CHILD LABOUR- A COMMON STUDY OF IT IN INDIA AND BANGLADESH

India and Bangladesh are very similar countries with similar issues like child labour. Both of these are South East Asian countries and have been through the rule of the British Empire. These include the similar causes like illiteracy, lack of family options, lower wages and poverty which forces them into this unbalanced world. Children are also more suited in making fireworks and locks and so is a more preferred option of labour.

          During our research we also found out that juveniles are not aware of any of the risks or the horrible conditions that they would be forced to work in.

                   UNICEF has stated that illiteracy being one of the major causes in both nations is not resolved as proven by, “In Bangladesh school attendance is virtually the same for boys and girls aged 7-14 years. In the latter, 91 per cent of 7-11 year-old girls and 90 percent of similarly aged boys are in school; and 80 per cent for girls and 76 percent for boys in the 12-14 years age range. In India, among 7-11 year old children, boys’ attendance exceeds girls’ by four percentage points, and among 12-14 year-olds, it exceeds 10 percentage points.”

                   Even though both the countries have a literacy policy ‘National Literacy policy’ by the government of Bangladesh and the ‘Right To Education’ by the Indian government. Though these laws are being violated and very little is being done by the countries to help protect the educational rights of the child.

                             Agriculture is a most common and the most densely populated sector of child labour in both the countries being 65% in Bangladesh and 80% in India.

                   Since India is a big country it has more funds in order to eradicate child labour but that is where the population kicks in as the greater the population the more children are under child labour thus the funds required are relatively greater having the same effect on the country’s ability to alleviate children.

                             The other major areas of employment of children in India are the mining and the fireworks industry whereas in Bangladesh it is the construction, industrial, as street hawkers and even as home workers thus having relatively larger sectors of child labour than India.

                             This study of the commonalities and differences between these two societies can be done on a much larger scale. This is a glimpse into how we can tackle the issue of child labour affectively by focusing on common areas of concern.

                                                                  

References

https://www.unicef.org/protection/files/UCW_Gender_summary_TCfinal.pdf

CAUSES OF CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA AND ITS EFFECT ON THE FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY

India is home to over a billion people and one of the major problems is not only corruption but it also is child labour.

There are 10.1 million children employed (4.5million are girls and 5.6 million are boys) are mainly forced to work in: Tea plantations

                                                              Cotton plantations

                                                               Matches and fireworks

                                                               Mining

                                                              Lock making industries

The state of Uttar Pradesh itself has an astonishing 2.1 million laborers while the state of Bihar has a Million laborers and Tamil Nadu has 125,000 laborers

Some of the major causes of child labour identified by UNICEF are “The poverty and illiteracy of a child’s parents, the family’s social and economic circumstances, a lack of awareness about the harmful effects of child labour, lack of access to basic and meaningful quality education and skills training, high rates of adult unemployment and under-employment, and the cultural values of the family and surrounding society.”

Juveniles that are absolutely unaware are also at a very high risk of being forced into this business.

As it has been stated by ‘Poverties’ “Everyone agrees that child labor is a plague but most families know they don’t have much choice: not putting a child to work means there won’t be enough food on the table for everyone.”

Another major cause would be the lack of option for a family.

So how about this is looked into and the world is given a better choice to help eradicate and save the young souls.

Child Labour is at an all-time high in scheduled tribes and the kids are subject to physical, sexual and emotional abuse. This is a bad omen for the future of the country, where its backward classes remain trapped in their backward socio-economic setup.

The physiological and the physiological effects of child labour leave an unmanageable number of people with mental health issues in the upcoming generations.

Due to unhygienic work conditions and an extremely tight work schedule all lead to a very lower morale of kids sending them into depression and the dirty work space and bad healthcare lead to a greater mortality rate and in turn obscuring the country’s economic growth due to the lack of an efficient workforce that can only be achieved by a greater literacy rate.

