Opinion - Editorials

The challenge of child labour

AMONG THE SOCIAL failures for which the country has been unable to find a meaningful solution, child labour is one of the worst. Linked with this failure are several other social weaknesses that have pushed generations of hapless children into work in the past and continue to keep the ranks of the little labourers swelling. Seen against this backdrop, the announcement that the Government proposes to double its allocation for eradicating child labour is welcome. However, stepping up the availability of resources only marks part of a long corrective process and by itself provides no cause for comfort that all will be well in the years to come. For, the issue to be addressed is not merely stopping children from working, but other related ones such as primary education, the rural-urban divides, poverty-related issues and those relating to economic inequality. Added to these commonly accepted factors that propel child labour across the world is the distinctly Indian attribute of caste and social structures. An additional factor in what is bound to be a long battle is the overlap of all these causes, making the task of elimination easier said than done.

In a way, India's responses to child labour have been paradoxical. Though in the forefront of Asian countries in terms of assessing the problem — the first detailed investigation was conducted in the late 1920s — and in terms of enacting legislation — a framework of rules was in place in 1933 — in showing results, the nation has fallen short of expectations. One of the most commonly attributed causes for the poor result has been the failure to make primary education universal, Kerala being a notable and healthy exception. The poor school infrastructure conditions, the inability to arrest the dropout rates at the primary level and, more important, parental thinking, have all worked together forcing the child out of the classroom to the workplace. Though it is recognised that the first step to ending child labour is by making primary education compulsory, the Indian response suffers from a colossal failure on this front. Moreover, instances of the use of child labour go unreported, many times deliberately so, making the task more complicated. With the exact magnitude of the problem a matter of debate, more time is spent on finding the numbers than in finding a mechanism that can end the practice.

The continuing lack of clarity in the approach to combat child labour — as is evident through the arguments by some for the abolitionist route and still others for alleviation — reflects the contradictions that continue to confront policy makers. Nowhere is this contradiction more exposed than in maintaining distinctions between hazardous and non-hazardous work for children. Clearly, the path to complete eradication of child labour will imply that such distinctions are done away with at the earliest. Arguments often made in favour of employment of children in non-hazardous work deflect from the important point that the bartering away of childhood scars the individual irreparably. The way out of the tragic social malady is economic development, though the Indian experience has defied even this argument. For economic development to make a meaningful change for the country's children, a substantial stepping up of resources for education is a necessary precondition, especially in rural areas where the problem goes unnoticed. A more important change required is in the mindset of adults who willingly send their children to work. To make this change effectively, issues relating to economic deprivation have to be addressed as well. The decision by the International Labour Organisation to bring child labour under sharper international focus by observing the first World Day Against Child Labour last week should galvanise the individual and national efforts to rid India of this debilitating social iniquity.

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