A holistic approach is the need of the
hour.
Yet another day confronts the nation with bitter hard truths. As many
as 60 million children under the age of 14 continue to toil for a
livelihood even as child labour stands officially banned from the
country since 2006. It is a common sight to see children working in
restaurants, shops and houses, many times in not very agreeable
conditions. Defined as employing children below the age of 14 years for
domestic work or in restaurants and factories, the Child Labour
(Prohibition and Regulation) Act bans the employment of children. In
the state, a conservative estimate pegs the number at 39,000 while
figures three times as high are quoted by organisations working with
children. The time period to make the state free of child labour has
now been extended to another four years down the line. Worldwide, the
number of child labourers runs to millions.
This time around, the ILO has set education as the message for the
world day against child labour. The right response that can protect the
gullible child from exploitation. But, that alone will not do. There is
need for a holistic approach that looks at the cause of the problem. In
India as elsewhere, it is the poor economic situation that forces a
family to send its children to work for wages. Even while promoting the
cause of education in bettering the prospects for the child, there is
need to provide some financial incentive to the impoverished families.
Parents will have to be educated alongside on the need to have their
offsprings going to school. Again, unless quality education is provided
which empowers the child with life skills, and unless this education
comes free of any cost, incidental or otherwise, there will be few
takers.
Particular attention will have to be paid to the girl child whose
education is not of much interest to poor households. They are often
sent to work as housemaids alongside going to school. The attraction
that a monotonous, rote-based education holds to such children, tired
as they already are, can be imagined. From one drudgery to another
makes no difference. Finally, while the law is in place, the sad truth
is that there have been hardly many convictions. Unless implementation
and conviction accompany it, the law will not be an effective deterrent
against a socio-economic malaise that refuses to go away.
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jun132008/editpage2008061273114.asp
