Wikipedia describes child labor as “the practice of having children engage in economic activity, on part or full time”.
But it is more than just that. It robs a five year old of the freedom to enjoy their evenings, playing with their friends; it robs the twelve year old of the chance to go to school and educate himself about the wonderful world he has been born into.
Child labor kills a child’s freedom to dream.
Her day starts with washing clothes for the washer man and ends with her fetching water for her neighbor. And during the day you would find her doing the dishes for the small tea-shop, going to the market to shop for the vendors around and doing all sorts of such odd jobs to sustain herself and her family of six.
This is the story of the nameless kids, the unfortunate victims of child labor. This is the story of thousands of Chotus and Chutkis. Two meals a day is a luxury for them and going to school, a Utopian concept. We may feel that we are aware of their situation and what they go through, but the reality is that we have no clue about the amount of sufferings which they have to go through.
Gullible, easy to be exploited and dominated over, and hence children fall prey to the trap of child servitude. Poverty, lack of education and a proper perspective drives children from the distressed families to work for corporate giants which include stone cutting industry and mining industry and also dhabas, tea stalls and restaurants, more often engaging in jobs which are considered ‘hazardous’.
India is sadly known to harbor the largest number of child laborers in the world. The census found an increase in the number of child laborers from 11.28 million in 1991 to 12.59 million in 2001. Most of these kids work for very meager wages, under very poor work conditions resembling situations of slavery. And if that is not worse enough, instances of physical, emotional and sexual abuse has also been reported in thousands of cases.
The amounts of physical exhaustion these children go through often cause deformities to their bodies as they grow up. Being so familiar to the hell-hole they work in, they never know a better life. Many are driven out of their homes, overcoming all geographical and climatic adversities to ‘perform’ for our benefit and entertain us. All in pursuit to keep their stomachs filled and their families contained.
“Bonded child labor” refers to the phenomenon of children working in conditions of servitude in order to pay off a debt. In crude terms this refers to slavery. Often children are sold to the bond masters because of their parents’ failure to pay off a debt. Lives of millions of innocents are bartered off in such ways. They work in sordid conditions, for long hours and even then fall short in paying off due to appallingly low wages and sky-high rates of interest.
All these abysmal work conditions involuntarily force them to fall prey to many social evils like underage drinking, drug abuse and physical violence. Their mental behavior is compromised with. The concept of child labor is not a recent one. It has been in practice in the United Kingdom since the time of the Industrial revolution, of which we find references in many of William Blake’s poems.
While we crib about what to eat, being spoilt for choice; millions of the unfortunates make do with one morsel of bread for the entire day. While we complain about the summer heat in our air conditioned homes and take trips to the shopping mall to buy ‘shades’ to protect our eyes, millions of the impoverished each day are losing their visual senses because of the gruesome work conditions.
Despite the numerous laws making child servitude illegal, thousands of innocents each day are falling prey to this atrocity due to lack of proper enforcement and inspection from the government’s side. All it takes to find loopholes is a stack of unaccountable cash, changing hands under the table. It is time that we make people aware of the situation and instill in them the spirit to work for these innocents so that the world is a better place for them to be. It’s one thing to understand something and another to actually go through it. That is one of the reasons why child labor still exists, and it needs to change soon.
This post is a part of our #SaveTheKids Campaign. To check out more posts from this campaign, click here.
