Child Labour
Child Labour
1. Raising Awareness
Objective: Educate the public, especially peers and community members, about how
common and damaging child labour is.
Goal: Increase awareness of this issue to encourage society to change and support
children's rights.
2. Understanding Causes and Contributing Factors
Objective: Analyze the social, economic, and cultural factors that lead to child labour.
Goal: Find root causes like poverty, lack of education, and social inequality to develop
effective solutions.
3. Investigating the Impact on Children
Objective: Document and show the physical, emotional, and educational effects of child
labour on children.
Goal: Highlight how child labour harms children's health, development, and future
opportunities.
4. Promoting Child Rights and Education
Objective: Advocate for children's rights to education, health, and a safe environment.
Goal: Encourage community and government support for programs that ensure
children can learn and are protected from exploitation.
5. Exploring Legal and Policy Frameworks
Objective: Examine the laws and regulations that aim to prevent child labour and check
how effective they are.
Goal: Assess current policies and identify where improvements are needed.
6. Encouraging Community Involvement
Objective: Get community resources and people involved in efforts to reduce child
labour.
Goal: Motivate local businesses, schools, and families to actively support initiatives to
end child labour.
These objectives will lead to real actions and positive results, helping to reduce child labour
and protect children's rights.
ACTION PLAN
The problem of child labour has gotten quite deep over the past few decades and it remains
to be one of the major threats that degrade our society. Nowadays, this issue is not getting
that much attention which is not a good aspect. A study has been prepared to summarize
this issue and also it would describe how to tackle this immense problem.
Children are the greatest gift to humanity and Childhood is an important and
impressionable stage of human development as it holds the potential for the
future development of any society. Children who are brought up in an
environment, that is conducive to their intellectual, physical, and social health,
grow up to be responsible and productive members of society. Every nation links
its future with the present status of its children. By performing work when they
are too young for the task, children unduly reduce their present welfare or
future income earning capabilities, either by shrinking their future external
choice sets or reducing their productive capabilities.
Under extreme economic distress, children are forced to forego educational
opportunities and take up jobs that are mostly exploitative as they are usually
underpaid and engaged in hazardous conditions. Parents decide to send their
children to work as a desperate measure due to poor economic
conditions. It is no wonder that poor households predominantly
send their children to work in the early ages of their lives. One of the disconcerting
aspects of child labour is that children are sent to work at the expense of
education. There is a strong effect of child labour on school attendance rates
and the length of a child’s workday is negatively associated with his or her
capacity to attend school. Child labour restricts the right of children to access
and benefit from education and denies them the fundamental opportunity to attend
school. Child labour, thus, prejudices children’s education and adversely affects
their health and safety.
Causes and Consequences of Child labour
• There are numerous reasons why children end up losing their childhood: Children coming
from poor families may be forced to work to support in upbringing of their respective
families. Even a low aspiration from parents and children can be a major cause of child
labour as they find themselves in a situation where they end up working in local factories or
grocery stores. Children are mostly unskilled and also, they provide cheap but good support
to the greedy employers. Most of the illiterate people are unable to provide help to the
children and are unable to encourage them to go to school and hence, it ends up in havoc in
the future of these children. Quality education is much more expensive in many parts of the
world and for many families living in poverty, priority is given to providing food for their
families since education for them is unaffordable. Marrying at an early age results in
Overpopulation, and having many children with little or no resources to support leads to
Child labour.
• There are some major negative impacts of Child labour: Childhood plays a major role in
bringing a smile to any human face whenever they remember their childhood but here,
Child Labour has an evil impact by depriving a young one of the opportunity of living a good
and happy childhood. Child labour can also lead to health complications due to
undernourishment and poor working conditions as the children employed in bad working
places such as mines and badly maintained factories might end up carrying lifetime health
issues for themselves. Children working at a young age might face various issues such as
discrimination, sexual exploitation, and unfavorable working hours which may result in
mental upset of these children. Education prepares a person to deal with various challenges
held down by society whereas, an illiterate person considers only force as the right answer in
dealing with various situations.
MATERIAL EVIDENCE
Material evidence on child labor includes various forms of documentation and records that
provide insight into its existence, scope, and impact. This evidence can be used by
researchers, organizations, and policymakers to address and raise awareness about the
problem. Here are some key types of material evidence related to child labor:
1. Photographic evidence
Anees Jung is an author journalist and columnist for major newspapers in India and abroad.
She was born in Rourkela in 1944 in an aristocratic family. Her father, Nawab Hosh Yar Jung,
was a renowned scholar and poet. He was the adviser to the last Nizam of Hyderabad
princely state.
Her mother and brother are also Urdu poets. Her schooling and graduation were completed
in her hometown. Later she went abroad for higher studies. She did her masters in Sociology
and American studies from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, US. She started her career
in literal writing with the Youth Times, The Times of India publication, where she worked as a
journalist and editor (1973 to 1980). She has subsequently worked for The Christian Science
Monitor and the International Herald Tribune. She published several books dealing with
social issues including abused children and women’s problems. Jung is noted for her lively
and vivid descriptions, though she rarely gives solutions. Jung published Unveiling India in
1987. It is a travel diary focusing on interviews with women. She has written several
subsequent books on the same, talking to women about their everyday lives, including Night
of the New Moon: Encounters with Muslim Women in India (1993), and Seven Sisters (1994).
Breaking the Silence (1997) is based on conversations about women’s lives from around the
world.
