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Articles: Business | World Economy & Child labour
- Mr. T.R.Sridhar Prasad. Uppalapati.
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About one million children work in mines and the number is increasing.
The root causes of child domestic labour are multiple and multi-faceted. Poverty and its feminisation, social exclusion, lack of education, gender and ethnic discrimination, domestic violence, displacement, rural-urban migration and loss of parents due to conflicts and diseases, are just some of the multiple 'push factors' for child domestic workers worldwide. Increasing social and economic disparities, debt bondage, the perception that the employer is simply an extended 'family' and protected environment for the child, the increasing need for the women of the household to have a 'replacement' at home that will enable more and more of them to enter the labour market, and the illusion that domestic service gives the child worker an opportunity for education, are some of its 'pull factors'.
The hazards linked to this practice are a matter of serious concern. The ILO has identified a number of hazards to which domestic workers are particularly vulnerable and the reason it may be considered to be one of the worst forms of child labour. Some of the most common risks children face in domestic service are:
long and tiring working days;
use of toxic chemicals;
carrying heavy loads;
handling dangerous items, such as knives, axes and hot pans;
insufficient or inadequate food and accommodation, and
humiliating or degrading treatment, including physical and verbal violence, and sexual abuse.
These hazards need to be seen in association with the denial of fundamental rights of the children such as, for example, access to education and health care, the right to rest, leisure, play and recreation and the right to be cared for and to have regular contact with their parents and peers (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child). These factors can have an irreversible physical, psychological and moral impact on the development, health and well-being of the child.
Given the complexity of its root causes and impact, any effort to adequately and efficiently address child domestic labour must therefore be of a multidisciplinary, multi-faceted and integrated nature, and linked to the broader context of poverty reduction, elimination and prevention of the worst forms of child labour and promotion and enforcement of fundamental labour and human rights.
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