child labour causes and effects essay

Causes and Effects of Child Labor Essay

Introduction, causes of child labor, effects of child labor.

As a rule, people start their professional careers when they are of full age. In this case, they can work full-time, while employers do not face any significant issues with workers of this group. At the same time, many people start working, either legally or not, when they are younger than 18 years old, which is known as child labor. It should be mentioned at once that there are two representations of this phenomenon in the modern world.

On the one hand, it refers to those underage citizens who have the possibilities and right to work under the law. On the other hand, numerous teenagers become involved in illegal labor activities because harsh external conditions force them. According to van Wormer and Link (2015), it is necessary to distinguish between the two variations above, and the second type of child labor is a severe problem both for developed and developing states. Thus, this phenomenon can have economic, personal, and social reasons, while its effects can be detrimental both for individuals and whole countries.

As has been stated previously, there are many reasons for this phenomenon to exist. Among them, economic matters are said to have the most crucial impact. It is generally accepted that child labor rates are higher in those areas where people are forced to live close to poverty. It can refer to both underdeveloped states and troubled regions of developed countries. J. Sarkar and D. Sarkar (2015) denote that there are secure connections between “child labor and income inequality” (139). As soon as people are forced to struggle in finding means of subsistence, it is not a surprise that many children start working to earn some money. Thus, economic conditions represent the most popular phenomenon that results in child labor.

Social reasons are said to be closely connected to economic ones, but they consider the issue from a different point of view. Even if a child lives in a family with a more or less satisfactory income level, they can become involved in child labor because many people around them do the same. It refers to the fact that the social environment influences individuals heavily. For example, if a child from a secured family appears among representatives of lower classes, there is an opportunity that this child will soon start speaking and acting like these people. In other words, the social reasons stand for the reverse side of the economic causes. When some teenagers do not have enough money, they start working early, and it becomes a destructive example for other children.

Then, a phenomenon of child labor exists and prospers because of personal or family reasons. On the one hand, a parent or parents can get seriously ill or even die, which makes underage people take care of themselves. In this case, finding work seems to be one of the essential steps to survive. On the other hand, many teenagers become involved in child labor because they want it without any apparent economic and social preconditions. However, once they start their early professional careers, it is difficult for them to escape. Even if the working conditions are severe, children cannot leave a job because they appear in a labor trap (Smith 2015). In this case, a single mistake negatively influences many lives.

Thus, the causes above are interconnected, and it makes the situation with child labor severer. As soon as they evoke one another, it is impossible to tell which group of reasons has influenced more children or which of them is more dangerous than others. However, there are no doubts that these causes cannot go unnoticed, and they imply substantial consequences for both underage workers and whole states.

As has been mentioned previously, child labor has numerous effects. Firstly, it refers to health issues that can arise from premature working activities. One should note that the phenomenon under consideration mainly denotes teenagers who are involved in hard labor rather than brainwork in comfortable conditions. Thus, when underage people regularly deal with exhaustible physical activities, it influences their organisms significantly (J. Sarkar and D. Sarkar 2015). As a result, these children witness heart, back, and other related issues.

Furthermore, their moral order will appropriately decrease against the background of health problems. What is more, unless the teenagers change their working activity, the given state of affairs will become only worse for them. As a result, adults will have to deal with consequences, even though the mistakes were made long ago.

The second effect is connected with education, in general, and school enrollment, in particular. It is said that there are “significant negative relations between all forms of child labor and school enrolment” (Putnick and Bornstein 2015, 117). It is proven that those children who are involved in labor activities have neither time nor effort to attend schools. In addition to that, even those unofficially employed teenagers who attend schools show poor results in comparison with those children who focus solely on education. Consequently, if children experience problems with schools, it will be difficult for them to continue their education further, which is necessary for their future successful careers. Thus, the situation is the same because people make severe mistakes while they are young, and these errors influence their further life.

In addition to that, the individual problems above are combined and create crucial issues for whole countries. On the one hand, when many children miss schools, it negatively influences the situation in a country. For example, this state of affairs can create a shortage of educated and skillful specialists in various spheres of economy, technology, scientific area, and others. On the other hand, the situation with aggravated health also has an impact on countries. In this case, a significant number of people with limited physical abilities cannot be advantageous, and when it refers to the youth, it evokes even more crucial issues. Thus, governments are interested in solving the case with child labor.

Child labor is an essential phenomenon in the modern world because many people under 18 years old start their labor activities prematurely. Even though the term also refers to those children who work under the law, a majority of teenagers are involved in labor illegally. It exists due to many reasons, with economic, social, and personal ones are among them. It is difficult to mention which of them has more impact, and the three introduce essential reasons. Furthermore, child labor can be dangerous for individuals because it worsens their health and prevents them from obtaining a decent education. Thus, states struggle from this phenomenon because a significant number of uneducated young people with poor health conditions will result in appropriate problems for a country.

Putnick, Diane L., and Marc H. Bornstein. 2015. “Is Child Labor a Barrier to School Enrollment in Low- and Middle-Income Parties?” International Journal of Educational Development 41: 112-120.

Sarkar, Jayanta, and Dipanwita Sarkar. 2015. “Why Does Child Labor Persist with Declining Poverty?” Economic Inquiry 54 (1): 139–158.

Smith, Stephen C. 2015. Ending Global Poverty: A Guide to What Works. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Van Wormer, Katherine S., and Rosemary J. Link. 2015. Social Welfare Policy for a Sustainable Future: The U.S. in Global Context. California: SAGE Publications.

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Essay on Child Labour: Meaning, Causes, Effects, Solutions

Category: Essays and Paragraphs , Social Issues On February 19, 2019 By Victor

Introduction:  A child should not be subjected to work at the expense of his or her education and dreams. Child labour robs minors of the opportunity to enjoy their childhood, go to school, and have a decent shot at success.

It condemns them to a life of limited opportunities. It is, therefore, necessary to ensure that every child is protected and not exploited for cheap labour.

It is not just the responsibility of the parents to eliminate child labour but also that of the government and the society. In India, the total number of child labourers, aged between 5 and 14, is estimated to be at 10.1 million. (source: wikipedia )

Child labour refers to the use of children as a source of labour while depriving them of their fundamental rights in the process. Such rights include the opportunity to enjoy their childhood, attend school regularly, have peace of mind, and live a dignified life.

Child labour can also refer to the practice of exploiting children for financial gain. Some industries employ children in order to cut down on labour costs since their wage demand is low.

Work that places children in a situation that is socially, mentally, physically, or morally harmful and dangerous is also defined as child labour because it ignores the well-being of such children.

When children are made to perform work that is legally prohibited to be performed by children of a certain age group, such type of work is also referred to as child labour.

According to wikipedia , Child Labour is the practice of having children engage in economic activity, on a part- or full-time basis. The practice deprives children of their childhood, and is harmful to their physical and mental development.

Child labour is caused by several factors. Some of them include:

1. Poverty:  This is the single biggest factor contributing to the children working hard in factories or shops or construction sites rather than playing and getting an education. Families do not have enough resources and children often become the means for more income, even if it means having to forego the privileges of childhood. Children who come from poor families may be forced to work to support their siblings and parents or supplement the household income when expenses are more than the parents’ earnings. It is a huge problem especially in developing countries where parents are unable to generate income due to the lack of employment opportunities or education. Children can be found employed in mines or hawking in the streets to earn money that is used to provide basic necessities such as food and clothing for the family. Children may also be employed in factories to generate income for the family instead of attending school. Some children have left orphans or abandoned due to poverty. Such children do not have anyone to take care of them and end up working to feed themselves unless taken up by orphanages. Such a practice is a common phenomenon in poverty-stricken regions with large factories set up by international companies.

2. Low Aspiration: It is important for parents and children to understand that they can work hard and make something great of themselves. Low aspirations by parents and children is a major cause of child labour because in such a situation, being employed in a local factory, or selling grocery in the streets is the normal way of life. To these types of children and parents, success only belongs to a certain region or group of people. They do not aspire to become professionals in the society or great entrepreneurs. It is a mindset that forms the very foundation of child labour.

3. Huge demand for unskilled labourers: The demand for unskilled labourers is another cause of child labour. Children are mostly unskilled and provide a cheap source of labour, making them an attractive option for many greedy employers. Child labour, by virtue of being cheap, increases the margin of profits for such entrepreneurs whose only objective is profit maximization even if it comes at the expense of ethics and good business practices. These types of employers can also force children to work under unfavorable conditions through manipulation or blatant threats.

4. Illiteracy: A society with many educated people understands the importance of going to school and pursuing dreams. Children have the ability and time to become whatever they aspire to be. Illiteracy , on the other hand, makes it difficult for many people to understand the importance of education. Illiterate people view education as a preserve of the privileged in the society. They will therefore not provide support to children so that they can go to school and build solid foundations for future success. The same view of life is seen among illiterate parents who prioritize children contributing to the upkeep of the family over going to school.

5. Early Marriages: Marrying at an early age is a major contributing factor to overpopulation. Having many children with little or no resources to support them leads to child labour. Older children are forced to work in order to help their parents support the family.

6. High cost of education: Quality education is expensive. To many parents who live in abject poverty, priority is given to providing food for the family because education is too expensive to afford especially when there are many children to pay school fees for. Instead of letting children stay at home because there is lack of money to send them to school, parents opt to have them working as unskilled labourers to help support the family. Some parents can also only afford basic education which means that children will be forced to look for work since they cannot pursue their education further.

7. Gender discrimination:  Often girls are required to quit school and take up work to supplement family income until they are suitably married off. This too is an observation in typically vulnerable classes.

8. Family tradition:  Many families with businesses or traditional occupations like arts, etc. expect the children to work to be able to pass on the traditional arts or business only by experience.

Consequences / Effects:

Child labour has several negative impacts. Some of them include:

1. Loss of Quality childhood: It is important for human beings to enjoy every stage of their development. A child should play with friends and make memories for a lifetime. Youths should explore life and form strong foundations that would define their adult lives. Child labour, therefore, leads to loss of quality childhood as children will be deprived of the opportunity to enjoy the amazing experiences that come with being young. Children are often encouraged to play because it helps in their growth and development. A child forced to work will miss many of the good things associated with childhood.

2. Health issues: Child labour can also lead to health complications due to undernourishment and poor working conditions. It is highly unlikely that people who employ children also have the moral capacity to ensure that they have good working conditions. Working in places such as mines and badly conditioned factories may result in lifetime health issues for children employed to work in these places. A child assigned physically demanding duties may suffer physical trauma that may scar him or her for life.

3. Mental trauma: It is not a pleasant experience to be kept working as a child while your age-mates are out playing and going to school. Children also lack the ability to shield themselves from most of the challenges that occur in the workplace. Issues such as bullying, sexual exploitation, and unfavorable working hours may result in mental trauma in these children. They will find it hard to forget the past and may become societal misfits because of bad childhood experiences. Child labour may also result in the lack of emotional growth and thus insensitivity.

4. Illiteracy: Children that are employed do not have the time to go to school. They spend a lot of time in their workstations as the days and years go by. The lack of education and illiteracy makes them individuals with limited opportunities as far as employment is concerned. Education also prepares a person for several challenges in the society and without it, one may turn out to lack the basic skills required to overcome many of life’s problems. An individual who has gone to school may be aware of how to approach certain situations in life without resorting to brute force. An illiterate person, on the other hand, considers force to be the only answer to nearly all of the challenges experienced.

How can child labour be reduced or completely eradicated?  Every child born has the right to have dreams and pursue those dreams. Even though the realization of some of these aspirations may be limited by several challenges, it is still possible to overcome them and achieve the highest levels of success.

There is need to involve various stakeholders to realize this objective. These are some of the ways in which the problem of child labour can be addressed:

1. Free education: Free education holds the key to eliminating child labour. Parents that do not have money for school fees can use this as an opportunity to provide their children with education. It has already proved to be a success in many places around the globe and with more effort, the cases of child labour will greatly reduce. Mid-day meals schemes can also be used as a motivating factor for children whose parents can barely afford a meal to learn. Even if they will be attending school because of the free meals, they will still be able to learn and create a good education foundation for themselves.

2. Moral Polishing: Child labour should not be entertained at all. It is legally and morally wrong. Children should not be allowed to provide labour at the expense of getting an education and enjoying their childhood. Factory owners, shopkeepers, and industries among others should not employ children. The society should be educated on the negative impacts of child labour so that it becomes an issue that is frowned upon whenever it occurs. This type of moral polishing would act as a deterrent to people who intend to employ children and use them as a source of cheap labour. Many of the ills that go on in the society do so because people turn a blind eye or fail to consider their moral impacts. With this kind of approach, cases of child labour will greatly fall among our communities.

