In Honor of the World Day Against Child Labor
Global: An Extraordinary Guide for Ordinary Heroes
My friend and mentee, Riaz Ahmad, who is a committed global citizen living in Kashmir, is my guest blogger in honor of the World Day Against Child Labor on June 12. You can learn more about child labor in Global and from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which have a renewed commitment to ending child labor. Enjoy Riaz’s article below.
The Case Against Child Labor
Children are considered a blessing – gifts from a supreme power. Children are like seedlings that need proper sunlight, water and nutrients, so that they can develop into fruitful trees. In a similar fashion, we need to take care of our children and make them responsible and good citizens.
The future of any country depends upon its children. How the educational system prepares its children for upcoming challenges. In Asian countries, a large portion of society believe that more hands bring more resources and, as such, they have four to five children with very few resources to give them a better education or a better livelihood. Most of these children remain illiterate or are primary school dropouts and adopt extra-legal means to survive. In this way parents are indirectly responsible for child exploitation through child labor.
Due to poverty and illiteracy, children constitute about 36% of the total population and a considerable number of children suffer from malnutrition. A large portion of children suffer from various diseases due to unhygienic and cruel exploitation of forced labor.
Some statistical data from ILO, the international labor organization, which works for the betterment of all labor, states that there are 30 million street children without any identity in the world. Of these, 11 million street children live in India. These street children often end up in situations of child labor.
Children from both rural and urban areas work at a time when they are supposed to be lying the foundation of their future, but poverty, illiterate parents, and other factors put a heavy burden on their frail shoulders. Due to the adoption of the ILO convention on child labor, it is absent in officially organized institutions.
Child labor is still growing and developing due to the abundance of children available for child labor. Child labor is a challenge to society because it is exploitative, unskilled and unprofessional labor. Children cannot defend themselves against child labor because they can’t make a union like a children’s union.
The Indian constitution provides the laws for the country and there is a fundamental right under part III that is the right against exploitation, which contains article 23 and 24. Article 23 says that there is a prohibition against forced labor and Article 24 says that there is a prohibition of employment of children below the age of 14 and that no child below the age of 14 should be allowed to work. Article 21A is the right to elementary education up to the age of 14. This is a fundamental right.
Western countries make an effort to eradicate this evil by banning products that are prepared by child labor. Some NGOs are working in this area, including RUGMARK, a certification trademark guaranteeing carpet production without child labor.
In my opinion there should be courts for children so that their rights are protected. Government should also focus towards new educational system that is earn while you learn.
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