Child labor is a major problem that is being faced by several developing as well as poor countries. Children are being treated as money making machines in many countries. Though starting from United Nations Organization to several NGO’s are trying to eradicate this problem completely for years, still they can’t manage to remove it completely till now. Surveys show that in the developing countries like India, 34.7% of workers who do household chores are children which have to be considered seriously by the society and government. Not only for household work and small chores, children are also being used in dangerous places like mines, crackers making, mega factories etc. This type of conditions is seen mostly in poor countries where people have to struggle to earn their living.
Reasons for prevalence of child labor:-
- The wage of the children is less when compared to adults. So most of the small entrepreneurs prefer to continue their work with children.
- The resistance offered by children to do things when compared to adults is less.
- All the children working as child labor belongs to poor families or orphans or children who ran away from home. So most of the times the responsibility and care that has to be taken for workers is less.
Negative Effects of child Labor:-
- The child who works as child labor will have no chance of improvement in his life.
- Children who are working as child labor don’t have time to complete their education. They usually lag behind in studies or completely stop their education before even completing high school.
- It is hard to escape from this viscous cycle and once anyone falls into this cycle, their life will be ruined completely.
- The economy and growth of the country faces lot of problems if children are not properly educated.
- Children who starts working at early stage have little parent monitoring so they are first target for illegal activities.
- Children working as child labor are easily addicted to drugs and thereby ruining their entire life.
- The ethical and moral support required for children at the tender age is out of box question for child labor.
Steps to be taken to resolve this social problem:-
- Government must take strict actions against the people who are responsible for child labor (brokers and people who employed children) and make their laws that can solve this problem from ground level.
- NGOs should work completely like identifying the child labor to enabling them to join in caring centers, which provide education and thereby provide hope to children.
- Create the awareness among parents of poor children about the importance of child education and educate them about the negative impacts of child labor.
- Government should build infrastructure and other facilities for compulsory education of children and they should implement all the international guidelines about child labor.
Finally, children are future of any country. If they are weak and not properly educated, it is not good for any country and it can’t develop. It is everybody’s responsibility to shape up healthy children with good education and high moral values.