3. Create demand for skilled and trained workers: By creating the demand for skilled and trained workers, child labour cases will reduce since almost all child labourers fall under the unskilled worker category. It will lead to adult employment as the demand for skilled labour rises. Establishing skill-based learning centers, vocational training centers, and technical training institutions improves literacy and contributes to the availability of skilled and trained workers in the job market. Creation of job opportunities by the government is also another way that cases of unemployment can be reduced and household income for the population increased. Such government policies improve living standards and eliminate the need for children to seek work in order to support their families.

4. Awareness: Creating awareness about the illegality of child labour can also help in stemming the practice. Parents should be made aware that sending their children to work has legal ramifications and the law would take its course if they are found to be aiding and abetting this vice. It is the ignorance among many parents and members of the society that makes them participate in child labour practices. Conducting a campaign to create awareness about its harmful effects would eliminate the practice. The government, together with non-governmental organizations and the civil society, can create a strategy to make such an initiative a success.

5. Empowerment of poor people: Poor people are the most affected by child labour. The poor living standards and financial constraints sometimes make them unwilling participants in this vice. Empowering poor people through knowledge and income generating projects would go a long way in reducing cases of child labour. Parental literacy also plays an important role in ensuring that the rights of children are upheld, and minors are not used as a source of labour. Empowering parents with this kind of knowledge can create a positive change in the society and encourage the shunning of child labour practices in communities.

Indian Laws relating to Child Labour

• As per the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, amended in 2016 (“CLPR Act”), a “Child” is defined as any person below the age of 14, and the CLPR Act prohibits employment of a Child in any employment including as a domestic help. It is a cognizable criminal offence to employ a Child for any work. (source: wikipedia )
• In addition, various laws in India, such as the Juvenile Justice (care and protection) of Children Act-2000, and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Abolition) Act-1986 provide a basis in law to identify, prosecute and stop child labour in India. (source: wikipedia )
• : The Factories Act of 1948  prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 years in any factory. The law also placed rules on who, when and how long can pre-adults aged 15–18 years be employed in any factory. (source: wikipedia )
• The The Mines Act of 1952  prohibits the employment of children below 18 years of age in a mine. (source: wikipedia )

Child labour should never exist. However, it is still noticeable that people around the country hire children so that they will have the benefit of paying low wages to them. One should do not encourage child labour, and neither one should let any other to hire a child to any job.

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Essay on Child Labour for Students and Children

500+ words essay on child labour.

Child labour is a term you might have heard about in news or movies. It refers to a crime where children are forced to work from a very early age. It is like expecting kids to perform responsibilities like working and fending for themselves. There are certain policies which have put restrictions and limitations on children working.

The average age for a child to be appropriate to work is considered fifteen years and more. Children falling below this age limit won’t be allowed to indulge in any type of work forcefully. Why is that so? Because child labour takes away the kids opportunity of having a normal childhood, a proper education , and physical and mental well-being. In some countries, it is illegal but still, it’s a far way from being completely eradicated.

Causes of Child Labour

Child Labour happens due to a number of reasons. While some of the reasons may be common in some countries, there are some reasons which are specific in particular areas and regions. When we look at what is causing child labour, we will be able to fight it better.

Firstly, it happens in countries that have a lot of poverty and unemployment . When the families won’t have enough earning, they put the children of the family to work so they can have enough money to survive. Similarly, if the adults of the family are unemployed, the younger ones have to work in their place.

Moreover, when people do not have access to the education they will ultimately put their children to work. The uneducated only care about a short term result which is why they put children to work so they can survive their present.

Furthermore, the money-saving attitude of various industries is a major cause of child labour. They hire children because they pay them lesser for the same work as an adult. As children work more than adults and also at fewer wages, they prefer children. They can easily influence and manipulate them. They only see their profit and this is why they engage children in factories.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Eradication of Child Labour

If we wish to eradicate child labour, we need to formulate some very effective solutions which will save our children. It will also enhance the future of any country dealing with these social issues . To begin with, one can create a number of unions that solely work to prevent child labour. It should help the children indulging in this work and punishing those who make them do it.

Furthermore, we need to keep the parents in the loop so as to teach them the importance of education. If we make education free and the people aware, we will be able to educate more and more children who won’t have to do child labour. Moreover, making people aware of the harmful consequences of child labour is a must.

In addition, family control measures must also be taken. This will reduce the family’s burden so when you have lesser mouths to feed, the parents will be enough to work for them, instead of the children. In fact, every family must be promised a minimum income by the government to survive.

In short, the government and people must come together. Employment opportunities must be given to people in abundance so they can earn their livelihood instead of putting their kids to work. The children are the future of our country; we cannot expect them to maintain the economic conditions of their families instead of having a normal childhood.

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• Child labour

Nearly 1 in 10 children are subjected to child labour worldwide, with some forced into hazardous work through trafficking.

Economic hardship exacts a toll on millions of families worldwide – and in some places, it comes at the price of a child’s safety.

Roughly  160 million children were subjected to child labour at the beginning of 2020, with 9 million additional children at risk due to the impact of COVID-19. This accounts for nearly 1 in 10 children worldwide. Almost half of them are in hazardous work that directly endangers their health and development.

Children may be driven into work for various reasons. Most often, child labour occurs when families face financial challenges or uncertainty – whether due to poverty, sudden illness of a caregiver, or job loss of a primary wage earner.

The consequences are staggering. Child labour can result in extreme bodily and mental harm, and even death. It can lead to slavery and sexual or economic exploitation. And in nearly every case, it cuts children off from schooling and health care, restricting their fundamental rights.

Migrant and refugee children – many of whom have been uprooted by conflict, disaster or poverty – also risk being forced into work and even trafficked, especially if they are migrating alone or taking irregular routes with their families.

Trafficked children are often subjected to violence, abuse and other human rights violations. For girls, the threat of sexual exploitation looms large, while boys may be exploited by armed forces or groups .

Whatever the cause, child labour compounds social inequality and discrimination. Unlike activities that help children develop, such as contributing to light housework or taking on a job during school holidays, child labour limits access to education and harms a child’s physical, mental and social growth. Especially for girls, the “triple burden” of school, work and household chores heightens their risk of falling behind, making them even more vulnerable to poverty and exclusion.

UNICEF works to prevent and respond to child labour, especially by strengthening the social service workforce . Social service workers play a key role in recognizing, preventing and managing risks that can lead to child labour. Our efforts develop and support the workforce to respond to potential situations of child labour through case management and social protection services, including early identification, registration and interim rehabilitation and referral services.

We also focus on strengthening parenting and community education initiatives to address harmful social norms that perpetuate child labour, while partnering with national and local governments to prevent violence, exploitation and abuse.

With the International Labour Organization (ILO), we help to collect data that make child labour visible to decision makers. These efforts complement our work to strengthen birth registration systems, ensuring that all children possess birth certificates that prove they are under the legal age to work.

Children removed from labour must also be safely returned to school or training. UNICEF supports increased access to quality education and provides comprehensive social services to keep children protected and with their families.

To address child trafficking, we work with United Nations partners and the European Union on initiatives that reach 13 countries across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Learn more about child labour

COVID-19 and child labour

A time of crisis, a time to act

Child labour and responsible business conduct

Guidance to businesses, policy makers and other stakeholders to advance progress towards SDG Target 8.7 on eradicating child labour by 2025

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell's remarks at the World Day Against Child Labour High-Level Side Event

Charting the course

Embedding children's rights in responsible business conduct

Related resources

Action against child labour | case studies, child labour: global estimates 2020, trends and the road forward, child labour: unicef data, inter-agency coordination group against trafficking in persons, unicef child protection advocacy brief: child labour, iom handbook for protection and assistance for migrants vulnerable to violence, exploitation and abuse, guidelines to strengthen the social service workforce for child protection.

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Essay on Child Labour in 1000 Words in English for Students

• Updated on  
• Mar 4, 2024

Essay on Child Labour: In a 2021 study called “Campaign Against Child Labour,” it was found that over 12.67 million child labourers exist in India, with Uttar Pradesh contributing over 85% of the country’s total.

Child labour refers to the forceful employment of children at shops, domestic places and even hazardous places like factories and mines. Child labour exploits children for their basic childhood rights and affects their physical and mental growth. According to the International Labour Organization, the minimum age for work is 15 years. However, some countries have set the minimum working age at 14 years.

In India, the Ministry of Labour & Employment makes all the laws against child labour and protects children of their childhood rights. This ministry launched the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) scheme for the rehabilitation of child labourers.

Table of Contents

• 1.1 Poverty and Unemployment
• 1.2 Lack of Access to Education
• 1.3 Lack of Enforcement Laws
• 1.4 Debt Bondage
• 1.5 Ignorance and Lack of Awareness
• 2.1 Education Deprivation
• 2.2 Impact on Physical Health
• 2.3 Impact on Mental and Emotional Health
• 2.4 Cycle of Poverty
• 3 What is the Global Perspective?
• 4 Child Labour in India
• 5 Steps to Eradicate Child Labour
• 6 10 Lines to Add in Child Labour Essay

“The Best Way to Make Children Good is to Make Them Happy” – Oscar Wilde

Master the art of essay writing with our blog on How to Write an Essay in English .

Child Labour Causes

There are several causes of child labour, some of which are region-specific. Understanding all the causes of child labour is very important to eradicating it.

Poverty and Unemployment

Poverty and unemployment are the primary causes of child labour. Families living in extreme poverty force their children to work and meet basic needs such as food, shelter, and healthcare. On top of this, employees take advantage of their poverty and pay them low wages.

Lack of Access to Education

Children belonging to poor families have limited access to education due to inadequate infrastructure, insufficient resources and social discrimination. Due to this reason, children are pushed towards labour instead of attending school.

Lack of Enforcement Laws

A lot of countries do not have strict laws against child labour. Unethical employers are not afraid because the laws against child labour are not strict. Child labour is persistent because employees do not fear the law. In some cases, insufficient coordination among government agencies, NGOs, and international organizations leads to gaps in the enforcement of child labour laws.

Debt Bondage

Debt bondage or bonded labour is a type of child labour where individuals are forced to work to repay a debt or a family loan. These impoverished people have no other option but to work as bonded labourers in domestic places. 

Ignorance and Lack of Awareness

The lack of awareness becomes an important cause of child labour, as these people have no idea about the long-term consequences of child labour. 

Impacts on Children

Child labour can have serious impacts on a child’s physical and mental growth. However, the impacts of child labour are not limited to children only. 

Education Deprivation

Child labour deprives children of their right to education. In India, the Right to Education is a basic Fundamental Right and is also a Fundamental Duty. The Indian Constitution says that any person, who is a parent or a guardian, must provide opportunities for education to his child or ward between the ages of six and fourteen years.

Also Read: Child Labour Speech

Impact on Physical Health

Children who consistently work in dangerous or tough conditions sometimes get hurt, and sick, and can face long-term health issues. Children working in factories and mines are exposed to harmful chemicals, pollutants and dust. Prolonged exposure can lead to respiratory problems, skin disorders, and other health issues.

Impact on Mental and Emotional Health

Working for long hours in hazardous conditions is a deadly combination. These conditions can contribute to high levels of stress and anxiety, affecting the mental well-being of children. In addition to this, these children are denied the right to education, which limits their cognitive development and prospects.

Cycle of Poverty

Children are supposed to go to school and study, not work in factories or as domestic helpers. Child labour perpetuates the cycle of poverty. The cycle of poverty can only end if child labour ends. 

Also Read: Essay on Peer Pressure in 100, 200 and 350 Words

What is the Global Perspective?

According to UNICEF, 1 out of 10 children are subjected to child labour worldwide and some are forced into hazardous work through trafficking. Child labour is a complex issue with its regional challenges. In 2020, around 16 crore children in the world were subjected to child labour. 

International organisations like the ILO, UNICEF, etc. are constantly fighting against children. They collaborate with different governments, NGOs, and private organisations, where the root causes of child labour, such as poverty, lack of access to education, cultural norms, armed conflict, and economic pressures are discussed. It is very important to address these factors for effective solutions.

Child Labour in India

In India, there are five major sectors where child labour is most prevalent. These sectors are:

• Agriculture – The largest number of children are employed in the agricultural sector and related activities. Children in rural areas are employed in sugarcane, wheat and rice farms, where they are forced to work for long hours in scorching heat.
• Brick Kilns – For ages, the brick kiln industry has been employing children at low wages. In several brick kilns, children work for long hours with their parents and are exposed to toxic fumes and pollutants.
• Garment Industry – The Indian garment industry constitutes a large portion of child labour. Most of the Indian garment industries are managed by local start-ups, who hire children at low wages to preserve their profit margin.
• Fireworks – Firework factory owners hire a significant number of children at low wages. Children working in fireworks factories work in cramped conditions and are exposed to toxic fumes and hazardous chemicals, which hampers their physical and mental health.
• Unorganised Sectors – The unorganised sector includes local dhabas, food and tea stalls, vegetable and fruit vendors, etc. These people employ children as helpers and servants. 

