Child Labour: A Serious Problem

By Mohan K.C.

AS in every part of the developing world, Nepal too has its share of problems as regards its children. The all round physical, mental, intellectual and spiritual development of children is the responsibility of the state. These are the same children who are going to grow up and take up the responsibilities of the nation. This in itself points to the fact that adequate attention have to be paid for their development if they are to be responsible citizens in the years to come. As with everything, there has to be a clear cut policies and programmes for the welfare of the children in the coutnry.

Shocking

As per a survey conducted by Child Labour Eradication Programme of the International Labour Organisation, out of about 8 million children (5-14 years) in the country about 2.6 million eke out their living as child labourers. This is a shocking revelation for people in a country that have looked upon children as taking their lineage into future. The arrival of a child in a family is reason to celebrate. But, unfortunately, the majority of the people in the country are steeped in poverty, illiteracy and backwardness. These are the reasons why all the children have not been able to develop the way they should.

The government too has directed its efforts to seeing the development of children by committing itself to the promotion and protection of the rights of children as regards education, health care and their right to life. This is a worthy gesture. It is also in the right perspective that the government has given a great importance to educating the children. The opening up schools in every nook and corner of the country is definitely praiseworthy. This is the right step considering the fact that education opens up the door for the development of not only the individual concerned but for the country as a whole.

A look at the history of development of any country provides insight into the lead role of education. The countries that are lagging behind in overall development process are those where education has not become universal. Nepal too suffers from this malady. Being literate is one thing but becoming educated is another. Of course, the first step in gaining education is being literate. For this many programmes have been conducted. Although compulsory education for all children of school going age has not fully materialised, awareness for sending their wards to school among the people is on the rise. This is a welcome development. But there is a long way to go before total success can be achieved.

A problem with school enrolment is that the drop out rate of students is still high. It is only a sustained drive for economic prosperity that can bring down the school drop-out rate. For this industrialisation drive must pick up together with increase in agricultural productivity. If these are done the economic status of the people will become better and so there will be
complete enrolment of children in school and the drop out rate will fall. It will also discourage child labour which is so rampant today.

Child labour is an outshoot of economic deprivation of the 2.6 million child labourers, hundreds of them have been trafficked to alien countries as bonded labourers or to work as sex workers. These are matters to be greatly concerned about. As per a survey report, there are about 22,000 children under the age of 18 working as domestic servants in Kathmandu metropolis. This is enough to show how serious the problem is. It is not that all those children working have a safe life. Many are involved in works of hazardous nature. This is all against the provisions that the government has on its agenda. There is top priority on the protection of children’s rights but violations are taking place possibly because of the lack of action from the enforcement agencies.

Eradication

The basic reason as already mentioned above revolves around the poor economic status of the family of the children who are forced to work at a tender age. To overcome this, a concrete strategy has to be formulated so that the development activities in the country take place at a faster rate. Only economic development to the desired extent will be of great help in eradicating child labour. The problem of child labour has to be tackled with multi-pronged strategy including education and development.

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