REPORT
ON CHILD LABOUR WITH REFERENCE TO THE LOST SPRING
The practice of child labour prevails in India despite the many initiatives and national and
international laws that India adheres to. Child labour is exploitative which spoils childhood
and deprives children of basic facilities that are necessary to nurture them naturally into a
mature human being. The practice of child labour, despite being seen as a kind of
exploitation, continues to exist.
Anees Jung’s Lost Spring: Stories of Lost Childhood is a collection of short stories in which
Jung interviews and describes her encounters in different cities across India, with children
who have worked or are working for various reasons, and also with other people related to
them. Their stories highlight the violation of children’s rights, discussed above, on multiple
levels.
Numerous factors lead a child into the ordeal of child labour. Poverty is the most significant
one. Generally, for poor households that have to earn their livelihood on a day-to-day basis,
money earned by working children is always a welcome addition. In other cases, like in petty
family businesses, children assist their parents to earn more money.
The Indian government has enacted a plethora of acts, laws, organizations, and institutions
to combat the overwhelming prominence of child labour. Some of the initiatives include the
Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act which is a piece of legislation that prohibits the
engagement of children in certain employment (mostly in dangerous conditions) and
regulates the conditions of work of children; the National Policy on Child Labour seeks to
adopt a sequential approach with a focus on rehabilitation of children working in hazardous
occupations & processes in the first instance; and the Ministry of Labour and employment
functions to provide and supervise a range of policies concerning child labour in India.
Furthermore, as reported by Osment, NGOs such as Care India, Child Rights and You, and
Global March against Child Labour have been implemented to combat child labour through
education and accessibility to resources. However, these efforts have been largely
unsuccessful.
Child labour-free zones have been promoted in India: a child labour-free zone (CLFZ) is "a
defined area, such as a village or a plantation, where everyone is convinced that 'No child
should be working, every child should be in school. The concept was introduced in 1992 by
an Indian organization, the Mamidipudi Venkatarangaiya Foundation (MV Foundation).
The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986- ( CLPR Act )
The CLPR Act prohibits employment of any person below the age of 14 (deemed a "Child") in
any employment, including as domestic help, except in helping their own family in non-
hazardous occupations. Children between the ages of 14 and 18 are instead defined as
"Adolescents", and the law allows them to be employed except in mining, flammable
substance- and explosives-related work, and other hazardous processes.
India formulated a National Policy on Child Labour in 1987. This Policy seeks to adopt a
gradual & sequential approach with a focus on rehabilitation of children working in
hazardous occupations. It envisioned strict enforcement of Indian laws on child labour
combined with development programs to address the root causes of child labour such as
poverty. In 1988, this led to the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) initiative. This legal and
development initiative continues, with a current central government funding of Rs. 6 billion,
targeted solely to eliminate child labour in India.[30] Despite these efforts, child labour
remains a major challenge for India.
Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016
The raw act in the Constitution that was amended in the year 2016 can be stated as:
“An Act to prohibit the engagement of children in all occupations and to prohibit the
engagement of adolescents in hazardous occupations and processes and the matters
connected therewith or incidental thereto.”
According to this amendment in the Act, the Government of India will provide stricter
punishments for employers who violate the Act.
It will also make the employer employing any child or adolescent in contravention of the Act
cognizable.
The Act also allows the government to bar the employment of adolescents who are working
in hazardous conditions.
A broad and specific framework for prevention, prohibition, rescue, and rehabilitation of
children and as well as adolescent workers.
Clarity on issues related to family enterprises.
Safeguards for creative workers or artists that have been permitted to work under the Act,
with respect to working hours and working conditions.
Set of specific duties and responsibilities for law enforcement agencies to ensure effective
implementation and compliance of the Act.
NGOs dedicated to preventing child labour
Many NGOs like Bachpan Bachao Andolan, ChildFund, CARE India, Talaash Association, Child
Rights and You, Global March against child labour, Bundelkhand Matra Bhumi Samaj Sevi
Sansthan Project Stop Working with child labour in India, GoodWeave India, RIDE India,
Childline, etc. have been working to eradicate child labour in India.
1. Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA; Save Childhood Movement) is an India-based children's
rights movement. It was started in 1980 by Nobel Laureate Mr. Kailash Satyarthi. It
campaigns against bonded labour, child labour, and human trafficking, and promotes the
right to education for all children. It has so far freed close to 100,000 children from
servitude, including bonded labourers, and helped in their re-integration, rehabilitation, and
education
3. Child Rights and You (CRY) is an Indian non-governmental organization (NGO) that works
to ensure children's rights. The organization was started in 1979 by Rippan Kapur, an Air
India purser. CRY works with 99 grassroots projects across 19 states in India and has
impacted the lives of over three million children.
4. The Global March against child labour came about in 1998, following the significant
response concerning the desire to end child labour. It was a grassroots movement that
motivated many individuals and organizations to unite and fight against child labor, not an
annual march.
CONCLUSION
Child labor remains a serious and deeply ingrained issue worldwide, affecting millions of
children and depriving them of their basic rights to education, health, and a safe childhood.
It is driven by factors such as poverty, lack of education, and cultural norms, while its
impacts on children are severe and long-lasting, compromising their physical and mental
health and limiting their future opportunities. Despite global legal frameworks and
international efforts, child labor continues to persist, particularly in areas where economic
hardship prevails.
The fight against child labor requires sustained effort, commitment, and a global recognition
of the importance of every child's right to a safe and fulfilling childhood. By working
together, we can create a future where no child is forced to work and every child has the
chance to grow, learn, and achieve their potential. Ending child labor is not only a moral
imperative but a critical step toward building a just and equitable world for future
generations.
STUDENT REFLECTION
• Wikipedia
• Byju’s
• Unacademy
• Youtube
• https://labour.gov.in