CHILD LABOUR: MENACE TO EDUCATION
“There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.” – Nelson Mandela
From this quote we can understand that children are future citizen of the nation and their adequate development is the utmost priority of the country. Progress of a country depends upon the education of the children which they are getting and the type of atmosphere in which they are being brought up. Children are the foundation stones of a country. But in a country like India education is not available to all the children many of the children remain illiterate because many parents do not have money to spent it on the education of their children, rather they send their children for work so that they could earn some money and this work done by the children for their family is not a help for them rather it should be known as child labour. We can define child labour as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. All the work done by children should not be classified as child labour that is to be targeted for elimination. Children or adolescent’s participation in work that does not affect their health and personal development or interfere with their schooling is generally regarded as being something positive. This includes activities such as helping their parents around the home, assisting in a family business or earning pocket money outside school hours and during school holidays. These kinds of activities contribute to children’s development and for the welfare of their families; they provide them with skills and experience, and helps them to be productive members of society during their adult life. These kinds of work done by the children should only be encouraged by the society. The evil of child labour is found at every place in our society if we observe it around us at various places where we go viz. at hotels, factories, mines, shops, houses, roads, etc. we can find the children working there. It is a serious and extensive problem with many children under the age of 14 years. If we see statistically than 68 countries have been marked under extreme risk for child labour. According to statistics there are 215 million children working and many of them are full time child laborers. 115 million children amongst them are exposed to child labour. Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Chad, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Liberia, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe to form the 12 countries at the bottom of the ranking who scored 0.00 for possibility to remove child labour , whereas china scored 0.02 and ranked 13th.
Occupations in which children are found working are agriculture sectors, it is recorded that 2,00,000 children have been employed in Andhra Pradesh alone. In 2009, 6-8 years old children were found working in mines in Jharkhand and Bihar which were extracting mica for export to the global cosmetics industry. Many of the children are also found working in houses too as servants and they have to live a life of servant, people exploit them by making them to do lots of work, at that age in which they were supposed to go to school, enjoy their childhood, they have to face the domestic exploitation done to them. Today we have various agencies which provide us maids but these agencies mostly provide the girls who are even below 14 years and send them to the people who want servants for their houses. Many of the poor girls are also forced into prostitution. Their life becomes hell at their age of playing. They are sexually abused in the tender age when they even don’t know the meaning of sex. Statistics says that about 53.22% children reported having faced one or more forms of sexual abuse. 69% children are physically abused, state of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and Delhi have consistently reported higher rates of abuse as compared to other states.
Main reason behind the child labour is poverty in India. Large number of population is living below poverty line and even don’t have the money to feed their children. Because of poverty many people don’t have houses to live in. They don’t have money to fill their own stomach and so they send their children also for work to earn some money.
Another big reason for the problem of child labour in India is parent’s illiteracy. As the parents themselves are illiterate and had started doing work from the early age so do not understand the importance of education and try to engage their children in some or the other work so that they can also contribute in the expenses of the house. This unawareness amounts to great loss to the society in relation to social and economic development. Overpopulation is another reason behind child labour because people have so many children that they are unable to give them proper upbringing and force them to do work. Sometimes they even don’t have the money to have meal or to have clothes for all their children, many of the children even die because of malnutrition and improper care.
Unemployment of elders also leads to child labour because if the elder persons of the house do not get proper job then even children have to do some kind of small works for which they are paid and helps their family economically.
Child labour leads to very immense problem to children in context to their education but also with their health also, working conditions may not be safe and healthy for children because of their physical tenderness. As children are small, their body is not fully developed. They had to do hard work which even affects their physical development and results in their bad health also. Due to lack of complete awareness, sometimes apathy on the part of enforcement officials and long time taken in settlement of cases of prosecution leads to the weak enforcement of the laws. To make a dent into this problem, there is a need for consistent enforcement of various laws relating to trafficking of children for labour and regular monitoring of enforcement by the State government. To ensure strict enforcement there is a need for the enforcement officers, prosecutors and judicial officers to be adequately sensitized about the provisions of the laws dealing with child trafficking. Our constitution is a well drafted document which even provides provision for children or with those provisions safeguards rights of the children various articles are as following:
Article 21: Right to education: The state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of 6-14 years in such manner as the state by law, may determine.
Article 23: Prohibition of traffic in Human Beings and forced labour: Traffic in human beings and beggar and other similar forms of forced labour are prohibited and other contravention of this provision shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.
