JOURNAL
Children’s Rights International
Justice is Hope
An Initiative of World Congress on Family Law and Children’s Rights Inc.
Problems and prospects of child labour in rural Karnataka
Press Release
Dr Venkata Narayana,
Bangalore, 18/12/2007
The present study is an attempt to examine the prevalence of child labour in rural Karnataka and its contribution to livelihood security among HHs in rural areas. The primary data were collected from a field setting consisting of two villages located in two diverse socio-economic and regional setting in the district of Kolar in Southern Karnataka.
The major findings of the study
Child labour, as seen against the perspective of this study, is different from the work in which children are engaged in at household level activities. It is not always true that they have left school for work, if not they would have continued their studies. There are other reasons for dropping out. Irrespective of caste and class differences, children are engaged in household level activities. But it is more among households from lower classes. However, among the upper caste and class groups, children are found engaged in household related activities. Working for wages is prevalent more among the lower castes. Ignorance and illiteracy of parents is the supportive factors for child labour in the study area. They have a pessimistic view of the benefits of education. This has led to increase in drop out rate, temporarily though, as children’s assistance is sought in a variety of household and land based work. There is absence of an environment to inculcate in the minds of parents, the value of education. Therefore, despite being in school, children lack discipline, study habits etc., and can be easily disturbed from studies by many forces working in the opposite direction. They include other children who are drop-outs. Parental attention is lacking in many cases where poverty and landlessness drove the parents to work outside the village and for long hours. Girl children are made to take upon adult roles of house keeping when the mother was away on work. Restriction on girls’ education is strong as the village lacks its own school facility. Early marriage of girls is another reason for drop out cases. Girls are expected to learn household duties at an young age. Single parent households are found to perceive children’s earnings quite lucrative as they depend on them for survival. Such households are common because of the other parent having migrated due to persisting drought condition in the district. In broken families, in the absence of an adult member of the household to take care of children’s needs and well being, older children are put on the work of tending the younger ones. Thus, incidence of child labour or child work is high under such circumstances where parents go to out to earn their livelihood leaving the elderly children to take care of domestic work. There is a sharp contrast between educational opportunities and standards available and used by the rich and the poor in the same village. Convent education is sought after by the rich, while the poor, find local school infrastructure to be bad and poor. Child workers were present among all castes and communities. However, their incidence was high among the SC and ST communities. HHs belonging to backward classes also had child labour but they were limited in number compared to those among SCs and STs. Making the children engage themselves in household and farm related economic activities was very low in incidence among the upper caste groups. The most important reason for the prevalence of child labour was poverty. This is reflected in children accompanying the family adults to the farm, cattle rearing and certain non-economic activities. Among the upper classes, children were used only for household based work if they were girls and for agriculture and related activities for the boys. However, parents in such cases ensured that the children did not miss their school because of such work. Thus they worked only before and after school hours, and they did not undertake any wage employment. Among the lower classes and castes, the children undertook wage employment to contribute to HH income. However, we have come across many low class houses which have preferred to send the children to school, instead of for wage employment. This speaks of the rising mobility aspiration among such HHs.
Policy suggestions
Based on the findings of the study, the following suggestions have been made towards minimizing the role of children in economic activities in rural areas.
Child labour is a scourge that must be totally eliminated. There cannot be two opinions on that. However, it is necessary to realize that it cannot be eradicated overnight. Hence, till the abolition of child labour, it is imperative that medical aid or assistance to these child labourers in cases of their illness due to the hazardous nature of work be provided. The state governments should enact laws for making employers provide adequate relief and should see that these laws are enforced effectively. It is true that child labourers help their families to get additional income through their hard work and toil. This does not mean that they should be permitted to work always. Ways and means to achieve this need to be found, and concrete schemes to be implemented effectively to enhance the income of the households, and these may not be the only solutions to solve this problem. Because, even after the enhancement of income, this problem may continue to exist. Hence, the parents are to be persuaded to send their children to schools. Compulsory primary education with good quality should also be provided to solve this ticklish problem of child labour.
The fundamental reason for the perpetual existence of child labour is poverty. Therefore, the abolition of child labour is not favoured by the parents of child labourers. It leads to a reduction in family income, and consequently to low standard of living. If child labour is banned without any alternative avenues of income, there will be frictions in the family and the child may be forced to beg, pickpocket or go hungry and unemployed. In the absence of possible alternatives, the abolition of child labour is likely to aggravate rather than mitigate their misery and hardship. In the years to come, each family should be provided with minimum income by making employment available to the men and women who are ready to work. This is possible when more employment opportunities are created for the adults through effective enforcement of all the existing anti-poverty programmes like Food for Work Programme, Sampoorna Grama Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) and Sampoorna Grama Rojgar Yojana (SGRY) with a positive approach and with a sense of dedication to help the families of child labourers. Unless poverty is eradicated, no legal restriction will solve the problem of child labour. The programmes launched by the Government render little help, for the maximum amount allotted for these schemes are squandered away by the influential people and leaders who deal with these schemes. The Government spends thousands of crores on “Poverty Alleviation Programmes”. The situation is that only a few paise of each rupee spent reaches the targeted groups. Effective measures have to be undertaken to see that the targeted groups get the benefits of the poverty alleviation programmes due to them.
Dr Venkata Narayana, Bangalore,2007.
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