References:

http://unicef.in/Whatwedo/21/Child-Labour

http://www.indiacelebrating.com/social-issues/child-labour-in-india/

https://www.poverties.org/blog/child-labour-in-india

http://www.childlineindia.org.in/child-labour-india.htm

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3425238/

CAUSES OF CHILD LABOUR IN BANGLADESH AND ITS EFFECT ON THE FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY

Child labour is a widely accepted and a very common occurrence in Bangladesh, although outlawed. There are more than 7.9 million child labours overall in the country, with the number still rising. This was told after the child labour survey in 2002 and 2003 by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. However, the government continues to work against it with the labour act in 2006 which included a page on child labour. Along with the act the government had put into force a national educational policy where education is free and it is compulsory for every child to obtain education till grade 8. In Bangladesh the main sectors which have child labour are: agriculture, industrial, street hawkers, construction sections and vehicles as conductors, in workshops etcetera.  In the agricultural sector it is not only the hardships of farming which drain over them but also the manufacturing of pesticides and other chemicals used in the agricultural industry with which they have direct contact thus affecting their health. 65% of these labours have jobs which lead them to work for 9-14 hours a day on an average.

                   There have been a large number of effects of child labour in the country which ranges from the ones currently in poverty continuing to do so and that doesn’t solve the problem but only makes it worse. Apart from the rural areas there has been a huge report of child labour from urban areas as well. These causes can even lead to early deaths (adolescent mortality) and further diseases which would prevail in children through their lives. The future growth of the country is largely stunted because a big number of its population has grown out of illiteracy due to child labour. This has been proven by a survey which showed the drop in school attendance. Illiteracy in children later leads to illiteracy in the next generation because studies have proven that parental education shows curtailment of child labour, thereby stopping the trade-off between schooling and child labour.

REFERENCES

http://repository.library.du.ac.bd/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/886/Masudur%20Rahman.pdf?sequence=1

https://www.unicef.org/bangladesh/Child_labour.pdf

https://www.ammado.com/community/108657/articles/9863

http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jbm/papers/Vol16-issue6/Version-3/C016632536.pdf

https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=ACE2004&paper_id=136

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1781398/

http://www.westerlycentre.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/1661226/salma_adewupdated_version.pdf

Child Labour Skit

GSIS Child Labour Awareness Drive

Initial Research and Mind Maps

GSISCHILD LABOUR AWARENESS DRIVE

On the 1^st of December 2016 (that is the World Aids Day), the middle school students of Good Shepherd International School drove to the Ooty town in order to spread awareness about child labour among the people who reside there. The sole purpose was met by the distribution of pamphlets which contained information regarding child labour in India along with its negative effects there were pictures to accompany them. The information was printed on both sides. On one side in English and the other side was printed in Tamil so that not only the English speaking population learned about this harmful yet sensitive topic but also the natives who were not familiar with English. We made a round trip as we started from the Ooty bus stand and back. We round trip passed through the Municipal market, Chairing cross and the Community hall along with the bus stand. We carried a banner for this campaign as well, which was stuck on we bus. To our surprise, many of the people who seemed to be in a real hurry stopped to receive the pamphlets even if we couldn’t actually stay and listen to what it was all about. Many people who were going about their daily lives were ready to listen to the students as we briefed what the entire drive was all about. A large number of taxi drivers were really interested to know about our campaign and it really could be read by our expressions how they actually understood the importance of this topic. All of us had really enjoyed the drive as each and every one of us had been put in a small team which was done on random with teachers and every one of us got to give out pamphlets as all the teams went in a different direction and came back together. The campaign not only divulged information to the students about child labour but also gave them a firsthand experience of distributing pamphlets on the streets which were packed with tourists and people going about their daily lives. We even learned about the different mindsets of the people as some were supporting child labour as they might have not identified it as anything negative. We, as we started had it in our minds that many people would surely be aware of this topic but to our surprise many were not aware of this topic as such and even that they were not taking it as anything negative as the child had agreed to do so but, the most important factor is that even if it is not forced, at the end of the day it is something which needs to be eradicated and taken care of.

Drama - Child Labour

The drama on the subject of Child Labour presented by Middle School went through many stages: first, we had started by discussing the problems faced by the children of many countries such as Bangladesh, India, UK, Congo and Nigeria. The research and discussions did not take as much time as writing the script, for we wanted the drama to have an impact on the audience. As soon as the script was finalized, we had begun practicing. While practicing we had learned a lot; not only about child labour but also on how to feel a character and how other countries communicate.

·       What the drama was meant to convey?

Awareness of children suffering around the world because they have to work instead of receiving an education.

·       How did the drama begin?

The drama began with a song sung by the character.

During the drama, the child laborers were represented as puppets to show their suffering. This made the drama more creative and innovative.