Nothing in this article shall prevent the state from imposing compulsory service for public purpose, and in imposing such service the state shall not made any discrimination on grounds only of religion , race, caste, or class or any of them.
Article 24: Prohibition of employment of children in factories, etc.: No child below the age of 14 years shall be employed in work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment.
Article 39: The state shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing: That the strength and health of workers, men and women, and the tender age of children are not abused and that citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter avocation unsuited to their age or strength.
The Constitution of India places a primary responsibility on the state to ensure that all needs of children are met and their human rights are fully protected. There are specific provisions under the Constitution relating to protection of children from economic exploitation and their education.
Even after making so many provisions for children in the constitution, still children are made to do work, getting abused, deprived of education therefore more steps are needed to be taken to protect children from child labour and it should be made sure that all the children of age between 6-14 years are going to school instead of going to work.
So more steps are required to be taken to eradicate the problem of child labour and to prevent children from doing child labour, and more emphasis should be given on their education because Education is a crucial component of any effective effort to eliminate child labour. NGO’s together with the help of government and citizens can take action to help the children in understanding their rights and importance of education. They can stop the children from working in dangerous places like factories and mines. They can help children by not letting them work and asking them to go to school and to play. Necessary sufficient funds should be provided to the organizations working for the education and removal of child labour. There should be effective implementations of child protective laws. There should also be necessary prosecution of child labour defaulters. There should be involvement of the religious leaders, trade unionist and non government organizations to tackle the problem of child labour by forming advisory committees on child labour. The authorities should not bend before the pressure of the politicians while tackling the problems of child labour.

There is also a need to give priority to the expansion of public educational systems to accommodate the numbers of children who still do not have access to school. This means that: * More schools need to be built, teachers need to be recruited and trained and educational materials need to be made available. * Alternative approaches need to be developed to provide for the education of children when geographical conditions pose obstacles or the community’s lifestyle involves mobility. * The formal and non-formal education systems need to be linked in a more systematic manner to allow for easier transitions from the non-formal to the formal sector, and both systems need to be improved and upgraded in many countries. * School admission and retention policies should facilitate the entry or re-entry of children into schools by providing alternative placement options and independent learning approaches with adequate guidance and support for over-aged children or children who re-enter school.

A substantial increase in the availability of public education in rural areas at the pre-primary, primary and secondary levels will diminish the pressure of existing congestion in schools in the urban centers where poor families migrate in search of both jobs and educational opportunities for their children.
If these children are given education then they could become very successful persons in life and represent India in other countries also and we can see the live example of this of a girl in our country. Shweta Katti who is 18 year old girl, who has grown up in the brothels of Kamathipura and has also worked as child labour, has managed to rise above the muck, grabbed a good education for herself, broken through bouts of depression and frustration with good counseling and now seeks to chase her ambition without any inhibitions. Her dream is to become a psychologist, so she can give back the gift she once received. She has now secured an admission at Bard University, New York State and the University has done its bit to waive off her admission fee. So this is the live example of success so from this we can conclude that education can change life of any person. Therefore education is the foundation stone of every child and therefore more and more steps should be taken for the education of children in India.
In the present scenario on October 10th 2006, Government of India introduced a new amendment in Child Labour Act, 1986. In about 2 months from the passing of this Act in December 2006, over 1,670 cases of such violation have been detected by many state governments. According to CRY (Child Rights and You organization), child labour is not being addressed properly and the conviction rate is also low. It’s not that only the hospitality sector is employing children as workers, but household manufacturing sector and many other sectors are also doing the same .According to the Indian census of 1991, there are 11.28 million working children under the age of fourteen years in India. Over 85% of the child laborers are in the country’s rural areas , working in agricultural activities such as fanning , livestock rearing , forestry and fisheries and girls aged 12-13 are the preferred choice of 90 per cent households . Recent news shows the actual picture of child labour in India. An investigation conducted by a newspaper revealed that children in the Shahpur Jat area of New Delhi had been sold for $ 10 into bonded labour. This news shows about the injustice done to the children so proper case should be filed against those people who sell the children for their own benefit and play with the life of the children.
At present, in spite of policies of the government for eradication of child labour and various steps taken in this direction and the laws passed about it haven’t controlled the problem of child labour. This is possible only with the co-operation of all sections of the society and the law enforcement agencies and by removing or minimizing the causes of child labour. The main thrust should be on controlling the population of the country, education of the children and providing sufficient funds for its removal from the gross domestic product of India.
It is said that “A child without education, is like a bird without wings”.