CHILD LABOR IN INDIA
The issue of child labor in India has been a serious problem over these years, and the Indian government is just obviously mum about it. During the Congressional Conference which held on 25 July 1995, the Honorable Dan Burton of India testified that the exploitation of child labor in India has been going on and has become very rampant in most of the industries in the country. Undoubtedly, the Indian government has been abusive over the minorities in Kashmir and Punjab. Human rights is not really recognized and never practiced in a right way in Indian government. In this connection, the United States government and various international agencies and communities have paid attention to the wide-spread child labor in the said country. For them, it is a high time that this abusive treatment to the Indian children must be put an end.
Furthermore, the children who are 14 years below are forced to work in glass-blowing, fireworks, and carpet-making factories. It has been reported that there are about 50 million children laborers in the country. This child labor exploitation is very prevalent in the northern part of India, where the child labor exploitation is already a normal practice in the communities due to severe poverty conditions of the many households in the region. In addition to that, carpet industry is one of the business sector that has the largest number of child labor record. And, what makes it even worse than the issue is the very low wages that the children receive from these factories. The scenario is the adult laborers refuse to work under that low wages, and so, the factory owners are recruiting children to do the job that the adult workers turned down because of the unjust compensation rate given to them. Aside from that, the youngsters are working in unsafe, hazardous, unhygienic working environment. The worst thing in this issue is the parents just allow their children to undergo this abusive working condition because most of the parents do not have sources of income, or if there are, they also earn very low wages that cannot suffice the needs of the entire household. Many children, are out of school because they need to work at an early stage to help their families in order to survive their daily living. The children have to work for long hours in a day, (12 hours per day), and they just allowed to take a very short break for their meals. Most of the children are malnourished because they are deprived of the legal break-time for them to have enough rest and have the proper way to eat food. Additionally, the children are not even allowed to go home after work. They are stay-in young laborers; and they just sleep alongside of their working areas which caused the children to acquire various illnesses and led them to poor health conditions.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_India )
Although, several international agencies have been working hard to eliminate this child labor problem among the 75 percent of the children population in India. Likewise, the Indian government has awaken by this desperate labor conditions of children, is taking some steps of at least lessen the major problem in the country. In this regard, the Indian government just implemented a law that prohibits the employment of children under age of 14. But, children who work in a family-owned factories are excluded from the labor restrictions. Just the same, the children labor law is not followed and applied strictly. Many family-owned factories do not abide with the law. Though, there are government policies and labor mandate for the factory owners who will violate the labor regulation, still they are not truly respected by many factory owners.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_India )
Legal interventions just paved the way for few positive results , and they have very minimal effects on the proliferation of child labor in India. Thus, an extensive reform process is necessary to eliminate the wide-spread child labor abuses and practices in India which strives to end the desperate poverty in the nation. The writer is looking at the possibilities of changing the employment structure in the country can help to at least minimize the problem. Another recommendation is the building of accessible schools so that children will have the great chance to go to school even without money in their pockets. The most important part here is the “”awakening” among the children and their families that their rights as children must be respected by all members of their society, as well as to practice those rights in the right manner for the betterment of their well-being as children. And with the major intervention of the United States of America together with the international agencies that mostly advocate for the protection of human rights of children from all parts of the world; this advocacy will be soon achieved.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_India )
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_India
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