·       Scene 1

Scene 1 displayed the plight of the young mothers in Bangladesh who were forced to get married at very young ages.

·       Scene2

Scene 2 described the situation of the young boy soldiers in Congo, who were forced to fight in dangerous wars at the tender age of 12. In this scene, the soldiers suffer in war or have to face death.

·       Scene 3

Scene 3 talks about child miners in India, who were forced to mine in gold mines and at times had died on their jobs. This scene is very tragic, as one of the miners die due to internal collapsing in the mines. In this scene, the children come out of work with aches and pains and sometimes suffer by losing one of their legs or eyes or sometimes even both.

·       Scene 4

Scene 4 talks about the children who have to sell wares at red lights and roadsides to earn a living, but unfortunately, no one is ready to buy the chocolates sold by them.

·       Scene 5

This scene explains about how a girl becomes an orphan and is forced to work for a farmer without being paid. She has a friend who has gone through the same life story as her. They are asked to pick berries. They share their plight with each other but there is no respite.

·       Scene 6

This scene tells us that towards the end of their sufferings, they die. To help make the scene have a bigger impact on the audience, the characters sang the song they started with in the beginning of the play but instead change the music to show the pain and trauma of these children, as they experienced it through their individual life situations.

·       Conclusion

The moderator for the interactive session was the drama director, Ms. Amy.

During the interactive session, the audience posed questions as well as shared their opinions regarding the skit or the issue that it dealt with. The audience offered several solutions and had many misconceptions further clarified as an outcome of the session.

This skit did not only teach and convey important messages to the audience but also a learning process for the characters.

After the characters presented the skit, the characters had a discussion regarding what we learned through all the stages of research, discussion, making, practicing and executing. This last session let the actors reflect on their own experience of displaying this subject on the stage.

Research and Mind Maps

Child labour is a growing concern in today’s world with more and more kids being employed in the labour sector due to an increase in parental education which increases the unemployment rate of adults that eventually lead to children being employed in the primary industries as that is the place where a less amount of skill is required and the kids also demand in less payment, therefore, benefitting companies.

Some of the countries that we looked into were India, Bangladesh, Congo, Nigeria and UK. These countries were chosen for our research due to the Socio-economic reasons and the lack of education.

The countries of India and Bangladesh have massive child labour issues with over 12.6 million child laborers hired mainly in the mining, fireworks and weaving industries just because the cost of labour is lower and kids with their smaller hands are better suited for the job. Furthermore, these laborers are not even provided with basic sanitation and food requirements let alone education till primary school. Even the giant sports brand ‘Nike’ has employed mainly kids to manufacture their products in the Asian Sub-Continent.

While on the other hand, it is mainly due to economic reasons that over 20 million children are made to beg on the streets or become street vendors.

Child labour was thriving in the UK during the mid-nineteen due to the start of the industrial revolution where coal was in high demand. Though the number of child laborers has seen a drastic decrease but some of them still are employed in small primary sectors.

Though the world has not lost hope as organizations such as the ILO (International Labour Organization), IPEC (International Program to Eliminate Child Labour) and the UN HRC (United Nations Human Rights Council) are all working towards upholding the rights of child labourers and due to this the number of child workers has seen a steady but fast decrease. The UN also observes June 12^th as the International Day against Child Labourers.

Our Story So far ...

Our Story So far ...

We started off with a research done by the middle school students which culminated with a mind map of their findings. Hence, we got a broad view of what child labour means and how it can effect a child.
Next, we spoke to the underprivileged within the school community. We noted down, as they explained, the sufferings of their economic struggle and living conditions. This created an understanding of the reasons of child labour and helped us to gain an insight about the issue and how it may perpetuate in the immediate neighbourhood.
This talk was followed by a detailed research on 4 different countries which have maximum rates of child labour - Congo, Nigeria, Bangladesh, United Kingdom and India. As a result of the study, we prepared and presented a skit to the rest of the school community, a small skit that emphasized our analysis of how child labour is present in the four countries.
We did not stop within the school community and stretched our hands out to spread awareness beyond the four walls of our school, to the Ooty town.We went forth on a rally to the town, on 1st December 2016, with an aim of interacting and spreading awareness amidst the local community.

SPREADING AWARENESS WITHIN THE SCHOOL

 TALKING TO THE LOCAL COMMUNITY

AWARENESS DRIVE