Also Read: Essay on Discipline

Steps to Eradicate Child Labour

• Raising awareness about child labour can be the first step to eradicating child labour. If people, especially parents, are aware of the consequences of child labour, they might not force their children to work in hazardous places. 
• Traffickers prey on vulnerable children, especially those who come from poor families and are not aware of child labour. Awareness ensures growth and opportunities in education, employment and career.
• There is an urgent need for stringent laws against child labour. Strict laws against child labour can bring long-lasting social changes. In India, child labour is a crime. According to the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act of 1986, children below the age are prohibited from working. However, this law is not strictly enforced.
• Today, various NGOs are working in collaboration with local and state governments to implement pro-child laws.
• Education must be made compulsory and accessible to all. In India, the Right to Education is a fundamental right. Yet, a lot of children are deprived of this basic constitutional right. Strict laws and easy access to education can bring a big change, ending child labour in the country.

Also Read: Essay on Summer Vacation in 100, 250 and 350 words

10 Lines to Add in Child Labour Essay

Here are 10 lines on child labour. Feel free to add them to your child labour essay or similar topics.

• Child labour deprives children of their right to a proper childhood.
• It involves children working in harmful environments. 
• It Disrupts their physical and mental well-being.
• Poverty is a major factor pushing children into the workforce at an early age.
• Lack of access to education often perpetuates the cycle of child labour.
• Children engaged in labour are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.
• Hazardous conditions in factories and mines pose serious health risks to working children.
• Child labour hinders the development of necessary skills and knowledge for the future.
• Long working hours and limited leisure time impact a child’s social and emotional growth.
• Addressing the root causes, such as poverty and lack of education, is crucial in the fight against child labour.

Ans: Child labour refers to the practice of employing young children in hazardous places like factories and mines. Child labour exploits children for their basic childhood rights and hampers their physical and mental growth. According to the International Labour Organization, the minimum age for work is 15 years. However, some countries have set the minimum working age at 14 years.

Ans: Poverty and Unemployment, Lack of Access to Education, Law of Enforcement Laws, Debt Bondage, etc. are some of the primary causes of child labour.

Ans: Child labour is banned in India. According to the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, of 1986, no child below 14 years of age is allowed to work in hazardous or domestic places, like factories, mines or shops.

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What is Child Labor?

Child labor is the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives them of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular schools, and is mentally, physically, socially, or morally harmful.

This global issue encompasses a wide range of tasks and activities that subject children to conditions that impede their well-being, hinder their development, and undermine their fundamental rights.

The term extends to situations where children are engaged in work that is dangerous, prevents them from accessing education, or involves excessive hours and labor that is detrimental to their physical and mental health.

• Child labor statistics

The global landscape of child labor is alarming, with an estimated 160 million children, comprising 63 million girls and 97 million boys, engaged in various forms of labor worldwide. Disturbingly, almost one in ten children globally is affected by this issue.

A significant concern is the hazardous work that nearly half of these children, totaling 79 million, are involved in, posing direct threats to their health, safety, and moral development.

Recent data from a report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF, published in June 2021, reveals a troubling increase of 8.4 million child laborers in the last four years, and an additional 9 million children are at risk due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The age distribution is particularly concerning, with children aged 5 to 11 constituting 48% of all child laborers, emphasizing the vulnerability of the youngest demographic.

Although there was a notable reduction of 94 million child laborers between 2000 and 2016, progress has slowed in recent years. Regional disparities are evident, with Africa having the highest percentage (one-fifth) and the highest absolute number (92 million) of children in child labor.

The agricultural sector remains a significant contributor, accounting for 70% of all child labor cases, involving a staggering 112 million children. These statistics underscore the urgent need for global efforts to address child labor, safeguard children’s rights, and ensure their well-being and access to education.

• Forms of Child Labor

Child labor takes various forms, impacting millions of children globally. The notable forms include:

1. Slavery or Similar Practices:

Involves the ownership of individuals, treating them as property, and forcing them to work without any control over their circumstances. Slaves are often held against their will and lack the freedom to refuse work.

2. Child Trafficking:

The illegal trading of children involves activities such as buying, selling, and moving children for labor or sexual exploitation. Trafficked children may be coerced or forced into various forms of work against their will.

3. Forced Recruitment into Armed Conflict:

Children are compelled or coerced into participating in armed conflicts, serving in roles such as soldiers, scouts, cooks, guards, or messengers. This is a blatant violation of human rights law.

4. Prostitution and Pornography:

Exploitation of children for sexual purposes includes engaging them in prostitution or involving them in the production of pornographic material. This form of child labor exposes children to significant physical and psychological harm.

5. Drug Production and Trafficking or Other Illegal Acts:

Children are involved in the production and trafficking of drugs or engaged in other illegal activities. This often exposes them to dangerous conditions, addiction, and the risk of criminal repercussions.

6. Debt Bondage:

Forced labor where individuals or families work to pay off debts that cannot be settled with money or goods. Often, this creates a cycle of perpetual enslavement, especially when the debt-holder has no intention of lifting the debt.

7. Hazardous Work that Can Cause Injury or Moral Corruption:

Involves engaging children in work that poses risks to their health, safety, or morals. This could include physically demanding or dangerous work that interferes with their normal development.

8. Involvement in Illicit Activities:

Children may be exploited for various criminal activities, such as theft, burglary, drug production, and trafficking. Organized crime gangs can groom and exploit children, exposing them to addiction and other risks.

9. Agricultural Labor:

Child labor is concentrated in agriculture, with children engaged in farming, fishing, livestock, forestry, and aquaculture. Poverty often drives children into agricultural labor, and any work that interferes with schooling or harms their health is considered exploitation.

10. Mining:

Thousands of children globally work in mines, extracting materials like cobalt, salt, gold, and mica. Conditions in mines are often harsh, with long hours, exposure to toxic substances, and inadequate safety measures.

11. Factory Work:

Children may be exploited in factories where they face poor ventilation, exposure to toxic materials, and hazardous machinery. Instances of child labor have been reported in various industries, including meatpacking plants.

12. Domestic Work:

Involves various tasks and services within households. Exploitation occurs when children work at ages younger than legal limits, face hazardous conditions, or when their domestic work interferes with education. Domestic work exploitation is sometimes “hidden” as children are expected to contribute to the household.

These forms of child labor not only endanger the immediate well-being of children but also hinder their long-term development and perpetuate cycles of poverty.

• Causes of Child Labor

Child labor can be attributed to various factors, and experts highlight several key causes:

1. Poverty:

Poverty is identified as the primary force driving children into the workplace. Families facing economic hardships often resort to child labor as a means of supplementing household income.

2. Unhealthy Family Life and Economic Deprivation:

Challenging domestic situations, such as instability, domestic violence, or neglect, may lead families to involve their children in work for coping or survival.

3. Lack of Access to Quality Education:

Limited access to quality education, including barriers like school fees and uniform costs, contributes to low literacy rates and diminishes opportunities for children.

4. Poor Governance and Inadequate Implementation of International Agreements:

Ineffective governance, weak regulatory frameworks, and corruption create an environment where exploitative labor practices can persist. Inadequate implementation of international agreements against child labor further hampers progress.

5. Conflicts & Mass Migration:

Regions affected by conflicts and mass migration experience increased vulnerability to child labor due to economic instability, breakdown of social structures, and displacement of families.

6. Limited Economic Resources:

Families in poverty often view children as economic assets, compelling them to seek additional income streams through child labor.

7. Limited Understanding of Child Labor:

Cultural beliefs and social norms that view work as character-building may contribute to families not fully understanding the dangers of child labor.

8. Natural Disasters & Climate Change:

Rural families dependent on farming may send their children to work when crops are destroyed due to climate changes, contributing to economic struggles.

9. Lack of Funding for Education:

Insufficient funding for educational projects in various regions limits access to quality education, especially in conflict zones.

Effects of Child Labor

• Physical Effects

Malnutrition:

• Working children often face insufficient access to a balanced and nutritious diet.
• Inadequate nutrition can lead to stunted growth, weakness, and vulnerability to illnesses.

Exposure to Hazardous Conditions:

• In agriculture, children may handle toxic fertilizers and pesticides, posing risks to their respiratory and overall health.
• In mining, exposure to explosives and poisonous chemicals, coupled with the danger of mine collapses, increases the likelihood of severe injuries or fatalities.

Physical and Verbal Abuse:

• Child labor victims may endure physical abuse through harsh working conditions, leading to injuries such as cuts, bruises, and fractures.
• Verbal abuse can contribute to emotional trauma, affecting a child’s self-esteem and mental well-being.
• Mental Health Effects

Adverse Mental Health Outcomes:

• Children engaged in labor face the stress of adult responsibilities, leading to an increased risk of mental health issues.
• Hazardous work conditions can result in chronic stress, anxiety disorders, and long-term psychological consequences.

Destructive Habits:

• Coping mechanisms, such as smoking, alcoholism, or drug abuse, may arise as a response to the emotional and psychological stress of child labor.
• These habits further exacerbate health risks and can persist into adulthood.

Emotional and Relationship Difficulties:

• Exposure to abusive environments during child labor contributes to long-lasting emotional difficulties, including challenges in forming trusting and healthy relationships.
• Victims may struggle with self-esteem, hindering personal development.
• Long-term Consequences

Long-term Health Consequences:

• The physical toll of child labor may lead to chronic health conditions that persist into adulthood, affecting overall quality of life.
• Early exposure to hazardous substances can result in long-term health issues, such as respiratory diseases and neurological disorders.
• Societal Impact

Cycle of Poverty:

• Families trapped in the cycle of child labor may prioritize immediate income over investing in education, perpetuating a cycle of poverty.
• Lack of education limits future opportunities, reinforcing socio-economic disparities.

Hindrance to Social Development:

• The prevalence of child labor creates a workforce with limited skills and education, hindering a nation’s overall social and economic development.
• A less educated and skilled workforce may struggle to contribute effectively to technological advancements and economic growth.

Jeopardizing Community Well-being:

• Ignoring child labor jeopardizes the well-being of communities, as these children are not just the future but integral members of society today.
• Failure to address child labor weakens community bonds and resilience, as a significant portion of the population faces physical, mental, and socio-economic challenges.

• How to stop child labor

Stopping child labor requires a multi-faceted and comprehensive approach:

1. Education :

Promote and improve accessibility, quantity, and quality of education to discourage child labor.

2. Awareness:

• Educate individuals about child labor issues.
• Engage with businesses to encourage responsible practices in supply chains.

3. Fair Trade Practices:

Support fair trade products and companies committed to ethical production.

4. Government and Civil Society Involvement:

• Advocate for strong government policies against child labor.
• Collaborate with civil society organizations to implement effective measures.

5. Living Wage:

Work towards paying a living wage to address poverty, a significant driver of child labor.

6. Discourage Employment of Children:

Sensitize trade organizations and discourage the employment of children in various settings.

7. Financial Support:

Contribute to reputable organizations working globally to protect children from labor and exploitation.

8. Child Sponsorship:

Sponsor a child to support their education and overall well-being.

9. Ethical Investments:

Assess the ethical impact of investments to discourage support for companies exploiting child labor.

10. Certification Initiatives:

Advocate for a universal labeling initiative certifying products free from child labor.

By combining these strategies, individuals, businesses, governments, and civil society can collectively work towards eradicating child labor and building a fair, just, and compassionate society.

• Bonyan Organization’s Efforts to End Child Labor

At Bonyan, we embark on a heartfelt mission to eliminate child labor, recognizing the profound impact it has on the lives of vulnerable children.

Our commitment extends across various initiatives designed to break the cycle of exploitation and provide meaningful alternatives. Through our education programs , we strive to empower refugee children with the invaluable gift of knowledge, redirecting their paths away from labor and towards a brighter future.

Our social empowerment endeavors aim to uplift entire communities, addressing the root causes that perpetuate child labor. Bonyan’s pioneering Early Recovery and Livelihood (ERL) Program serves as a catalyst for change, offering financial support, vocational training, and employment opportunities to alleviate economic pressures that often force children into labor.

We take pride in our holistic approach, seamlessly integrating education activities with our ERL Program , providing families with comprehensive support through vocational training and seed funds. As active contributors to policy development, we work tirelessly towards systemic changes that safeguard children from exploitative labor practices.

Donate to end child labor

Join Bonyan in our relentless pursuit to end child labor. Together, let’s create a world where every child is free to learn, dream, and thrive.

Stand with Bonyan. End Child Labor Today!

• WARMTH FOR SYRIA & PALESTINE: A CALL FROM HEART TO HEART

• Bright Futures, One Child at a Time

• Football for Peace with Bonyan
• Build Classrooms for Syrian Kids
• What is Meant by Child Labor?

