More effort needed in fight against child labour

If you want to know the economic condition of any country, you can easily estimate it from the living conditions and food and drink of the people living there.

Due to the growing unemployment problem in the country, people have to look for sources of livelihood to support their families. Even innocent children face forced labour.

Despite the legality of child labour, parents still compel their children to work. No parent, no matter how poor they are, can send their children to work. They must have some compulsion.

Understanding the underlying causes of child labour is crucial. Solving these causes is the only way to stop child labour.

Various factors may compel children to enter the workforce. Child labour frequently arises in contexts where families encounter economic difficulties or instability, such as poverty, the unexpected illness of a caregiver, or the loss of employment of a primary income provider.

Trafficked children often face violence, abuse, and various violations of their fundamental human rights. The spectre of sexual exploitation casts a significant shadow over girls, whereas boys may find themselves vulnerable to exploitation by armed forces or organised groups.

Marginalised children

At the outset of 2020, one in 10 children aged five and older were involved in child labour on a global scale. This figure represents 160 million children, comprising 69 million girls and 97 million boys. Estimates suggest that 79 million children engage in hazardous, demeaning, and well-detrimental work as of 2022.

Education is crucial to ending child labour. Kenya has expanded excellent education for vulnerable and marginalised children.

The nation invests in education to give youth alternatives to dangerous jobs and help them construct better, exploitation-free futures.

Despite these attempts, Kenyan child labour prevention remains difficult. Socioeconomic issues, detrimental cultural practices, and low capacity to enforce laws and provide services to survivors and victims hinder child labour eradication. Governments, civil society, corporations, and Communities must work together to solve these problems.

Child labour is a socially stigmatised practice. When we see small children working in fields, at kilns, in grocery and cloth shops, on farms, in houses or businesses, cleaning, doing dishes, attention is paid to the compulsions of their parents. These children collaborate with their parents to provide for the household.

The government should address the basic needs of these poor families so that they can also send their children to school. This will automatically eradicate child labour.

Children from Kenya who have studied abroad also work in hotels, shopping malls, and other places during their free time to cover the cost of their education and support themselves. The educational institutions and the government there allow them to work a few hours a week in addition to their studies. By working where they help reduce the financial burden of their parents, they also strive to stand on their own two feet.

Day by day, the increasing population is also causing deterioration of the economic condition of some sections of society, due to which every member of the family has to do some kind of work to support their household. Then, whether they are children or old, work becomes their compulsion.

The government should also make some solid rules and laws to curb the growing population. Along with this, children above an age limit should be allowed to work so that they can increase the income of their parents and contribute to the progress of the country by standing on their own two feet. Although child Labour is a legal crime, but to prevent it, the government needs to enable these people from the economically backward and weaker sections to participate in the society with dignity by providing more employment opportunities. This will also stop child labour, and the economy of the country will also improve.

Surjit Singh Flora is a veteran journalist and freelance writer based in Brampton, Canada