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Articles: Business | World Economy & Child labour
- Mr. T.R.Sridhar Prasad. Uppalapati.
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The deployment of children in the front line exposes them to the risk of death and of serious injury, notably because they take more risks than adults. As well as risking injury, their involvement in killings and atrocities encourages their perception that violence is normal, and leaves some traumatized and many with difficulties in readapting to ordinary life. Even children attached to armed units who are not directly involved in fighting miss out on their education and other opportunities to develop social and economic skills, and are exposed to a variety of other risks, including HIV/AIDS and, in the case of girls, pregnancy and early motherhood.
Some children join armed groups voluntarily, while others are encouraged to do so or are forcibly abducted. ILO Convention No. 182 (1999) prohibits the worst forms of child labour and defines the “forced or compulsory recruitment” of children below 18 for use in armed conflict as one of these worst forms. Other international standards prohibit the recruitment of any children under 18 into non-government armed groups, and, while international standards allow States to recruit 16 and 17-year-old volunteers into their forces, some States have banned the recruitment of children into their armed forces altogether.
Child labour in Andhra Pradesh:
ANDHRA Pradesh has the dubious distinction of saving the highest incidence of child labour in India, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Despite the best efforts being put in by the State Government, the menace of child labour was still virulent in the society owing to growing population, poverty, ignorance of parents, apart from other economic and social constraints, according to ILO, which is currently sponsoring an international programme on elimination of child labour (IPEC) in the State, it had selected Andhra Pradesh the child labour endemic State to wipe out the practice on a large scale.
The ILO is of the view that child labour being an accepted reality in the State, bringing out attitudinal changes and changing social mindsets by way of sensitisation and capacity building could prove fruitful.
Development Solutions to Child Labour:
Empowering child labourers
A rights-based approach which relies on laws and their enforcement is insufficient in isolation because child labour is a dynamic feature of complex social and economic conditions. 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. Laws need to be complemented with development programmes which tackle the underlying causes of child labour and which recognise the practical difficulties in reintegration of children into formal education. Development agencies are also now more likely to acknowledge that children themselves should be consulted on the issues – for example many children are anxious to find ways of combining education with the economic expediency of helping their families.
The integration of child labour concerns into national development strategies, backed by effective legislation, is therefore the preferred route to a lasting solution. Reduction of chronic poverty through broad-based economic and social development, will create the platform for fundamental change in cultural attitudes towards children.
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