Short essay on child labor

Answer 1

Child labor creates unfair business practices. It harms the children forced to work at a young age and puts others who do not use child labor at a disadvantage for charging more for their services.

Answer 2

A rights-based approach which relies on laws and their enforcement is therefore insufficient in isolation from broader human development considerations. For example, authorities in India occasionally engineer police raids on suspect factories creating headlines that children have been "rescued". But such actions will be ineffective in the absence of institutional capacity to rehabilitate the children and assist their families in overcoming the loss of income.

Laws need to be complemented with development programmes which recognise the practical difficulties in reintegration of children into formal education. Development agencies are now more likely to acknowledge that children themselves should be consulted. Many children are anxious to find ways of combining education with the economic expediency of helping their families.

Formal global development strategies have tended to disregard the child labour agenda. For example, the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for school enrolment aims for a total of five years of education, far less than implied by child labour conventions. There is increasing realisation that vital MDGs for poverty, education and health will not be achieved whilst child labour thrives.

A cost/benefit analysis carried out by the UN in 2003 convincingly demonstrated the value of eliminating child labour by reference to the long term economic benefit of a more skilled and healthy workforce. As further evidence of interdependence, there is correlation between those countries lagging behind the MDG for education and those in which child labour thrives, such as Pakistan and Nepal. The integration of child labour concerns into national development strategies, backed by effective legislation, is therefore the preferred route to a lasting solution.

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Consumer Campaigns against Child Labour

Failure to deal with child labour is an emotive issue in rich countries. Consumers are sensitive to the track record of globalisation in driving labour costs and standards to the bottom.

Disclosure of the use of child labour in sweatshops represents a major public relations disaster for both multinational companies and the host countries concerned. One country under the microscope is Uzbekistan. Its economy is very dependent the cotton crop, much of which is harvested by children taken out of school. The country will almost certainly be forced to respond to the 2008 boycott of its cotton products by Wal-mart and other multinational retailers.

Another example is the cocoa industry in West Africa which has so far failed to meet deadlines in a longstanding attempt to certify its product. Critics say that international chocolate companies have made insufficient efforts to engage with the countries concerned in poverty reduction programmes. Almost 300,000 children are believed to work on the cocoa farms, many of them in conditions of bonded labour.

There are however doubts over the effectiveness of western-inspired consumer boycotts. These can result in sudden closure of production lines and devastating loss of household incomes, contributing little to address the root causes of child labour.

Answer 3

Short essay on child labor in India:

Child labor too little has changed with the practice of child labor in our country, despite tall promises made by our leaders. A good proportion of children throughout the world, especially in India, form a part of the working labour force.

Millions of children work in fields and factories, on street corners and in garbage dumps, in private houses and in 'public' houses. These children certainly would pose a threat to society, had they not be treated as equal and given opportunities to develop towards the best of their potential despite being poorly educated.

The existence of child labour in India is a complex reality. It is a symptom, however, not the disease.

Poverty is the principal factor for the prevalence of child labour. Large number of dependent children, parental illiteracy, unstable and poor income, and few income- generating assets remain the likely reasons for children ending up working rather than studying.

Ineffective laws and, more often, and the lack of political will implementing them have also contributed to the problem.

The constitutional vision (Article 45) of 'universal' and compulsory' education for all children up to the age of 14 prevails as an illusion.

The constitutional provisions arid legislations alone, however, could not combat the menace, unless supplemented by comprehensive socio-economic programs, educational uplift, with some change in the social psyche and the public attitude. The Government cannot be expected to achieve much on its own; it is essential to involve NGOs and.

Answer 4

Basically, it is the full time employment of children who are under minimum legal age.

Answer 5

Statement of tne problem in child labor