Child labor is defined as work that denies children of their childhood, their potential, and their dignity.

• What are the root causes of child labor?

Root causes include poverty, lack of access to quality education, poor access to decent work, and limited understanding of child labor.

• How can child labor be addressed at its root?

Addressing the root cause of child labor involves tackling poverty. One effective strategy is to pay adult workers decent wages, enabling them to support their families without relying on child labor.

• What are The Problems of Child Labor?

Psychological and physical damage. Deprivation of education. Sexual exploitation. Child marriage. Begging and gangs that exploit children.

• What are the consequences of child labor?

Child labor can lead to extreme bodily and mental harm, slavery, and sexual or economic exploitation. In nearly every case, it deprives children of their childhood and fundamental rights.

• How can we combat child labor?

Strategies to combat child labor involve promoting education, raising awareness, supporting fair trade practices, advocating for government policies, and working towards paying living wages.

• Child Labour (ILO-Ankara)

Causes and Consequences of Child Labor

• First Online: 23 June 2021

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• Isidro Maya Jariego 4  

Part of the book series: Human Well-Being Research and Policy Making ((HWBRPM))

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In this chapter, we examine the causes and consequences of child labor. Working children usually come from low-income families and, among other possible outcomes, there is a high risk that they will drop out of compulsory education. The most relevant and contrasting background factor is poverty. Other empirically documented causes are family size, immigration, family history of child labor, and public attitudes. Among the consequences is the educational impact. It is generally assumed that child labor also has an impact on the health and psychological well-being of children, and in the long term, on employability and working conditions during adulthood. However, empirical research on these negative effects is significantly less developed.

• Child labor
• Consequences
• Family background
• School dropout

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Maya Jariego, I. (2021). Causes and Consequences of Child Labor. In: Community Prevention of Child Labor. Human Well-Being Research and Policy Making. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70810-8_2

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Social Norms and Family Child Labor: A Systematic Literature Review

Alhassan abdullah.

1 Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; kh.ukh.tcennoc@assahlaa (A.A.); kh.ukh@hnyuhi (I.H.); kh.ukh@yremec (C.R.E.)

2 Department of Sociology, Haverford College, Haverford, PA 19041, USA

Inès Huynh

Clifton r. emery, lucy p. jordan, associated data.

Not applicable.

Background. Research has established the family as the predominant context for child labor practices. Decisions to involve children in child labor within the family or by a family member (herein family child labor) is strongly motivated by cultural beliefs that normalize child labor. This systematic review sought to synthesize evidence on the social norms that support child labor practices, and the normative interpretation of international child labor legislation/standards. Methods. We followed the PRISMA procedure for systematic review by reviewing empirical articles published between 2000 to 2021 and contained within the four key databases: Scopus, ISI Web of Sciences, PubMed and Embase. Findings from 13 articles that met the inclusion criteria were analyzed thematically. Results. The review included studies from three continents: Africa, Asia and Europe. Gender norms, informal apprenticeship norm, norms on succession and sustenance as well as obedience, were key social norms that influenced child labor practices in the family. Parents’ decision to involve children in child labor was strongly influenced by the collective acceptance of some occupations (e.g., cocoa farming and fishing) as family occupations, which need to be preserved, undertaken and passed on to children. Child rights and the UNCRC principle of children’s participation were considered foreign to most non-western countries and interpreted as contravention to the cherished social norm of obedience. The findings underlie the link between social norms and the common social values of resilience, hard work, and respect. Conclusion. The results provide foundations and target to develop normative change intervention programs to re-orient the negative interpretations of common social values and provide alternative pathways that prevent child labor within the social context.

1. Introduction

Child labor remains a major issue concerning child protection, despite increased research attention on its severity, causes and the intervention measures to curb it [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. According to estimates by the International Labor Organization (ILO), over 246 million children (between 5 and 17 years) are involved in child labor, with 48 million located in sub-Saharan Africa [ 6 ]. Over two thirds of child labor cases happen in the agricultural sector, with more than 70% happening within the family unit [ 6 ]. Agriculture and other works undertaken by children in the family are “often hazardous in [their] nature and in the circumstances in which [they are] carried out” [ 6 ]. The fact that the family unit is regarded as a suitable context for child labor, where family members influence the involvement of children in labor, makes child labor within the family (henceforth family child labor) an important area and target for research into child labor. Literature on the causes of child labor underscore two critical antecedent factors: (1) economic forces and (2) cultural norms/values that support child labor [ 1 , 3 , 7 , 8 ]. Growing evidence has shown that the impacts of economic forces on child labor is mediated by cultural norms [ 9 , 10 , 11 ], and the cultural norms influence the choice families make for their children [ 9 ]. Even families who are stable economically have been found to allow their children to engage in work, e.g., using them as headsmen [ 12 ], highlighting the instrumental role of social norms in influencing child labor decisions within the family unit. Norms are deep-rooted beliefs that influence social actions within an institutionalized group. However, no study has so far systematically analyzed the sort of cultural norms and values that influence child labor decisions within the family. Social norms are predicted to have consequences on the health of people [ 13 ], mediated through the effects on health-seeking behavior, alcohol use and other risk factors [ 14 , 15 ].

Sociologists typically study social norms and their impact on social actions/decisions under the rubric of Parsons’ statement; legitimacy of social values are unquestionable, however normative interpretation of the values differ and often matters the most [ 16 ]. Much research on the impact of cultural values and social norms follows Parsons’ [ 16 ] argument by seeking to examine the different pathways social values are interpreted to influence social actions and decisions. Primary research on the influence of cultural values on child labor has shown that parents’ decisions to involve children in child labor are influenced by their desire to ensure that children secure a better future [ 17 ], become hard working people [ 18 ], are resilient to life challenges [ 19 ] and to ensure their adequate development [ 18 ]. Inherent in these justifications of child labor are the normative interpretations of common social values, such as hard work, success, and resilience, within the culture. They show that normative interpretations matter in efforts to change values in communities. On the other hand, the value of success in other contexts may not be normatively interpreted with associated social actions that bear on involving children in family work/child labor. Instead, they may be operationalized through enrollment in education. For instance, Green [ 20 ] reports that Western perspectives on childhood highlight the need for children to be free from adult responsibilities and acquire the best formal education to ensure their success in the future. Varied normative interpretations of common social values and their influence on family child labor decisions led us to argue that social norms play a central role in an attempt to understand and address the child labor phenomenon. Weiner [ 21 ] reports cultural values among the key antecedents of children’s work. This systematic review of existing literature seeks to examine the social norms that underpin child labor within the family in order to provide systematic evidence to inform research and intervention programs.

1.1. Social Norms, Child Work and Family Child Labor

Child labor in the family is a contested concept, especially in the context of cultures that traditionally require children to perform domestic duties and support their parents as part of their childhood training [ 22 , 23 ]. Whilst some argue that child work is an essential requirement for the socialization of children [ 24 , 25 ], others have found child work as an architect to child labor, child exploitation [ 26 , 27 ], and modern slavery [ 28 ]. The International Labor Organization (ILO) defines child work as all productive activities that are carried out by children (either in a family business or common market; remunerated or not) that last for a minimum of 1 h duration within a day [ 6 , 29 ]. Duration of work, nature, intensity of work, and the age of the child are typical features that determine child work. Similar features determine the judgement of child labor [ 30 ]. The ILO Convention 138 [ 31 ] sets a minimum threshold of 15 years for a child’s admission to work, and 18 years for hazardous work [ 6 , 32 ]; but many developing countries have the flexibility to admit children aged 14 years to engage in “light work”. So far, the extant literature on child work and child labor have agreed that there is a very thin line between the two concepts (child work and child labor), which is often difficult to determine until they have happened [ 29 ]. They are difficult to differentiate in practice [ 29 ], and vary from nation to nation [ 33 ]. It is more difficult to differentiate child work and child labor in localities that have sanctioned child work as part of the socio-cultural traditions [ 6 ]. White [ 27 ] highlights the complexities involved in the two concepts.

“It is impossible to draw a clear and unambiguous line between ‘child work’ (the more acceptable forms of children’s work, which are relatively unharmful and in cases may even be beneficial) and ‘child labour’, the unacceptable, exploitative and harmful forms of children’s work, a ‘social evil’. Most attempts to draw such a line are either too general, vague and circular to be of use, or if they try to be concrete and specific, are too contradictory and illogical, and out of line with the views of children themselves.” [ 27 ] (p. 837)

Essentially, the argument suggests that promoting child work may risk promoting child labor within the family unit. This is particularly the case as recent child labor statistics identify the family unit as the main contexts where child labor thrives [ 6 ]. Nonetheless, evidence on the central role of culture in underpinning child work and child labor suggests that culture or social norms could be an important source in efforts to understand how child work and child labor can be differentiated, understood and prevented.

Similarities in the social norms and value aspirations that underpin both child work and child labor also convolute the seemingly cybernetic relationship between child work and child labor in most cultural contexts. Children are considered to work on family farms as part of their preparation for adulthood, and to acquire basic skills that are integral for their development [ 18 , 34 ]. Children’s involvement in family farms increases family income and enhances family standard of living [ 17 ]. Their participation in fishing and family cocoa farms are regarded as important means to secure better future for children [ 17 ] and to maintain family businesses [ 35 ]. Similarly, it is believed that the involvement of children in labor increases their affection for the labor market and enhances their personal development [ 19 ]. Engaging in child labor is considered an acceptable pathway to prepare children to be hardworking adults, and resilient to future work challenges [ 19 ]. Children in Turkey are found to work during their early years in order to contribute to family farm work [ 36 ]. Inherent in these justifications of child labor and child work are normative interpretations of the values of hard work, resilience, success, and achievement. Furthermore, decisions and attitudes towards child labor in Africa are also informed by the communal expectations of respect and mutual interdependence [ 37 ].

Social sanctions, including stigma against parents, compel them to conform to the norms that support child labor practices [ 38 ]. Lopez-Calva [ 39 ] theorized that there is a direct relationship between social stigma and child labor. Stigma against parents who do not support child labor norms (fail to involve their children in child labor) is found to be associated with increased child labor practices. The desire to obtain social acceptance, avoid the likely cost of stigma and social rejection, increases the utility of engaging children in child labor. The critical role of social norms in child labor practices led us to systematically examine specific social norms in the literature and unravel ways they inform family child labor practices. Such an advancement is critical to inform further research and the development of concrete normative campaigns that shift social norms in communities.

1.2. Social Norms and Legislation on Child Labor

Local social norms that support the involvement of children in work and child labor may likely be in conflict with international standards that frown on child labor practices. Communities are more likely to value their local norms that favor child labor and to to discredit international child labor legislation. Legislation and standards to regulate child work and prevent child labor have been in existence since the identification of child labor as a major social problem affecting the growth, health and wellbeing of children [ 40 , 41 ]. Led by international organizations (such as ILO and IOM), international promulgations on standards to prevent child labor have been developed and revised consistently to protect children. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) [ 42 ], the ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor (1999) [ 43 ] and the ILO Convention No. 138 on the Minimum Age of Employment (1973) [ 31 , 44 , 45 ] are the key international legal frameworks that regulate child labor practices. Article 32 and 35 of the UNCRC spell out issues related to the abolishment of child labor, forced labor and the need to protect children from all kinds of work exploitation. Principles in the UNCRC are developed based on the western conceptualization of childhood [ 46 ]. However, some of the commitments are echoed in other regional legislation such as The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child [ 47 ], and operationalized in the local laws of most countries. Overall, the UNCRC has an overriding commitment and target for member countries to ensure that children participate in decisions that affect them, are protected from harm, and enjoy the rights to life, survival and optimal wellbeing. However, the implementation of this legislation and its impact on children are largely influenced by social norms and values [ 48 ]. The rights of children in some contexts (e.g., South Africa) are seen as part of measures to undermine the authority of parents, traditional leaders [ 49 ] and elders [ 50 ]. Children in Africa are expected to act in response to the wishes and demands of their parents [ 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ]. Children’s participation in cocoa farms is normatively interpreted as a form of agency [ 55 ]. However, the standard participation procedure spelled out in the UNCRC that allows children to exercise autonomy is considered an act that spoils children [ 55 ]. The foregoing evidence highlights the various international child labor legislation that could be interpreted within the context of local social norms, and how that influences family child labor practices. Therefore, additionally, the aim of this systematic review is to identify the various ways international child labor standards are interpreted in local contexts by seeking responses to the following key questions:

Guiding Review Questions

• What social norms precipitate child labor practices?
• How are international child labor legislation/standards normatively interpreted in the context of child labor?

Guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) [ 56 , 57 ] and recommendations by Rew [ 58 ], we conducted a comprehensive literature search to synthesize evidence on social norms that influence family child labor practice. The use of the PRISMA guideline provided a transparent framework to synthesize data following scientific principles that enable replication. Rew’s [ 58 ] suggestion helped to make vital decisions in the review process, including selecting relevant databases, setting important criteria for including studies and criteria for the screening and assessment of the quality of included studies.

