, limited employment opportunities – every of the above numerated factors leads to the exploitation of child labour. Nevertheless, some poor countries managed to achieve significant progress in combating child labour until its complete elimination. Thinking about India it is possible to suppose that the best governmental strategy in the fight against child labour exploitation is the reduction of poverty, increasing employment and welfare of rural and other residents, solving the problems of health and human safety when carrying different kinds of activities, improvement of techniques, as well as sustainable country’s development.
