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Gruesome picture of working children in Nepal.

By: Amit Pyakurel., Fri Dec 9th, 2005 04:32:45 PM

The children, whatever part of the world they may inhabit, are considered to be the substructure of the nation so as to support their country like a backbone in the future. They must be molded in a right way to make them a right person in their adulthood. Despite this fact, it’s awful to illustrate that about 30-million children from the whole world including developing and developed ones, are under the benefit of their minimum rights as getting devoid from education and affection from their parents and elders and being persuaded to the laborious works which are mostly inapt for their physical and mental capabilities.

The designation of the term “child labor” subjects to the mistreatment of the children by the means of employment in the factories, hazardous environment, and even ranging from the small scale organizations to the household activities. Moreover, it’s considered that, the child labor had made its steadiness in the agriculturally dominant countries, like ours. A cursory glance in the streets, at any busy hotel, restaurants, or the dusty junctions of the bus-parks or the fields of cities of Kathmandu or any other urban areas, can make us see that children are either collecting obnoxious wastes from the garbage-heaps, or washing the loads of dishes beside the dirty accommodations, serving tea or meals, or coaxing passengers as juvenile conductors to get into their respective vehicles, or working hard for the long uncomfortable hours in garments or factories.

The children from the villages are often exiled to the cities, willfully or by the force of their elders in order to search for an occupation, which are often intended to support their family income, and get rid of the burden of raising a child. Mostly, it’s considered worthy enough to send the children to the work rather than to the educational sectors, as if the education doesn’t take much value in his/her life and is a mere waste of time. The girl children are in the majority to face the educational deprivation as their parents thinks that education comes to no use if they are to go to their groom’s home after marriage. So, the more children tend to suffer from this disadvantage is from migrated and minor groups following ignorant background. Even in their rural habitat, children are not free of any kind of rigorous physical jobs. Fetching water, collecting firewood, grazing cattle, caring for younger children, and helping elders, is often irrefutable from their daily routine. And, the problem becomes more sustaining when they are migrated to the cities, as they are more likely to get engaged in carpet and garment industries, confectioneries, brick kilns, roads and building constructions, transportation and stone quarries.

The foremost reason for a child to be employed happen to be seen is because they are the cheap source of labor, meek, and uncomplaining. An employee can treat them as a machine, uncaring of their ability and make out a big profit in a less expenditure. With the latest research it’s been found that the children aging between 6-14 years are economically active, in the domestic sectors by 21.4% and in the non-domestic sectors by 4.1%, and from the total number 26.3% in rural areas, 16.7% from urban areas, and 50.2% from the bonded-family areas. By this they are being undoubtedly deprived from the development of the physical, social, emotional, educational, and spiritual circumstances. Whenever the children are being employed they often lacks the permanent shelter and guardianship and acquisition of basic requirements becomes their priority.

They are vulnerably subjected to the risk of violence or crime, concerning factors like HIV or other hazardous diseases, and also tortures or even sexual violence and exploitation.

The UN convention on the child-rights has ensured every child in the world to have comfortable living and the minimum right for survival. The child rights mainly concerns on the protection from the exploitation and harm. Child abuse has been the rigid structure chiefly in the third world countries, like in the Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where they are mostly abused physically, socially, and economically and are subjected to as many as 65 different labor sectors. The Nepali government has also mounded the legislations regarding the elimination of the child labor, as the children aging fewer than 14 years are restricted to be employed. But the law is not a big issue unless it is implemented. As the child labor is the cause and consequence of the socio-economic and political reality, it should be mended from the root as of creating the alternative opportunities for the children, who are taken-out from the current employment. Simply parting them from work can be meant for no avail, but actually working to make their lives better educationally and economically can craft them to stand strongly in their future. The awareness should be campaigned to alter the guardian’s and children’s attitudes themselves. If they are intellectually strong then they can make their own way-out from this kind of grudging social structure and build themselves to be an eligible citizen in their adulthood.

About the author: Student, age 22, interested in worldwide policital matters.

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