Uprise in Child Labour, Downfall in Humanity | By Zain ul Abeden
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| Illustration by Sammi. |
Imagine going out with your friends and a 13-year-old boy serving you hot, heavy pans of food at the restaurant. Imagine a 16-year-old girl mopping the floor of the air-conditioned room while your sister, also 16 years of age, watches Netflix in bed and munches on snacks. Imagine the 12-year-old son of the launderer dry cleaning the uniform you’ll wear to school tomorrow. Just try to imagine how their bodies and their hearts would ache. These are just three of the countless child labour cases I have witnessed with my own eyes.
Child labour is a very concerning and disheartening issue that requires our immediate attention as these children are the future of this world. According to UNICEF, nearly one in ten children (approx. 152 million) are subjected to child labour worldwide, with some forced into hazardous work through trafficking. Can you imagine how disturbed these kids might feel, working on incredibly unjust wages to produce the very t-shirt you’ll wear to school tomorrow?
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| Photo on The Conversation. |
Child labour deprives a child in several ways. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), child labour is work that harms a child either mentally, physically, socially or morally and “interferes with their schooling”. The video embedded below shows children from different parts of the world going through the same pain and difficulties caused by child labour.
The line drawn between “work” and “child labour” is dependant on the age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which work is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries.
That said, children’s participation in certain types of work that are positive and does not affect them adversely isn’t considered child labour. No, kiddo, your mom asking you to help with the dishes on weekends isn’t child labour.
Poverty has been the no.1 factor that forces a large population of kids into child labour. They have to work because their parents who work most of their days on minimum wages still fail to provide for the family.
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| Photo on The Atlantic. |
This situation is believed to be getting worse due to the Covid-19 pandemic as countries’ economies have weakened and job opportunities have decreased significantly. This means that “millions of children are at risk of being pushed into work prematurely or under hazardous conditions,” stated Bharati Pflug, an International Labour Organisation (ILO) Senior Specialist. Discrimination, wars/conflicts, natural disasters and the lack of access to quality education are some of the other key causes that force a child into work.
Child labour deprives children of quality education. In today’s day and age, “interfering with their schooling” basically goes to say that the children are being deprived of their childhood and their potential to do a lot more in the future. The Right to an Education is one of the most important rights of a child as reflected in Articles 28 and 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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| Photo on UNICEF. |
A 2014 study in Bangladesh revealed that in most cases, children start working at the age of 12. Additionally, it was also found that girls started doing paid domestic work at an even younger age. Some households live in extreme poverty and are forced to send their children to work.
Children under child labour are abused physically, emotionally and/or sexually. A study of 454 Malaysian children from four different states revealed that, unfortunately, 63 percent of the working children have been emotionally abused, 27 percent physically abused and at least 10 percent have been sexually abused. The majority of them were not happy with their current jobs and regretted not attending school.
Above all, children are deprived of good health under child labour. According to another study, “child labour was significantly and positively related to adolescent mortality, to a population’s nutrition level, and to the presence of infectious disease.” In layman’s terms, children are more likely to die due to malnourishment or disease because of work.
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| Photo on India Today. |
Children under child labour are unable to develop socially. How can you possibly expect a child to develop socially when they spend half the day doing intense work instead of making friends, playing around, spending time with family or having enough time to rest? How can you expect that child to even go to school and be able to focus there? Thus, teenagers are more likely to drop out of the little education they are blessed with.
Child labour does a lot more bad than good. It is a rational decision by the parents, in the short term, to get their kids working too. This undoubtedly contributes positively to the household income. However, what follows is another sad cycle of poverty and child labour. The following flowchart could best explain this in my opinion.
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| Source: Johnthelutheran on Tumblr citing stopchildlabour.eu |
2021 is the “International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour”. This was declared by the UN General Assembly back in 2019, after which the ILO was appointed to lead the actions in reaching this goal. This initiative, in collaboration with the Alliance 8.7, asks “regional, national and organizational stakeholders and individuals” to make concrete action pledges that they will fulfill by December 2021.
Unfortunately, the pandemic has made the goal even more difficult to achieve. Not only are the poor faced with more financial issues, the shutting down of numerous schools further reduces access to quality education. As ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said, “With COVID-19 threatening to reverse years of progress, we need to deliver on promises now more than ever.”
What can we do to help eradicate child labour?
We can encourage the businessmen in our families to make sure that no child labour is involved in their work or the work of their partner companies. We can also make schooling more accessible. Despite the kids leaving work, they still have to pay for school. Hence, reducing school fees while upholding its quality could be a potential solution.
12 June marks the World Day Against Child Labour. We should do even more as this is also the Year for the Elimination of Child Labour. Donating to sites like GlobalMarch and Gosh help combat child labour. Any amount of help, however much or little, is significant as we desperately need to try and eradicate child labour by 2025.
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