Deadline
2005
A LOT of children in Nepal do not get a fair
deal in life. Poverty goes to stunt their growth. They live in situations where many of
their rights are violated. One of the issues that are tellingly serious vis-à-vis
children’s rights is the rampant practice of child labour. An estimated 2.6 million
children in Nepal are working children. That so many children between the age of 5 and 14,
who collectively represent a whopping 41 per cent of the total population of children,
continue to toil away at an age when they are supposed to be going to school and enjoying
rights to proper physical and mental development is a national sore. What is even worse in
the child labour scenario is the fact that quite a sizeable number of children among those
2.6 million are suffering in some of the worst forms of child labour. Children in bonded
labour are one example of such forms of child labour. Eight-year-old kids having to log 16
hours of work in carpet factories would be another instance of the worst form of child
labour. While complete elimination of all forms of child labour can only be a long-term
goal given the socio-economic conditions of the Nepalese, there is no ground to believe
that the worst forms of child labour cannot be done away within a relatively shorter time.
The recently-launched Time Bound Programme against Child Labour, being implemented with
ILO assistance, gives hope that campaign against child labour may get an extra push. Nepal
is one of the three sample countries ILO has selected to launch this programme for
elimination of the worst forms of child labour. But the success of the programme depends
on how competently the programme is carried out and how partnerships with different
stakeholders are struck. Inaugurating a national stakeholder consultation on the programme
Tuesday, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala informed that government was in the process
of drafting a master plan for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour by 2005
and all forms of child labour by 2010 and was, in connection with this, in the process of
ratifying ILO Convention 182. Two deadlines have now been fixed. It is up to the concerned
to see that at least the first deadline is met successfully and the worst forms of child
labour become a thing of the past by 2006.
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