2.1. Search Strategy

Four academic databases including: Scopus, ISI Web of Sciences, Pubmed and Embase, were searched. The literature searches were conducted from June to December in 2021. A combination of key words on child labor and social norms, together with Boolean operators were used in the search. Table 1 presents the keyword combinations and Boolean operators used in the search. York dare database, Cochrane library and PROSPERO database were searched to confirm the review has not been replicated elsewhere. Snowball search and expert recommendations supplemented the search procedure.

Boolean search strategy and word combinations.

Note: (*) is used to identify different ways the word maybe written.

2.2. Inclusion Criteria

Following the purpose of the systematic review, a clearly defined criteria was developed to guide the screening of studies. Studies that satisfied the following criteria were included:

• Articles reported qualitative or quantitative evidence (or both) on cultural norms that influence child labor practices. Additionally, (or) reported evidence on the normative interpretations of international legislation that seeks to prevent child labor practices.
• Articles reported findings from the views of any of the following groups (or a combination of any of them): community members, children, parents and social service workers.
• Articles are empirical studies published in English, between 2000 and October 2021. The benchmark of 2000 was chosen in line with the promulgation of the ILO standards on Worst Forms of Child Labor (1999), ( n .182), ensure that the findings are relevant to current legislation and guidelines on child labor.

2.3. Search Outcomes and Screening

A total of 7531 results were obtained from a general search through the four databases. Title, author names and other reference details of the studies were exported and saved into an excel spreadsheet. This allowed for duplicates to be automatically searched using the duplicate function in excel. In total, 2682 results were retained after duplicate titles were searched and removed. Articles that were published before 2000 and published in languages other than the English language ( n = 56) were removed before screening. The remaining articles were screened. Article titles that were beyond the scope and purpose of the study were removed ( n = 2044). This included book chapters and non-empirical studies. Six hundred and fourteen (614) articles were deemed as not satisfying the purpose and criteria for inclusion in the study. The remaining 24 articles were read thoroughly and 12 were removed as their discussion of social norms were not in the context of child labor. One additional study was found after a snowball search through the references of the 12 articles. The entire search and screening procedure was conducted by the third author and validated by the first author. The researchers conducted weekly meetings to discuss the search and screening process. There were no major disagreements with respect to judgements on the eligibility of studies. Minor disagreements, which mostly happened in the quality appraisal of studies, were keenly discussed with the senior authors (author 2 and 4). The screening process is presented in the PRISMA flow chart shown in Figure 1 below:

PRISMA flow diagram.

2.4. Quality Appraisal

We assessed the quality of the included articles using the quality appraisal tool by Salzmann-Erikson and Dahlén [ 59 ]. A 25-item checklist was used to assess the quality of empirical studies, mostly qualitative studies, by focusing on the methodological rigor of the articles. Key questions on the appraisal checklist included: “Are the criteria for inclusion described?”, “Does the study’s title correspond with its content?”, “Are the criteria for exclusion described?”, “Is the study’s purpose clearly answered?”, “Is the data systematically collected?”. Each item was assessed using a dichotomous response of “Yes” and “No”. Articles are rated as low quality if not more than 17 items of the quality assessment checklist are rated “Yes”. Articles with 18 to 20 points “Yes” ratings are considered to be of medium quality, whilst those with more than 20 points “Yes” ratings are considered to be of high quality. Six of the included articles were considered low, two medium and five as high quality. The ratings give a general idea of key information that were missing in the published articles, but they were not used as a basis to remove articles from the study. The appraisal was performed by the first author and validated by the third author. No significant difference was recorded in the assessment by the two authors.

2.5. Analysis Procedure

We followed Braun and Clarke’s [ 60 ] recommendation for conducting reflexive thematic analysis in analyzing evidence from the included articles. As part of the screening process, each article was read thoroughly, and notes on key ideas and findings were written in the comment section of Adobe PDF reader program. The written notes captured key findings, overall ideas of the study and key contributions of the study. Direct quotes from participants in most of the articles were linked to the notes. The quotes, key ideas and author’s written notes were organized in excel for further analysis. The written notes were again reflected upon in line with the meanings they connote and their context. The written notes were then refined and stated as codes. Examples of codes included “decisions undermine respect” “part of culture to work” “we have to contribute to family income” “children are cheap labor” and “cocoa and fishing are family work”. A list of all codes from the 13 articles were organized in word together with a short description of the meaning and nuances. This enabled the researchers to compare the codes and merge them to form themes under the rubric of social norms. The core themes included: gender norms, obedience, and informal apprenticeship norm. Codes were merged based on their similarities in terms of the interpretations of particular social norms or values. A detailed report of the themes is discussed in the results section.

3.1. Study Characteristics

Out of a total of 7531 articles and reports retrieved from the broad search, 13 articles met the inclusion criteria. Four of the included articles by Adonteng-Kissi [ 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 ] were published from two broad studies. Hence, the total included articles emerged from 11 unique studies. Broadly all 13 articles included in this review examined the social norms in child labor under the rubric of understanding the causes of child labor, particularly the social and cultural causes. All articles (except [ 65 ]) involved interviews with children and parents [ 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 ], including children who are victims of child labor and parents who are perpetrators [ 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 ]. Six of the articles included the views of social services workers, and workers of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) [ 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 67 ]. Most of the studies used a multi-method combination of qualitative in-depth face-to-face interviews, focus group interviews, ethnography, participatory research and/or observations [ 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 68 , 70 ], whilst the remaining studies used single methods: in-depth interviews [ 67 , 72 ], ethnography [ 69 ] and a combination of in-depth interviews with surveys [ 71 , 73 ]. The majority of the studies were conducted in sub-Saharan Africa ( n = 10) [ 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 ], two in South Asian countries; Nepal and Bangladesh [ 69 , 72 ], one in Central Asia (Tajikistan) [ 67 ], and one in South Eastern Europe (Turkey) [ 68 ]. Child labor within specific occupations such as cocoa [ 65 , 70 ], carpet industry [ 69 ], fishing and farming [ 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 66 ] and domestic work [ 71 ] were the focus of most studies. However, 3 of the 13 articles focused on a general description of child labor and child work [ 68 , 72 , 73 ] without specifying a particular occupation. Even in such studies, participants linked their responses to child work or child labor in domestic work, farms and factories. A summary of the included studies is provided in Table 2 .

Summary of studies included in the review.

Note: GLSS = Ghana Living Standards Survey.

Themes related to social norms precipitating child labor

3.2. Informal Apprenticeship Norm

A common finding from most of the articles ( n = 8) is that children are culturally expected to receive informal apprenticeship training in the family by engaging in their parents’ primary occupations. The rationale behind the social norm of child informal apprenticeship is supported by narratives from key stakeholders, including parents [ 61 , 62 , 64 , 65 , 68 , 71 ], child victims of labor [ 67 ] and agricultural coordinators [ 65 ]. Parents in a Ghanaian study [ 61 ] argued that the informal apprenticeship for children is needed to prepare children to be tough so as to meet future life challenges. A parent described how this justification influenced her involvement in street vending during her childhood:

“In my own situation, I used to be a newspaper vendor on the streets. I had to sell newspapers on the street of Accra in the morning before going to school. My parents used to tell me that they were training me to be tough in life so that I’ll be capable of facing the challenges of life.” [ 61 ] (p. 474)

Children are believed to become hardworking when they start work early. This cultural notion underlies Turkish parents’ decisions to involve their children in work.

“I want them to start working now, so that they get used to working and not become loose.” [ 68 ] (p. 46)

The rationale for training children to be tough, and hardworking through child work and child labor is complemented by the cultural belief that engaging children in labor secures a better future for them. It is the shared normative belief that children’s participation in work at early ages imbibes in them a natural spirit of hard work and makes them resilient to work-related challenges in their adulthood [ 62 , 65 , 68 ]. A parent, who is identified to have involved her child in cocoa farming, emphasized the need to engage children in work in order to ensure they have a better future.

“Our culture teaches our children to believe that work socialization is meant to provide training which will ensure a better life in the future.” [ 61 ] (p. 472)

The early child apprenticeship training is conceived normatively to inculcate strong work ethics in children, leading them to become hard workers, resilient and ultimately to achieve success. Evidence from parents in Ghana [ 64 ], Turkey [ 68 ], and Côte D’Ivoire [ 65 ] confirmed the cultural justification that children learn better [ 65 , 68 ] and obtain strong work ethics [ 64 ] when they start work early. Narratives from some parents confirmed that these cultural justifications influenced their decision to involve their children in work, albeit arguing that such work does not constitute acts of child labor.

“Whatever work I assign to my children is not intended to harm them but to train them to have strong work ethics that will in turn help them to have a better future.” [ 64 ] (p. 59)

The narrative confirms that the interpretation of social norms does indeed matter in influencing social action [ 16 ].

Additionally, inherent within the normative justification of securing a better future for children through child labor and child work is the notion that work enhances children’s level of creativity [ 63 ]. It is also meant to increase and sustain their interest in work (confirmed by evidence from Ghana, Tajikistan, South Africa and Côte-D’Ivoire) [ 64 , 65 , 67 , 71 ]. Akilova’s [ 67 ] study among children working in Tajikistan revealed that children have normalized these interpretations and as a result they consider work as a normal part of childhood. However, it appears that the children have been conscientized to consider work as part of the training within the family. As a result, they do not consider work in or with a family member as a classic form of “work”. A twelve-year-old child who started working at age 2 narrated her experience this way:

“I actually started working at age two–not really working though. I went with my cousin on herbike to sell refreshing drinks and tea to people in the market. I just accompanied her. I started working on my own when I was 12.” [ 67 ] (p. 240)

The notion of child work as a normal part of childhood was found to be stronger in rural Tajikistan [ 67 ], similar to the evidence from Ghana [ 64 ]. The legacy of the Tajikistan community, which focuses on developing children to become productive members of society, may have enforced the norm of child labor and child work, even among children [ 67 ]. Particularly, it was found that children between the ages of 12–14 were considered matured in Tajikistan.

When quizzed on how they considered child work within the family, some Ghanaian parents justified that working in the family is a traditional form of schooling, which provides alternative sources of livelihood for children [ 64 ].

“Engaging my children in fishing is simply a traditional system of schooling which doesn’t violate the rights of my children.” [ 64 ] (p. 60)

However, parent’s view on child work and child labor as alternative sources of livelihood for children appears to be strongly influenced by the high rate of graduate unemployment. The high rate of graduate unemployment made formal education unappealing to parents, which enforced their beliefs in the norms of informal apprenticeship. A parent in a rural community in Ghana affirmed this notion in her narrative:

“Why should I enrol my children in school if they’re going to be unemployed after finishing? For me, I believe it will make more sense to engage them in my farming for them to acquire some skills that will help them in their future lives.” “Why should I enrol my children in school if they’re going to be unemployed after finishing? For me, I believe it will make more sense to engage them in my farming for them to acquire some skills that will help them in their future lives.” [ 64 ] (p. 59)

The evidence highlights the strength of the social norm of informal apprenticeship in the Ghanaian society.

3.3. Gender Norm

Diverse interpretations of gender roles and expectations appeared in most of the studies as antecedents to child labor. Societal expectations on the role of males and females influenced child labor practices, and the nature of child labor related activity children are engaged in. Men are trained to become breadwinners in the family, with women as family maintenance agents ( cf . [ 62 , 64 , 65 , 67 , 72 ]). As a result, child labor in income-generating activities, such as fishing, carpet work and cocoa, was found to be common among boys, whilst girls predominantly engaged in domestic duties [ 62 , 64 , 72 ]. Most female parents confirmed the decision to engage their young girls in domestic chores as part of their training to become good wives.

“I want to use my personal experience as an example. I was the only girl amongst seven boys, so I needed to be familiar with the demands of marriage life as is required of all girls. When I was living with my siblings, I used to wash, clean and sweep for them because I was being prepared for future life. The role of a girl in the household is to provide services to the boys.” [ 62 ] (p. 13)

The cultural belief that a good wife is one who satisfies her husband’s family’s expectations influenced parents in Tajikistan to engage their children in domestic chores at their early ages [ 67 ]. Similarly, young boys in South Africa engaged in hard labor to feed their family as part of their preparation to become breadwinners for their future families [ 71 ]. It is reported that the gendered notion on child labor is enforced by social sanctions. Boys in Bangladesh who undertake household chores are labelled as “women” and called names, and vice versa [ 72 ]. Their parents are also seen as bad parents.

“If men do these jobs [housework] everyone will call him a woman.” [ 72 ] (p. 13)

It is the cultural expectation that children carry out the culturally defined occupations/activities which prepares them adequately to assume their roles as breadwinners and family maintenance agents.

