Little help!

Recently I read an article on Child labour and I have to say it moved me. Before reading that article, my thoughts were as clear as the sky in a blue sunny day but now  I see clouds gathering up. I am in a position where I can’t decide which one is more punishing for a child, working or not working.

We all have been taught in our high schools that child labour is bad as:-

1. it does not allow a child to grow in a natural way.
2. they are punished, beaten and harassed both mentally and physically.
3. they are paid less and are forced to work more.
4. due to overtime working they can’t attend schools and some can’t even get enough time to play which results in abnormality.
5. sometimes they are not even paid for their work.
6. they have no medical attention provided or any additional holidays given.

Yes, this side of picture is very disturbing. Just the picture of small children working more than 16 hours a day to make enough to fill their tummies sounds very unethical.

But are we completely ignoring the fact that almost all these children have opted to work by themselves or by their closed ones? There is no denying that this kind of life is hard, rough and unfair but for poor family, life is all about survival.

Family problems

In most of the developing countries like India, Brazil and almost all the under-developed countries, have a large portion of their population lying below poverty line. Many of these families are under the critical conditions. They have either some or completely no education, no money to support their lives and their earnings are very less. On top of it, the child birth rate is high. On an average there are more than 4 children per family(due to the lack of education). Furthermore the Governments is unable to reach these family, who are living in slums and streets, and are unable to lift their living conditions. According to text-books, education is the only medicine to help these family to rise above poverty. Countries like India which has “right to education” act, which means free education to all but even this right is meaning less to these families, as they can’t afford the books and basic materials and even if they get these somehow they are not serious about education. The main motto of education for them is to know enough so that they can read a bit and can do simple mathematics (so that they don’t get cheated at their work place). The mentality is simple, more children equal more earning members equals more earning so that they all can afford two time’s meal. Furthermore in many places such as dhaba (road side small restaurant), tea stall, house (as a servant) they get food, clothes, money by their costumer and owners during work and specially during festivals, which is a bonus to them.

Ground reality

Countries like Brazil, India, Pakistan have the some of  largest slum areas in the world, in which many families live in such a condition where there is no proper ventilation, no water supply, no electricity, no sewage system, no toilets, no schools, no medical shops. They live in a place where roads are made up of mud and cow shit and air has more toxic gases than oxygen. Smoke, flies and darkness is all that they have, nothing more. Furthermore the social tension arises by the dirty politics and diseases are more than enough for them to handle. The death by communal violence and deadly diseases are very high. They have no identity, no Aadhaar card, no rashan card, no voter id. Government has turned a blind eye to them a long time ago, in fact they are causing pain to them by clearing slums (the only thing that they have) for constructional purposes.

            So, if you  step into their shoes, then only you will understand their problems. They are doing what ever it takes to get a piece of bread, to get out of slums and may be opening their own stalls or some kind of small business by saving money and most importantly to survive.

Legalising Child labour

There is no hope from the government, either from the State Government or the Union government as these people are not in voter’s list. There are world organisations to stop child labour but no organisation to help these children to have at-least basic requirement fulfilled and if there is any institution then it is a big failure. When we say “no ! child labour is a crime”, most of us are just sitting in an A.C room having a hot supper. We are not wrong but we are not right either. Is it not that thoughts are relative rather than absolute? Just like in physics when we say an object is in rest, it is with respect to that person(reference frame). the same object can be moving with respect to other object(reference frame). Should not it be that child labour should be considered a crime only if a family which is above poverty line is forcing its child to work? Should not we legalise it for the extremely poor ones and for those children who has no family to get support from? We know the condition of Indian orphanage, first of all, they are very limited in number and second, there are many reports of child abuse (raping, beating, selling them to slavery and brothels and even selling their body parts like kidneys).

          So why not give them a chance to stand on their own legs? If we legalise child labour and pass a law giving strict rules on their working conditions and fix a minimum wages, working hours and a minimum age, yes it won’t be beneficial to all the working children but it will definitely help many of them. It is the fear of law that makes the employer to pack them in a small dark places to work, if we loose this law may be their condition get improve a bit. For instance, in India, diamond cutting industries are the largest recruiter of children (generally of age more than 10 years) as they have sharp eye and thin fingers to handle small, delicate and precious diamonds. But the fear of government has forced these industries to lock these children into non habitable small rooms. If the law comes in then these industries will have more degrees of freedom. They can provide each employee an identity, a more habitable place to work, medical attentions, regular payments and even bonuses and all the perks that an employee should get. Regularising this law will make the child to file a case against the industry against any cheating and misbehaviour without the fear of dragging their own loved ones into the court.

Conclusions

Anyway, we are not effective in removing child labour. We see them in tea stalls and call them “chotu”, take them as servants, use the crackers in Diwali made by them, wear the diamond necklace polished by them. We have accepted their work but has not accepted them working! Who are we fooling?

         The conclusion is something that one draws after knowing both sides of the coin. I will leave it up to you to choose one side or none (just like me). But at the end let me tell you one last thing, it’s lot easy to choose a side from the right and the wrong ones than  choosing a side from two wrong ones.