“Child Labour is devastation, they should concentrate on education”, heard this before? Well, if not, here’s the thing. Child labour is one of the things holding our country back. The youth of this country is the biggest asset for the latter at this time and it’s a shame that this evil still continues to persist in the society. “The one’s seeking employment are not getting jobs and those who are supposed to study and enjoy life are working day and night to thrive and survive”, strange isn’t it?
Despite several attempts to implement policies to curb child labour India still needs effective steps to eliminate this problem. There are an estimated 152 million children in child labour, 72 million of which are in hazardous work. No one has time to listen to these unfortunate children who are mostly unseen human beings. There are thousands of NGOs in India, working with the help and support of government and the people. They identify the potential places of threat, rescue the children and work constantly to ensure that they get into good schools and receive proper education. There are many policies followed by NGOs and one of the best policies is “survey”. It gives them a basic idea of what all is happening in the society and what areas should they focus on.The COVID-19 health pandemic and the resulting economic and labor market shock are having a huge impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. Unfortunately, children are often the first to suffer. The crisis can push millions of vulnerable children into child labour.
Corona Virus is not only depleting the physical and mental health of the world but is slowly crippling the future also; a new feather in its cap has been added by a latest UN report in the form of – “Child Labour”. The on-going territorial wars, skirmishes, civil wars now and way before this deadly spread has deeply affected the children all across the globe. This article will focus on issues relating to Child Labour, overall effects of COVID-19 on child labour and various steps need to be taken by governments for the damage control. UN reports have revealed that around 19 million children were displaced within their own countries in 2019 due to conflicts, wars and violence. This number is of year, 2019 now the present number of displacements after the COVID-19 spread is much more and still under the process of assimilation. Children are not the face of this pandemic but the overall effect on children will be catastrophic and among the most lasting consequence for the society. The economic hardships faced due to job loss in developing and poor country like India, would lead to higher child mortality rates reversing the progress which was achieved in last 2-3 years in terms of child care and health in the country. The cases of child labour will climb in where the population is on a much higher side and surveillance machinery is already overburdened in terms of maintaining law and order situations. Children are considered the building block of a nation, the key foundation. But now due to this building stress the foundation is likely to crumble so one can imagine how deeply it will affect an entire nation in coming times.
Stricter laws and acts need to be enforced against the culprits; most of the countries don’t have any strict laws in place which lead to such crimes. For example, in India the maximum penalty for employing a child labour is imprisonment between 06 months to 02 years, under many cases due to lack of evidence and poor judicial system in place most of the culprits are set free by paying a minimal fine of Rs.20000-50000 which is a very nominal amount for these rich and powerful people. In these times, it has also become an equal responsibility of the parents and relatives to take of their wards and children.
This is one of the universal topics, which can be debated for as long as possible. No matter what we write there’s always something less in it. As a liberal society with not much humanistic thoughts we should pay attention to it and act accordingly.
Eduindex News 