3.4. Asset Value of Children

Themes and narratives from the included studies revealed that societal standards that support the asset value of children also influence child labor in the family [ 62 , 63 , 64 , 67 , 71 ]. These social standards underlie the economic importance of children’s contribution to family work and family income. Parents are therefore encouraged to engage their children in their own occupations so as to benefit from their economic value. Children are more likely to be involved in child labor in families where parents’ occupations demand a lot of labor.

“Fishing is a very difficult task and parents need more labour to be able to carry out the task. In my view, government should allow children to support their parents and supplement household income. At the low income we get from our fishing business, how can we hire only adult labourers?” [ 62 ] (p. 10)

The narrative shows that children are cheap sources of labor, as well as alternative sources of labor. The notion of children contributing to families is endorsed by parents in South Africa [ 71 ], Ghana [ 63 , 64 , 65 ] and children in Tajikistan [ 67 ]. According to parents in Ghana and South Africa, certain kinds of family occupations, such as fishing, farming and family business, require more hands [more labor] with specific tasks assigned for children in the family [ 63 , 64 , 65 , 71 ].

“This is because there is inadequate mechanisation of artisanal fishing industry. The work is quite difficult, and fishermen need more hands.” [ 64 ] (p. 60)

The need for more hands due to the lack of mechanization of fishing (use of modern fishing methods) influenced parents to involve their children in child labor. This was confirmed by another parent:

“I think many parents are using their children to work because their work is not mechanised. The State needs to support parents to mechanise their work to help eliminate child labour.” [ 64 ] (p. 60)

A chronological analysis of the above two quotes confirm that children are indeed engaged in hard work as they are meant to work in non-mechanized family fishing practices. Promoting mechanized fishing practices may provide leeway to avoid hard work in family fishing but may not completely remove children from working in family fishing.

The social expectations for children to contribute to family income is accepted by children as part of their mandatory responsibilities to their family. Some children in Tajikistan revealed that it is their obligation to contribute to their parents’ work/business so that their parents could save money (meant for hiring other staff) [ 67 ]. Children feel enthusiastic when they judge themselves to have satisfied this societal demand [ 64 ].

3.5. Value of Formal Education

A normative interpretation of the value of formal education was found to inform parents’ decisions to involve their children in child labor. Albeit diverse, there was an argument about the relevance of formal education, which influenced parents’ decisions to engage their children in labor [ 64 , 67 , 68 , 69 ]. Parents believed that informal apprenticeship in family work provides future job security for children, compared to formal education. Due to the low job security arising from formal education, children are believed to be better off receiving an informal apprenticeship from their parents’ occupations. The relative importance of informal apprenticeship training over formal education influenced child labor practices.

“Parents tell us that they know children in the community who have successfully completed their education, yet they don’t have jobs. Some parents believe putting their children into farm work is worthwhile because their children develop their employment skills that get them ready jobs.” [ 64 ] (p. 60)

In the context of poor school quality, low job security after school and severe challenges with school access, parents may rationally prioritize informal apprenticeship through child labor over enrolling their children in school. The high rate of graduate unemployment in many developing countries was found to support the shared belief that informally training children in family work is a better option as opposed to formal education ( cf. [ 64 , 65 , 66 , 68 ]). Some parents are further encouraged by the cultural belief that “education does not fit every child”. Parents who held this belief suggested that children who are stubborn do not require formal education, instead they should work in family farms [ 64 ].

On the other hand, some parents justified their decisions to involve children in child labor as part of the measures for children to appreciate the value of formal education. They argued that education is without stress since it does not involve hard work. Therefore, children’s experiences of both hard work and formal education would enable them to assess the two occupations and appreciate the value of formal education (see [ 68 , 69 ]). The following narrations from parents in Turkey exemplify their argument:

“I swear to God, I’m not after their money…. They don’t work and they don’t care about school. I’m saying if they work, maybe they will understand the value of school and go to school.” [ 68 ] (p. 46)

“I say maybe if they work, going to school will feel sweeter [better] to them. For instance, because work will be too hard, school will be [easier].” [ 68 ] (p. 46)

Even though the overall intention for engaging the children in hard work (child labor) is to make them accept formal education, the rationale can be defeated when the children develop a liking for the work compared to school. That said, evidence from children in Nepal suggests that children who experienced the two; formal education and family child labor, found education to be the better option [ 69 ].

3.6. Sustenance and Succession of Family Occupation

A considerable number of the studies reported findings on the social norm of sustenance and succession of family occupation [ 62 , 64 , 65 , 67 , 73 ]. Works undertaken by parents, such as farming and fishing, are conceptualized as family occupations which are supposed to be assumed by their children and sustained for future generations [ 64 ]. Evidence from parents, social service workers and NGO workers in Ghana confirmed that cocoa farming and fishing are classical family occupations which children should strive to maintain. Family occupations give identity to the family. The desire to maintain family occupation enforced parents’ commitment to involve their children in cocoa farming and fishing [ 64 , 65 ].

“Most parents are farmers in these rural communities, and very often they want their children to help them on the farms because they want to socialise their children to take over from them. However, this cultural practice is sometimes abused by some parents. Some parents engage their children in work in times that those children are supposed to be school. Children support their parents on the farms to perform tasks such as weeding, planting of seedling and burning unwanted woods in the farm. Many boys work for 8 h on the average in a day.” [ 62 ] (p. 9)

Commitment to the norm of sustenance and succession of family occupation made parents opposed to the idea and efforts to eliminate child labor (see [ 62 , 64 , 65 ]). Even professionals, such as NGO workers, who are mandated to ensure the application of child labor standards and implement measures to eliminate child labor, are sometimes influenced by these social norms.

“I have been in this community long enough to know that many farmers want their children to be socialised and take over from them and therefore they won’t agree to total elimination of child labour.” [ 62 ] (p. 10)

The findings highlight ways deep rooted social norms can influence child labor and obliterate the commitment to eliminate child labor. Training children on family occupations is considered the primary responsibilities of families to ensure that the next generation of farmers are produced [ 65 ]. A cooperative director for cocoa farmers in Côte D’Ivoire explained:

“And also we have to prepare the future generation of farmers. So, when the child is in the farm, there are some activities that he can do and some other activities that they can’t. He must assist. He look at his father working. And then the child keep it in his mind. So the child, during his free time, his holidays, must go to farm and see what his father is doing.” [ 65 ] (p. 8)

Krauss’ [ 73 ] household survey among Ghanaian parents and key informants, such as the Minister of Education, showed that top level policy makers are also influenced by these social norms. An indication that social norms on child labor cut across various strata of society. A quote from the Minister of Education in Ghana showed ways the social norm of succession influences child labor:

“…I belong to the old school, where you ‘bring up the child the way he should go’ so that if you are a child in a farming family you should be able to learn about farming from your parents…” [ 73 ] (p. 551)

The desire and commitment to uphold the norm of sustenance of family occupation is enforced by the notion that family occupations will collapse if children are not trained to assume and continue with it ( cf . [ 64 , 65 , 73 ]).

“Our family businesses will collapse if we take our children out of fishing. It is part of our culture for children to get deeply involved in what we (parents) do.” [ 62 ] (p. 11)

Themes related to the normative interpretation of child labor standards

Only 2 of the 13 articles reported evidence on the normative interpretations of child labor and related legislation or standards [ 61 , 66 ]. The finding discusses parents’ interpretations of the UNCRC sections on children’s active participation in decisions, and children’s rights. Evidence on the two themes is discussed below:

3.7. Obedience

Parents opposed the UNCRC commitment for children to be given the free will to make decisions and contribute to decisions that affect their lives [ 61 , 66 ]. Children’s rights to active participation in decisions were interpreted within the normative cultural framework of obedience and respect. Children’s active participation in decisions were considered among the potential practices that deviates from the cherished norm of obedience and respect of elders [ 61 , 66 ]. Children are culturally expected to obey the decisions of elders and take instructions from persons who are older than them, especially their parents. Thus, the power to make decisions within the family rest upon elders, who also have the cultural authority to make decisions for children [ 61 , 66 ].

“Ghanaian culture gives parents more power over their children. Thus, there is virtually no children’s rights to participation in family decisions since parents’ views on matters concerning the child carries a lot of weight. It is quite difficult for children to disobey their parents in matters relating to child labour.” [ 61 ] (p. 472)

Legitimacy of parents’ decision-making power and the social expectation of obedience influenced children’s acceptance and commitment to instructions from their parents [ 66 ]. Those who obey and submit to parent’s instructions, without questioning, are considered to be good-natured [ 64 , 66 ] and respectful children [ 71 ]. The incentives associated with being considered a well-natured child further strengthened children’s commitment to the belief that adults are better positioned to make decisions for children [ 71 ]. Additionally, the cost associated with being branded as a bad parent [ 61 ], and having your children considered as “wayward” [ 64 ] influenced parents’ conformity to the norm.

3.8. Child Rights in Child Labor

Broadly, Adonteng-Kissi’s [ 61 ] study explored parents’ and stakeholders’ opinion on children’s rights within the context of child labor in the Ghanaian cultural context. Collectively, parents agreed that a child’s right is a foreign concept that contravenes the social norms in Ghana, particularly the social norms that support child rearing practices. They argued that children’s rights spoil children and make parents powerless in their efforts to guide and nurture their children towards a successful future. They believe that engaging children in the works of their parents is not wrong, as that has been the practice since the inception of traditional communities. Evidence from the narratives of parents who involved their children in child labor revealed that government officials are reluctant to implement children’s rights and child labor related legislation, because they agree that child work is an old-aged practice that is good for children. Effective child support, interventions for struggling parents and strong government enforcement [ 61 ] were identified among the key resources and structures required to ensure the effective adoption and implementation of children’s rights to end child labor in Ghana. The lack of these important requirements makes children’s rights unfit for the local Ghanaian context. It was suggested that the social norm that spells out the need for children to work and complement family income may change if there are adequate social interventions to support child rearing and family wellbeing. The lack of such interventions makes child rights meaningless in the local context. Citing western countries, the parents believe that child rights have worked in such contexts due to the existence of strong social interventions and legal structures that ensure compliance.

4. Discussion

This study systematically analyzed evidence from existing studies on the influence of culture and social norms in child labor. It further analyzed evidence on the normative interpretations of legislation and international standards that seek to abolish child labor practices. The findings, which have been categorized under six specific themes, are discussed within the context of cultural values that underpin the social normative interpretations.

4.1. Social Norms Precipitating Child Labor

A common theme from the studies suggests that social norms on informal apprenticeship training for children influence child labor practices in many contexts, including Africa, Europe and Asia. Child labor practice is strengthened by the cultural belief that involving children in informal training, either through family occupation or household chores, imbibes in them the spirit of hard work, strong work ethics and prepares them adequately to face life changes. Johansen [ 17 ] reports that there is an overriding acceptance of the belief that child labor and child work prepares children adequately for the future and makes them hard workers. Similar to the findings by Verner and Blunch [ 19 ], it is evident that parents are more willing to engage their children in work early to develop affection for work and good work ethics. It is therefore not surprising that children in Tajikistan were reported to start work as early as 4 years. The findings collectively highlight societies’ commitment to the social values of resilience and hard work. Values of resilience and hard work are influential in society, and considered cardinal components of common values that needs to be promoted [ 74 , 75 ]. However, the normative interpretations of these values, is found to be undesirable for some children. If children can only become hard workers when they start work early, or when they engage in child labor, then the relevance of hard work should be questioned. In the same vein, if resilience can only be achieved through child labor, then the value of resilience should be given a second thought. The findings is indicative of societies’ commitment to social values, which are instrumental for group membership [ 75 ] and survival. It also demonstrates that normative interpretations of these values, in terms of practices to achieve the values, differ and in some cases could be detrimental to the health and wellbeing of children (especially in the case of child labor). Although engaging children in farm work could be hazardous, parents may be compelled to send their children to work to ensure proper supervision and care. This may happen when there is no proper supervision for children at home, or when children could be at higher risk of experiencing violence at home. These adverse consequences, resulting from leaving children at home, may explain parents’ views on sending their children to farm.

On the surface, the values of resilience and hard work could lead to uncritical acceptance from people because they ultimately lead to success and wellbeing. This uncritical acceptance was evident in this study as children in some studies accepted their parents’ decisions to involve them in work, and considered child labor as a normal part of their development [ 67 , 70 ]. Normalization of child labor by children shows the intergenerational transmissions link of social norms that enforce child labor practices. Thus, it is important for interventions to target at breaking this intergenerational link, through a wholistic normative change intervention.

