CHILD LABOUR IN THE WORLD

CHILD LABOUR

AuthorMessage
elgredler




At the moment I read a lot of articles and information about the protection of children and child labour. This makes me very sad. Many children in our world have to suffer, they are abused and they were forced to work under really hazardous conditions. The facts about child labour in our world are really shocking:



1 in 6 children are forced to work
218 million children around the world are involved in child labour (aged 5 - 17)
126 million children work in hazardous conditions
The highest numbers of child labourers are in the Asia/Pacific region, where there are 122 million working children
In Sub Saharan Africa 26% of children (49 million) are involved in work.




Which makes me very sad, is the fact that often child work is not so visable, its obscure. Because children do rural work like agricultural activities and collecting water, fuel and fodder.I n many countries, poor girls work as domestic servants for richer families. Almost everywhere, children, especially girls, perform unpaid work for their families. That work is done in the home or in family enterprises does not necessarily make it easier or more acceptable.






A further very sad fact is that children also have to fight in wars as child soldiers. This disurbs their whole life and growing up. They often don't know how it is to have a family or to be loved. They have no parents or relatives anymore.



A lot of information you can get at Childs rights information network

Apart from Fundamental Human Rights, Child labour is directly proportional to the lack of financial facilities & income per capita in a given society. Instead of sharing their affuence with the less fortunate regions, the developed World is bent upon draining out the natural resources such as oil & minerals of the Third World countries; which were already existing at the subsistence level. Apar from it, shamefaced subjugation with depletion of natural resources causing inflationary spiral alongwith loss of precious lives in the Third World amounted to denial of their birth right and complete abnegatiobn of fundamental human rights. This depletion of financial resources denied basic health facilities and educational facilities to the local population. Cost of education which was rather low, not only at primary & secondary level; but was low enough to be affordable by the average middle class even at the University level, suddenly shot-up making it well neigh impossible for the middle class to educate their children.

It is also a known fact, the healthy recreational facilities being very few & the existing ones being proscribed by our uneducated conventional leadership (further accentuated by the corrupt politicians & landed aristocracy), the only entertainment available to masses was marital sex; hence a phenomenal increase in population growth rate. It was, therefore, becoming well neigh impossible for the head of the family to feed so many children. Hence Child labour working as domestic servants & employed in carpet weaving industry apart from doing many other odd jobs. Due to financial pressure, the parents who were already finding it difficult to spare their children for education, found it almost impossible to send them for secondary & higher secondary education due to phenomenal rise in fees. Hence the existence of child labour was not optional, but a matter of human compulsion. These social ailments could very well be taken care of if

i. The First World countries stop interfering in the affairs of the Third World & stop their otherwise illegitimate usurpation of resources.

ii. Financial exploitation of the Third World is completely stopped in trade & commerce as well in order to provide an opportunity to its residents for improving their lot; which is showing a sharp decline with the passage of time.

iii. With the resources available, the Third World should assign due priority to health & education sectors, providing free medical treatment and education upto higher secondary level. Thereafter the fees should be easily affordable by parents as customary in the East, and financial parallells may not be drawn with the West.

Syllabi should be redrawn in the light of modern knowledge, and children should be drawn towards education by making it free and providing other incentives. This is crying need of the hour & must be attended to for taking academic levels upto mid-50s when standards were far far better than today; which was attributable to the so called educational reforms or to be rightly called [/b]educational deformities[b].

Jameel Zaidi