A Presentation on Child Labour

1. Dr. S. Prakash
Principal
Thiagarajar College of Preceptors,
Madurai

2. PROBLEM OF CHILD-LABOUR

4. A Large number of children under the
age of 14 serving as menials in Hotels, Factories,
Agricultural firms, Shops or Work shop to earn a
paltry sum as wage. Most of the very young girls are
employed as domestic maid servants to do house hold
work. These are the children whom we call ‘CHILD-
LABOUR’.

5.  Factors Related to Family Environment
 Factors Related to Economic Conditions of
the Family
 Factors Related to Social Environment in
Family
 Education Related Factors

6.  Illiteracy of parents
 Parents being Alcoholic addicts
 Elder children have to take care of the younger
siblings at home.
 No permanent dwelling place.

7. Factors Related to Economic
conditions of the Family
Most of the Young children take up some odd jobs to
augment the income of the poverty-ridden family.
For those parents who are not able to provide one square
meal a day to the children , sending them to school is a
luxury.
Ill –health and old-age of parents.

8.  Most parents in the society think that girls need not
be educated.
 Forcing the girl children to help in the household
chorus of close relatives and others.
 Children who run away from their homes end up
as food servers or table cleaners in town
restaurants.

9. Education Related Factors
Lack of aptitude of children in education
Teachers’ high-handedness and corporal
punishments given in schools frighten the
children.
Education remains uninteresting for
children; the learning process is not made
a joyful affair.

10. CHILD-LABOURERS’ PLIGHT / PROBLEMS
 Children working as child-labourers miss the joyful
childhood days and the curiosity to learn and are forced
to work than 8 hours per day. They are treated almost as
bonded labourers.
 Though they work for more than 8 hours a day like adult
labourers, they are not paid wages on par with them.
 Female child-labourers become prey for sex torture and
some of them become unwed mothers.

11. Due to bad companionship, most of the child-
labourers become addicted to intoxicants like
alcohol, opium, smoking etc..
These children are neither educated nor
vocationally trained and their productivity is very
low.
The problem of child-labour eats away the
potential human resources of our country, apart from
affecting our exports as a result of producing poor
quality goods by employing cheap child-labour
available.

12. Governments’ penal actions
The law banning the child-labour should be
enforced seriously. The vigilance squad officers including the
inspectors of health and industrial safety should conduct
surprise raids periodically to book the employers violating the
ban of child-labour and get them awarded maximum
punishment including jail term and high amount of penalty.

13. All the voluntary agencies working in
a particular area, concerned with the protection of
child-rights and eradication of child-labour should get
united and coordinate their functions in surveying the
children (below the age of 15) living in that area,
meeting the parents of former child-labourers and
offer suitable personal counselling, arranging for the
child labourers non-formal education classes, short
term training courses in cottage industries, undertaking
awareness programmes among the general public on
child-labour etc…

14. Make the school climate and educational
practices more pleasant and warm
The school climate should neither be intimating
nor insulting the children.
Teacher-pupil ratio should be low so as to pay
increased individual attention to students.
Better educational practices like Activity Based
Learning(ABL) , Playway method of teaching etc.
should be strengthened. Schools should be clean and
neat.

15.  In unavoidable conditions, when children are not
able to attend schools, they should have opportunities to
attend alternate schools which work on a fixed daily
schedule, convenient to child-labourers.
Industrial establishments should also be encouraged
to provide part-time education to its young employees.
The scheme of SARVA SIKSHAABIYAN should be
vigorously implemened.

16.  June 12th is observed every year as the ‘Child-
Labour Eradication Day.
 On that day special programmes like processions,
organising human-chain, cycle-processions, cultural
events etc. could be organised to increase public
awareness about child-labour.
 on November 14th (Birthday of Nehru) when
Children’s Day is observed, as part of it child-
labour awareness programmes could be under taken.

17.  It is very heartening to note that the number of
school drop-outs and children unattending
schools are decreasing year which is itself an
indication of the slow eradication of the system
of child-labour.