LOCAL NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

22,000 kids working as domestics in capital alone

Butwal, Apr. 11 (RSS): Of the total 7.9 million children between the age group of 5 to14 in the Kingdom of Nepal, about 2.5 million are child labourer.

According to a survey conducted by Child Labour Eradication Programme of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), some of the child labourer are involved in the agriculture, industry and households while some are being exploited as porters and street children.

Likewise, some children have been compelled to serve as bonded labourer to clear the loans taken by their parents while others have been trafficked to foreign countries for flesh trade.

Majority of these children are involved in despicable form of jobs within the country.

According to a Survey Conducted in the urban areas recently, about 55,000 children under the age of 18 have been involved as domestic servants. There are about 22,000 children under the age of 18 working as domestic servants in Kathmandu metropolis alone.

These child labourer are made to carry out domestic work for long hours in the house with little pay or without any allowance. Some of the child labourer are even exploited sexually while others are kept like prisoners within the house.

Likewise, about 42,000 children are being used for transporting construction materials for construction of roads in the country while about 3,900 children have been found working as porters in the urban market centers and bus parks.

Even though the Nepalese laws prohibits the children under the age of 16 to carry a load of more than 25 kilograms, the children have been found carrying loads upto 56 kilograms in the urban areas and an average of 35 kilograms along the muletracks of the hilly areas.

As a result of this serious and dangerous nature of work, the life span of the child labourer is expected to reduce by 20 to 30 years.

About 4,000 children of the urban areas earn a living by collecting plastic, metal and bottles from the garbage dumping sites, river banks and the corners of the streets.

These children have fallen victims of diseases like HIV/AIDS, and animals bites as well as criminals.

Likewise, about 17,000 children born in serfdom are found working in farms, teastalls, hotels, kilns, carpet factories, stone mines and households.

Even though His Majesty’s Government has banned bonded labourer from June, 2000, more than half of the bonded labourer are still working like slaves.

This information was given at a regional workshop on child labourer

Organised jointly by ILO and Ministry of Labour and Transport Management at Butwal recently.

Speaking on the occasion secretary at the Ministry of Labour and Transport Management Premnidhi Gyawali said that the civil society should serious about the rights of the child labourer as child labourer are an outcome of the social system, the tendency of giving low priority to children, illiterate parents, migration of people from the villages to the urban areas, poor family condition and education being out of reach of the children.

The Director of ILO expressed the view that commitment of the parents and the government is necessary to achieve the objectives of eradication of child Labour.

Mayor of Butwal Municipality Bhoj Raj Shrestha said that the local bodies should be made capable and a people’s awareness campaign launched for erdication of child Labour.

S. N. Baidya, director of the Labour and Employment Promotion Department and Devratna Tamrakar, under secretary at the Ministry of Labour and Transport Management said that effective steps should be taken for eradication of the despicable aspects of child Labour.

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