Can child labour be a moral issue? Definitely not, even though child labour is a very obvious way for poor families to get income for the family. It sounds good, doesn’t it? Others taking care of their children for them, they are fed at the same time and they get work experience as well. What is the harm in that? There is no harm! If you were thinking that, you are surely going to be proved wrong. These children are not being taken care of; instead they are being bullied and taken advantage of. They are kept to work for extremely long hours everyday, fed the minimum amount of the lowest quality food, no medical attention and even if there were, it would be the poorest quality. Some children don’t even get a salary when the rest would get such low income and such little food that they can’t keep a stable and growing body. They work for such long hours every day, and sleep for so few hours that they have very low tolerance and are then vulnerable to many sicknesses and health hazards. The environments they work in are awfully dirty and dangerous- both physically and health wise. They are beyond doubt treated with the worst manner. They are punished if they disobey, they are whipped or beaten severely if they rebuke the work commanded to them, one way or the other, this may result with execution. Imagine vast majorities of India’s children population treated like this.
Puttan is a victim of child labour. He was only 7 years of age when he was already working in a carpet manufacturing business. He was forced out of his family and then sent away together with hundreds of other children alike him. He works for fifteen hours each day, every single day in a year. He has a salary of 25p each week, therefore 4 pounds a month. Comparing his salary to the price of carpet, the hours he is working in and the fact that he was forced out from his family, 36 pounds a year is dreadfully low. Each carpet made is sold for thousands of pounds. He can’t and doesn’t dare to run away since he’ll be beaten if he is caught trying. He was taken away because he was young, he had nimble fingers, he was easier to control and his owner could’ve got away with refusing his salary.
Education is essential in a child’s youth; it is the direction of predictable success. The children, who are taken away perhaps when they are only aged 6, are already forced to head in the opposite direction. And once they are there, they are trapped, they may never be able to leave their labour work until they are teenagers or even older. If they have no education when they were younger, then they cannot possible get a job when they are older and there is no one to take care of them. It is awfully heart wrenching to see that they have neither rights nor control in their lives when they don’t know they actually do have children’s rights. These children who are abandoned tend to grow up as thieves or criminals in order to survive.
Does the government help? Yes, they are helping and protecting those younger than 14 years old, as stated in Article 24 of the Indian constitution in 1985, “No child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or employed in any hazardous employment.” Article 39 (e) states that “the health and strength of workers…and the tender age of children are not abused and that citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their age or strength”. This is from the constitution of India broached in Human Rights Watch in 1996. The government of India did try to improve the child labour situation proving by both these articles. Another way of improving this issue is achieved by UNICEF. This organisation takes care of orphans and children and ensures child rights and strives to let children live in dignity. They provide education, reduce childhood deaths and illness and above all, they protect them. However, there may still be millions out there who are not under protection and are still suffering like how these children did.
945