Childhood is the most carefree and innocent phase in the human life. It is considered as building block of adult life. Usually children play, study and pursue their hobbies to be a successful person. Unfortunately, many children have to start work at very early stage. They have to work often in hazardous or unhealthy conditions to enable their families living in poverty to survive thus they are deprived of the childhood joy, innocence, education and last but not the least the time to play & pursue their hobbies and ultimately have no future... Many of them hate their childhood but continue to be where they are, not out of choice, but force.
In India even after 67 years of Independence, lots of innocent children are employed by farmers, factory & industry owners and individuals who put them to work under arduous circumstances. These children are made to work in scorching heat of sun continuously for long hours, unsafe factory and industrial units and sometimes made to carry load even heavier than their own body weight. Affluent or middle class families or individuals hire children as domestic help and physically torture them when they make a mistake. The children are at times made to starve and are given old and worn out clothes to wear. This is the picture of millions of children in India painful and yet true.
Reasons for Child Labour
Poverty, Inflation and lack of education are the primary reasons which indirectly lead poor parents to give birth to children thinking them as money-making machines. They carry infants to earn more on the streets from begging. Then as they grow they make them beggars, and many of them sell them to the employers.
Many times death of the earning person in the family forces them to work at the early age.
Child abuse is one of the greatest ill plaguing India and is yet another reason for the child labour. It is increasing each and every year and more so in the case of the girl child. When a girl is probably abused by someone, to hide this fact she is sold to an employer from a city as domestic help, or as a bride to an old man. This leads the culture of the Child labour spread extensively across the length and breadth of India.
Indian Constitution and Child Labour
According to the Indian Constitution child labour means when child is made to work that harms or exploits him/her physically, mentally, morally, or by preventing access to education. However, all work is not bad or exploitive for children.
There are certain provisions of the constitution, which have a direct bearing on child labour.
Article-23
Prohibition of employment of human beings and forced labour.
Human trafficking, begging and other similar forms of forced labour are prohibited and any contravention of this provision shall be an offence in accordance with law.
Article 24
Prohibition of employment of children in factories, industries or any other hazardous place
No child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment.
Article-39 (e) and (f)
Directive principles of state policy
The state shall, in particular, direct its policy, securing:
(e) That the health and strength of workers, men and women, and the tender age of children are not abused and that citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter a vocation unsuited to their age or strength.
(f) Those children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment.
Article- 45
Provision for free and compulsory education for children.
The state shall endeavor to provide within a period of ten years from the commencement of this constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years... Read More
In India even after 67 years of Independence, lots of innocent children are employed by farmers, factory & industry owners and individuals who put them to work under arduous circumstances. These children are made to work in scorching heat of sun continuously for long hours, unsafe factory and industrial units and sometimes made to carry load even heavier than their own body weight. Affluent or middle class families or individuals hire children as domestic help and physically torture them when they make a mistake. The children are at times made to starve and are given old and worn out clothes to wear. This is the picture of millions of children in India painful and yet true.
Reasons for Child Labour
Poverty, Inflation and lack of education are the primary reasons which indirectly lead poor parents to give birth to children thinking them as money-making machines. They carry infants to earn more on the streets from begging. Then as they grow they make them beggars, and many of them sell them to the employers.
Many times death of the earning person in the family forces them to work at the early age.
Child abuse is one of the greatest ill plaguing India and is yet another reason for the child labour. It is increasing each and every year and more so in the case of the girl child. When a girl is probably abused by someone, to hide this fact she is sold to an employer from a city as domestic help, or as a bride to an old man. This leads the culture of the Child labour spread extensively across the length and breadth of India.
Indian Constitution and Child Labour
According to the Indian Constitution child labour means when child is made to work that harms or exploits him/her physically, mentally, morally, or by preventing access to education. However, all work is not bad or exploitive for children.
There are certain provisions of the constitution, which have a direct bearing on child labour.
Article-23
Prohibition of employment of human beings and forced labour.
Human trafficking, begging and other similar forms of forced labour are prohibited and any contravention of this provision shall be an offence in accordance with law.
Article 24
Prohibition of employment of children in factories, industries or any other hazardous place
No child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment.
Article-39 (e) and (f)
Directive principles of state policy
The state shall, in particular, direct its policy, securing:
(e) That the health and strength of workers, men and women, and the tender age of children are not abused and that citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter a vocation unsuited to their age or strength.
(f) Those children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment.
Article- 45
Provision for free and compulsory education for children.
The state shall endeavor to provide within a period of ten years from the commencement of this constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years... Read More
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