Some parents involved in the studies alluded to the influential role of gender norms in child labor. Gender norms and role specification informed child labor practices. It emerged that the acceptance of males as breadwinners, and females’ primary role of maintaining the family informed child labor decisions. As a result, most boys were found to engage in income generating works, such as cocoa farming, fishing and work in industries, whilst females were engaged more in domestic chores. The study by Delap [ 72 ] in Bangladesh found that boys who engaged in household chores were labeled as “women”. This social stigma reinforces the commitment to the gender norms as it introduces informal social control mechanisms. Evidence on gender norms in child labor also suggest that, overtime, child labor would be gender specific; whereby boys will engaged in income generating labor, with girls involved in household maintenance labor. If this preposition should hold, in the long run hazardous child labor and non-child labor would assume similar dimension [ 76 ].

Parents in the studies provided narratives that underlie the social norms on the economic value of children. Parents from rural and urban Ghana, South Africa, Tajikistan and Turkey [ 62 , 63 , 64 , 67 , 71 ] expressed the belief that children are traditionally mandated to work and contribute to family income. It emerged that certain occupations, such as fishing and farming, required the collective involvement of family members including children. There are specific tasks for children in such occupations. Evidence from the cross-continental studies mainly demonstrate the normative interpretation of childhood, which zoom into the long-standing debate on childhood and child labor [ 77 , 78 , 79 ]. Indeed, conceiving children to have economic value transgress the global accepted standards on childhood (contained in the UNCRC), which are mainly based on the Western conceptualization of childhood. These are imposed western standards; however socioeconomic improvements are needed to change values. The fact that the normative standards on the economic values of children is also accepted by children suggest that a different conception of childhood may be at work in such context. Viruru [ 79 ] has argued that the interaction between childhood and child labor is complex and this complexity could be fueled by cultural factors. Findings from the included studies show that the normative interpretation of the economic value of children undermines efforts to attain the global standards on childhood.

Children were likely to engage in child labor in a context where family occupations are commonly practiced. This is in line with the cultural commitment to ensure sustenance and succession of family occupations. Common occupations identified with child labor, such as farming and fishing, are traditionally defined as family occupations, which are required to be sustained and transcended onto the next generations. Involving children in work is a common pathway to ensure the sustenance of family occupation.

4.2. Normative Interpretation of Child Labor Standards

This review shows that children’s right to participate in decisions that affect their lives are interpreted within the normative framework of obedience and respect. Studies mainly from Ghana [ 61 , 66 ] have shown that children are not accorded the freedom to exercise their right to participation because child participation is culturally interpreted as measures that spoil children. Child participation could lead to children disrespecting adults, since the Ghanaian culture gives enormous power to parents and adults and expects children to listen to instructions from adults [ 51 , 53 ]. Child participation could also undermine the authority of adults and elders in the community. It can be argued that the normative interpretation of child participation right is part of the conscious cultural efforts to achieve the value of respect and obedience to authorities and parents.

Finally, children’s rights in general were considered by parents as alien and part of the measure that spoils the African child. It is argued that children’s rights are geared towards making parents less powerful in efforts to guide their children. However, the study did not specify types of rights that are alien to the African context and those that spoil children [ 66 ]. It is generally accepted that rights that empower the child and seek to make them independent contravenes the African culture, which promotes obedience and respect of elders’ decisions and instructions [ 80 , 81 , 82 ]. Such rights are deemed to challenge parents’ authority in the family. Yet, the African Charter on the Rights of the Child provides measures to promote children’s rights to decisions, participation and protection. This suggests that children’s rights may not be entirely foreign in the African context. Narratives from the parents confirmed that child work is an accepted pathway for children to build responsibility and independence. This may imply that the length of children’s involvement in work could vary by the socioeconomic differences within the family and community. In low-income families, children are forced to grow up quicker by taking on work and responsibilities, compared to children in middle-high income families where adolescence can be prolonged into the 20′s, varying by context and cultural differences.

4.3. Implication for Child Labor Practice and Research

Evidence discussed in this review has some implications for practiced measures that are required to eradicate child labor. The findings show that varied normative interpretations of key social values: respect and obedience, hard work, resilience, and sustenance and succession, influence child labor decisions. These negative normative interpretations are deep-rooted and legitimatized among children. A multi-pronged normative intervention program that seeks to change the negative normative interpretations is needed. In particular, a combination of normative change campaign with community education is needed to intensify education on the negative social norms. The education should aim at sensitizing communities to acknowledge the unfavorable outcomes of the existing normative interpretations of the common values and provide alternative justification/avenues communities can model into their accepted social standards. Children should not be left out in the normative change interventions because they appear to have legitimatized the negative interpretations that support child labor practices. Social sanctions should be instituted to control negative social norms and ensure conformity to the newly developed social standards. Modelling new social standards could be challenging. As a result, we advocate for a wholistic community approach that involves three stages: identification of the negative social norms on child labor, collectively develop alternative normative paths, and collectively develop implementation plans including social sanctions to ensure social control. Other important strategies that can help eliminate child labor include measures to promote access to school, increase school supplies, reduce transportation costs for students, and a conditional cash transfer program to stay in school. The school, health services and governmental programs can play a role in promoting children and parents’ understanding about the hazards and benefits of family’s work. Such holistic approach, involving efforts from the educational system, government, health and economic system (conditional cash transfer) will be useful to change the values and norms. It will help children and their families to appreciate the realities regarding how they are interpreting values/social norms and the impact on children.

A periodic evaluation of the child labor elimination interventions is needed to ensure that the adverse consequences are identified and curtailed ( cf . [ 83 ]). Child labor elimination programs may have hidden and undesired consequences of increasing child labor within poor communities [ 83 ]. These poor communities may develop alternative occupations/avenues, sometimes with poor conditions and incentive, because for some children work is the only means for survival. Therefore, it is important to supplement the social normative approach of eliminating child labor with an economic approach that provide incentives to poor families for them to develop alternative livelihoods.

Indeed, the acceptance of certain occupations, such as farming and fishing as family works, provide support for child labor practices. The normative change program should include measures that train communities to accept the unique career path of every child and the negative implications of forcing children into a supposed family occupation. Education should be acknowledged as the foundation not only for career in the formal sector but also relevant for those working in the informal sector. Technical and vocational education should be promoted as suitable alternatives for children whose parents deem them unfit for theory-oriented educational programs. Studies that seek to further explore the negative social norms and enable community members to provide alternative normative paths are desired. Intervention studies to change the negative social norms and model positive social norms is needed. A holistic assessment of the key promulgation in the UNCRC and ILO’s child labor standards in developing countries is needed to guide amendments and operationalizations within the local context.

4.4. Limitations

This study is not without limitations. Our search is limited to only English published academic articles on the subject. It is possible that relevant information on the social norms and child labor may be available in gray literature, including book chapters and reports. Even though we included the two big databases in the social sciences literature; Scopus and Web of Science, studies contained exclusively in other databases may be overlooked. We admit that some studies may have discussed the social norms in child labor without a strict use of the lingua or terminologies of norms, values, beliefs, culture, etc., and thus may have been mistakenly excluded from our review. The documented procedure will allow an updated review to be conducted. Throughout the manuscript we have adopted a loose definition of social norms “rules that is understood and shared by members of the social group (e.g., community) and guide behavior and decisions”. Our intention was to provide non-abstract level interpretations of the various means social norms that inform decisions including child labor. This approach and the way we have sought to argue about social normative interpretations vary slightly from the typical methods a classical cultural or anthropology researcher would use. This does not obliterate our utmost intention of this study, which is tied to practice. Furthermore, there was no pre-published protocol for this review.

5. Conclusions

This systematic review advances knowledge on social norms that influence decisions on child labor practices in the family. Findings from the included studies confirmed Parsons’ argument that uncritical acceptance of values as given could be detrimental to society. The findings showed that even though values of respect, hard work and inheritance are important, normative interpretations of them have tendencies of influencing child labor practices within the family. Norms on gender, inheritance and sustenance, value of education and the asset value of children are influential in parents’ decisions to involve their children in work/hard labor. The study findings provide directions for normative change programs targeting the negative interpretations of these values and social norms.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the China Medical Board Foundation (Grant number 21-396) for the funding support to cover the Article Processing Charge (APC).

Author Contributions

A.A. Conceptualized the problem, contributed to the literature review, data analysis and writing of manuscript. I.H. contributed to the conceptualization of the study, literature search, and writing of manuscript. C.R.E. contributed to the conceptualization of the research, he designed the search protocol, led the data analysis process, and wrote methods section. L.P.J. contributed to the conceptualization of the study, literature search, guided the review and discussion of findings. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This research was funded by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and International Organization for Migration (IOM) through the “RTA seed grant” awarded to Alhassan Abdullah, and the APC was funded by the China Medical Board Foundation (Grant number 21-396).

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Child Labour – India’s Hidden Shame

From Current Affairs Notes for UPSC » Editorials & In-depths » This topic

One of the most unfortunate consequences of the pandemic and its wide range of restrictions has been the higher vulnerability of children to different forms of abuse and deprivation. Moreover, the second wave of COVID-19 has left several children without both or one of their parents. This situation exposed them to hopelessness, financial hardships and increased risk of child labour, exploitation, and trafficking.

This topic of “Child Labour – India’s Hidden Shame” is important from the perspective of the UPSC IAS Examination , which falls under General Studies Portion.

Who is a child?

Child and Adolescent Labour (prohibition and regulation) Act 1986 defines the child as a person who has not completed the age of 14 years.

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What is Child Labour?

• Child Labour as defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is a work that takes away children their childhood, their potential and their dignity which is harmful to their physical as well as mental development.
• ILO also explains child labour in its most extreme forms involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses and/or left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities — often at a very early age.
• But Children or adolescents who involve in works that do not impact their health and personal development or affect their schooling is not child labour. For instance, helping their parents at home, helping family or earning pocket money outside school hours and on holidays.

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How children are exploited for Labour in India?

Instead of being in school or at play or other constructive activities, they are put to work on a range of activities that span repetitive low-skill work that doesn’t aid development for future employment opportunities, they are forced to be exposed to conditions devastating to health and safety in the agriculture, industry and service sectors.

The work involves long hours on a bewildering range of tasks such as transferring pollen in cotton plants, picking the crop with their bare hands, indentured on tea or tobacco plantations and brick making factories and construction sites; being sent down dangerous mines for extracting gold and diamonds, or confined to cramped workshops for cutting and polishing gemstones; working at slaughterhouses and tanneries with minimal protection or under life-threatening conditions at fireworks factories.

Children are very commonly employed in the murky underbelly of the fashion industry in yarn and spinning mills, and garment factory sweatshops, put to work from handling silkworms in scalding water to doing painstaking embellishment work. They are on the streets picking rags – carrying an entire recycling industry on their shoulders, or in homes doing domestic work either as employees of others or in the case of girls in their own homes where they are treated as free labour and not considered as deserving of education as their brothers.

The worst of all is the human trafficking situations of modern-day slavery that children are thrown into, facing horrific abuse and lifelong trauma as bonded labourers or sold into sexual exploitation . Alongside the physical implications of this work, can we even begin to imagine the mental health consequences for these children and adolescents forced into labour?

What is the statistics of child labour in India?

According to the 2011 census,

• there were more than 10.2 million children in the age group of 5-14 working as child labourers.
• Child labour has increased rapidly in urban areas and declined in rural areas.
• The overall decrease in child labour is only 2.2% per year from 2001-2011.
• India’s biggest child labour employers are – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra.

What is the nature of child labour in India?

Change in work location: There has been high involvement of children in home-based works and in the informal sector.

Rural-Urban areas:

• In urban areas, a huge number of children are involved in manual domestic work, rag picking, restaurants, motor repair shops, etc.
• Agriculture including cotton growing,
• Matchbox industries,
• Brass, and lock-making factories,
• Embroidery,
• Rag-picking,
• Beedi-rolling,
• Carpet-making industry,
• Mining and stone quarrying,
• Brick kilns,
• Tea gardens etc.

Gender specific: The division of labour is gender-specific with girls being engaged in more domestic and home-based work, and boys working as wage labourers.

Bonded Child labour: refers to the employment of a person against a loan, debt or social obligation by the family of the child or family as a whole. Bonded child labourers are mostly found in the agriculture sector or helping their families in brick kilns, and stone quarries. There are around 10 million bonded child labourers in India.

Migrant Children: Children who are migrating to other locations with family are often forced to drop-out schools and unavoidably put to work at work-sites.

What are the causes of Child Labour in India?

Poverty and Indebtedness:

• Poverty is the greatest cause of child labour. For impoverished households, income from a child’s work is generally important for his or her own survival or for that of the household.
• Children are also bonded to labour because of the family indebtedness.
• Rural poverty and urban migration often expose children to being trafficked for work.

Adult unemployment and under-employment : high prevalence of adult unemployment and under-employment often force children to work to support the family.

Illiteracy and Ignorance of parents:  Illiteracy of the child’s parents further worsens the crisis. Illiteracy and Lack of awareness of the harmful consequences of child labour make them violate the law and put their children under the risk of inhuman exploitation.

