The International Day against Child Labor has been observed annually on June 12 every year since 2002 with the help of the International Labor Organization. This day focuses on the worst forms of child labor listed in Convention 182.
The program aims to mobilize people around the world against child labor and its worst forms, born of local cultures and customs. And to encourage the participation of the authorities, the media, civil society and the public at large. The theme for the year 2021 by the United Nations is, Act now, end child labor.
There are an estimated 152 million child laborers worldwide, of these, 73 million children also engage in hazardous work that directly harms their health, safety or moral development. Worldwide, agriculture is the sector with the largest number of working children, about 70%. More than 132 million girls and boys between the ages of 5 and 14 often work in the fields and gardens, planting and harvesting, spraying pesticides, and caring for livestock from sunrise to sunset.
Child labor is the employment of underage children, which is prohibited by the world law or every educated community. This practice is considered by many countries and international organizations to be an exploitation of the fundamental rights of children. Child labor has not been seen as a complex issue for most of the history, it has been only become a controversial issue with the introduction of universal education, concepts of labor and children’s rights.
Child labor can be employed in factories, mining or digging, agriculture, helping in the parent business, running your own small business or any kind of employment. Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes they worked as an agent to run businesses in shops and restaurants. In addition, some children do menial tasks such as picking up useful items from the bins and polishing shoes on the streets or at railway stations, although the most labor is in the informal sector, such as inside garages, farm work or as a personal servant in homes, Which are out of reach of the government labor inspectors and hidden from the scrutiny of the media. An important issue in the human resource development today is the proliferation of the child labor. The problem of the child labor exists in almost all countries of the world, if there is any difference, it is only in the form. However, in many Third World countries, the prevalence of the child labor is quite clear.
The most deprived a segment of the society is those children who are working in early ages due to their families financial issues. Being economically unfounded, psychologically wrong and socially destructive, the concept and a practice of the child labor are a major threat to both peace, human rights and the global development as whole. Every child has an important role to play in the development and prosperity of a society. The continuous development of a society and the civilization and the future prosperity of a society lies in the vast possibilities of children’s an educational, moral and social development. The issue of the child labor is a matter of global concern today.
The today child will cannot develop into a responsible and productive member of tomorrow’s society unless he or she is provided with an environment conducive to his or her mental, physical and social health. Every nation connects the future development of its society with the educational, moral and mental status of its nation’s children. In childhood, children have abilities on which the future development of a society depends. The children are the greatest gift of God to humanity. Child neglect means harm to a society as whole. If children are remained deprived of their childhood socially, economically, physically and mentally, then the nation is deprived of the social development, an economic empowerment, the law and order, a social stability and potential human resources for a good citizen.
Of course, child labor is an evil that must be eradicated as soon as possible. The spread of child labor is a very bad reflection of society. Our societies must play their full role in preventing this evil. A study by the ILL Bureau of Statistics found that the poorest people in the world’s most backward countries hire children to support their economic status. In some cases of economic activity, the study found that a child’s income is between 34 and 37 percent of total household income. The study concluded that a child’s wage income is important for the livelihood of a poor family.
Poverty has a clear relationship with child labor, and studies have shown such a positive correlation that poor families need money to survive, and children are a source of additional income.
Poverty and unavailability of social protection networks are the main causes of child labor. Poor families in poor countries are forced to borrow from labor laboratories at interest to solve their economic problems, as child labor laboratories earn interest on loans, as a result, parents are forced to hire their children, while the interest on their loans continues to rise. In such a situation, if one wants to free his children from labor, he must first repay the loan with interest, which is very difficult for the poor.
Such conditions make children illiterate because they are working and not going to school. Due to this cycle of poverty, the need for child labor is passed on from one generation to the next in poor families. There is a need to address the root causes of child labor through the government policies of the backward countries and to solve the problem by implementing these policies in an honest and sincere manner with the coordination and cooperation of NGOs. Without permanently eliminating the causes, we cannot eliminate the specific problems of child labor. If we succeed in eradicating poverty, child labor will automatically end.
By: KASHIF ALI FROM KARACHI
Beutifull words
Poverty and unavailability of social protection networks are the main causes of child labor. If we succeed in eradicating poverty, child labor will automatically end.