Lack of access to basic and meaningful quality education and skills training:

• The current educational infrastructure is highly unsuitable to children of economically deprived families.
• Furthermore, the deteriorating quality of education has resulted in increasing dropout rates and forced children to engage in work.
• Compulsory education (RTE) does not cover the 15-18 age group (adolescents). However, being illiterate or school dropouts, these children are vulnerable and most exploited for the informal, unskilled and casual workforce.

Demand for child labour :

• Rising demand for child labour particularly in urban areas is an important cause for the prevalence and increase in child labour.
• Children are employed as they are cheap and flexible with respect to the demands of the employer and not aware of their rights.

Cultural factors:

• An expectation that children should contribute to the socio-economic survival of the family and community, as well as the existence of large families,  contribute to the prevalence of child labour.
• Children mostly take up family’s traditional work from an early age. For instance, a Goldsmith’s son takes to gold-smithery, or a carpenter’s child takes up carpentry from an early age.

Social factors:  There is a strong correlation between India’s differentiated social structure and child labour. The majority of child labourers in India belong to the so called lower castes (SCs), the tribal and Muslim religious minority.

What are the impacts of child labour?

• Affect childhood: Child labour takes away a child of his/her childhood. It not only denies his/her right to education but also right to leisure.
• Affect adult life: Child labour prevents children from gaining the skills and education they require to have opportunities for decent work when they become an adult.
• Major health and physical risks: as they work long hours and are needed to do tasks for which they are physically and mentally unprepared. Working in hazardous situations adversely impacts a child’s physical and mental health and affects intellectual, emotional and psychological development.
• Poverty: Child labour is both a cause and consequence of poverty. Household poverty makes children enter the labour market to earn money = they miss out on an opportunity to get an education = further continuing household poverty across generations in a vicious cycle.

• Affect country as a whole: Existence of a large number of child labourers has long term effect on the economy and it is a serious obstacle to the socio-economic welfare of the country.

What are the International Safeguards against Child Labour?

International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions:

• The two Core Conventions directly related to child labour are that of ILO Convention 138 (Minimum age convention) and 182 (Worst forms of Child Labour Convention).
• India has ratified both the Core Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions.

Declaration of Rights of Child, 1959:

• Universal declaration of human rights 1948 –  mentions (under article 25) that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance.
• The above principles along with other principles of a universal declaration concerning child were incorporated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1959.

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989

It sets out different rights of children- civil, political, economic, cultural, social and health. Article 32 states that the government should protect children from work that is dangerous or might harm their health or their education.

What are the measures taken by India?

Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 

Based on the recommendations of the Gurupadaswammy Committee (1979), the Act was passed in 1986. It has the following objectives:

• to prohibit the engagement of children in some employment.
• and to regulate the conditions of work of children in certain other employment.

Salient features:

• The Act prohibits children from working in any occupation listed in Part A of the Schedule; for example: Catering at railway establishments, construction work on the railway or anywhere near the tracks, plastics factories, automobile garages, etc.
• The act also prohibits children from working in places where certain processes are being undertaken, as listed in Part B of the Schedule; for example beedi making, tanning, soap manufacture, brick kilns, and roof tiles units, etc.
• Part III of the act outlines the conditions in which children may work in occupations/processes not listed in the schedule.
• Any person who employs any child in contravention of the provisions of section 3 of the Act is liable for punishment with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than 3 months but which may extend to one year or fine.

Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016

• The Amendment Act completely prohibits the employment of children below 14 years.
• The amendment also prohibits the employment of adolescents in the age group of 14 to 18 years in hazardous occupations and processes and regulates their working conditions where they are not prohibited.
• The amendment also provides stricter punishment for employers for violation of the Act and making the offence of employing any child or adolescent in contravention of the Act by an employer as cognizable.

Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Rules, 2017

• The rules provide a broad and specific framework for prevention, prohibition, rescue, and rehabilitation of child and adolescent workers.
• It also clarifies on issues related to helping in family and family enterprises and definition of family with respect to the child.
• It states that the child shall not perform any tasks during school hours and between 7 p.m. and 8 a.m.
• It also provides for safeguards of artists which have been permitted to work under the Act, in terms of hours of work and working conditions.
• It states that no child shall be allowed to work for more than 5 times a day, and for not more than 3 hours without rest.

National Policy on Child Labour (1987)

• It contains the action plan for tackling the problem of Child Labour.
• It focuses more on the rehabilitation of children working in hazardous occupations and processes, rather than on prevention.
• The policy consists of three main attributes:
• Legal Action plan –Emphasis will be laid on strict and effective enforcement of legal provisions relating to a child under various Labour laws.
• Focusing on general development programmes- Utilisation of various on-going development programmes of other Ministries/Departments for the benefit of Child Labour wherever possible.
• Project-based plan of Action – Launching of projects for the welfare of working child in areas of high concentration of child labour.

National Child Labour Project Scheme

• For rehabilitation of child labour, the Government had initiated the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme.
• The NCLP Scheme seeks:
• To eliminate all forms of child labour through identification and withdrawal children from child labour and preparing them for mainstream education along with vocational training
• To contribute to the withdrawal of all adolescent workers from Hazardous Occupations / Processes and their skilling and integration in suitable occupations.
• Creation of a Child Labour Monitoring, Tracking and Reporting System.

Pencil:  The government has launched a dedicated platform viz. pencil.gov.in to ensure effective enforcement of child labour laws and end child labour.

Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000 and Amendment of the Act in 2006

• It includes the working child in the category of children in need of care and protection, without any limitation of age or type of occupation.
• Section 23 (cruelty to Juvenile) and Section 26 (exploitation of juvenile employee) specifically deal with child labour under children in need of care and protection.

The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (2009):  The Act made it mandatory for the state to ensure that all children aged six to 14 years are in school and receive free education.

Many NGOs like Bachpan Bachao Andolan, ChildFund, CARE India, Talaash Association, Child Rights and You, Global march against child labour, RIDE India, Child line, Kailash Satyarthi Children Foundation etc. have been working to eradicate child labour in India.

What are the Challenges in reducing child labour in India?

Issues with Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016:

• The list of hazardous industries has been drastically decreased, this may allow the employers in industries like chemical mixing units, cotton farms, battery recycling units, and brick kilns, etc. to employ adolescent labour, which they may even get at a much cheaper price.
• Further, the amendment allows a child to be employed in “family or family enterprises”.This raises a question over a large number of child labour in agrarian rural India where poor families are trapped in intergenerational debt-bondage.

Definitional issue:  One of the biggest challenges in eradicating child labour is the confusion around the definition of a child, in terms of age, in various laws dealing with child labour.

Lack of identification:  Age identification of children is a difficult task in India due to the lack of identification documents. Child labourers often lack school registration certificates and birth certificates, creating an easy loophole in the law to exploit. Most often the children of migrant workers working as labourers and those employed in domestic work go unreported.

Weak enforcement of law and poor governance: Weak enforcement of the law, lack of adequate deterrence and corruption is a major hurdle in eradicating child labour.

What is the way forward?

• Child labour is a vicious circle of poverty, unemployment, underemployment, and low wages. There should be a concerted effort towards social protection programmes and cash transfers to improve the economic situation of families and to reduce the “need” to send children to work.
• There is an urgent need to revamp educational infrastructure- to ensure access to educational institutions, improvement in quality and relevance of education
• There is a need to bring uniformity in existing Indian laws dealing with child labour. The laws must expand the definition of a child by prohibiting the employment of and ensuring free and compulsory education (RTE, Act, 2009) for children below 18 years
• There is a need to launch a national campaign to invoke public interest and large-scale awareness on the exploitation of children and the menace of child labour.
• The government should take adequate measures to raise awareness among families and communities. Parental literacy can play an important role in ensuring the rights of children are upheld.
• Elimination of child labour demands commitment from the society e.g. family, state, civil society and those who employ children in any enterprises.

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Largest Compilation of Structured Essays and Exams

Essay on Child Labour Causes, Effects, Solution & Prevention

July 24, 2020 by Study Mentor 7 Comments

Table of Contents

Child Labour – Essay 1

Introduction.

Life of the little ones is destroyed when they work in their childhood. Child labour is a common term that you hear in your everyday life. It is defined as work that deprives a child of his/her childhood and harms their mental and physical wellbeing.

According to ILO, any child below the age of 14 should not be involved in work for remuneration. It is a matter of concern in developing countries, like India, where there is a lack of awareness and education about a child’s health. They neglect the fact that children are the hope of their future.

It is a common practice to employ those children as domestic helper, shopkeeper’s assistants, etc. Child labor in the agriculture sector is common. Of course, it would be great when children could graduate a college and even keep in touch with a writer from  ib extended essay writing service  but, unfortunately, according to the conditions, their parents make them work in the fields instead of studying.

According to them, studying is not beneficial in any way, and their children should help them earn money. Their parents implant this mindset in their children also, and the child also believes the same thing. This mindset hampers the growth opportunity and development of the country.

Causes of Child Labour

The main reason for child labor to prevail in India is poverty. More than half of the country’s population belongs to the poor class. It usually happens when parents cannot afford the studies of their children, so they make them earn from a very tender age. It becomes a need to survive. Because in its absence, they won’t have enough money to have their daily bread.

Lack of Proper Education

Even after years of Independence, the children in our country are deprived of the fundamental right of education. It is a problem in the rural areas where there is no facility of education, and if something is available, it is miles away from their home.

Due to such administrative issues, child labor is so prevalent in India. At times children are forced to opt-out of school and end their studies because of financial problems. The worse affected are low-income families.

The Lure of Cheap Labour

There are shopkeepers, factory owners, and companies who employ these children so that they can pay them less. In this way, they hire labor and make a profit as well. They make these children work more than an adult would do as they can be easily manipulated and influenced, which leads to their exploitation.

Disease or Disability

There are families where the child is a sole earner as either his parents are dead or they are too sick to work. In such a situation, the parents have no other option but to send their child to work and earn the bread for the family. So, the children, instead of going to school, go to factories to work and financially support their family.

Consequences of Child Labour

Poor mental and physical health.

Children are very vulnerable at a young age. It affects their mental and physical health. Some studies show due to these works, children have stunted growth.

They also lose their innocence at an early age. The kind of care and attention a child needs growing up disappears because of the demands made from them.

Sexual Abuse-

There is sexual exploitation of both girls and boys. Some girls end up taking drugs, infected by HIV, STDs sometimes early and unwanted pregnancy. They get into the trap of prostitution or gets raped. In low-income families, girls are sold or married to older men by parents for some money.

No Education-

According to statistics, in developing countries, one-third of the child population fails to complete four years of their education. With the short-term benefits, they miss the educational qualifications and skills, which makes them lead the life of poverty. It is the lack of training that hinders their growth opportunity.

Physical Abuse-

There are various types of physical abuse, which involve cuts, burns, fractures, excessive fears, and nightmares. These consistent injuries leave an everlasting impact on a child’s mind.

To cope up with these fears and pressures, they end up abusing drugs. Ir tends to make them mature faster than usual. Childhood dreams get replaced by bitter realities.

Challenges in Controlling Child labor

Unclear laws-.

Child labor is not uniform. It takes place in many forms and types, depending on the kind of work a child has to do. The laws are vague, which does not help in combating the crime of child labor.

There are no strict guidelines that would protect the children from such horror. It is due to such complexity and no clear instructions that it becomes difficult to save a child from the grip of this crime.

Rehabilitation Problem-

The issue faced by the government and NGOs is that they lack the rehabilitation facility which the child might need. With no proper facilities available, they can fall on the grips of labor again.

For them to have a fresh start, those children need to feel the control of their new lives. These children need proper guidance and counseling to get better and achieve things in life.

Lack of Awareness-

Education will be the key to combat child labor. It is because of the lack of proper education and awareness; the families fall in this trap. There is a need for a proper awareness campaign to educate parents about the pitfalls of child labor.

The importance should be given on giving quality and relevant education. The mindset has to be changed in training young children to stop child labor.

Child labor act as a hindrance to the economic and social development of the country. It has to be resolved to have a better future. People and governments should come together to fight this evil.

Every child has a right to grow and prosper. It is the age of enjoyment and getting proper schooling. The children should not just be a mere means of having economic benefits for their family. It has many ill effects on a child’s mental health.

It leaves an impact which will haunt them all their adult life. So, to free our children from such evil, we need to make every effort to shape the future of children better. One has to create ways to help those kids upskill and support them to make sure the transition happens.

Child Labour – Essay 2

Child labour has been gripping the world at a very fast pace. But in India , this rate is quite alarming. This rate needs to be controlled as soon as possible not only in India but globally.

What is Child Labour?

In a broad sense, child labour simply means employing children illegally at workplaces. This is strictly prohibited under law and those who are caught employing children who have not attained working age will be treated by law.

Image Credit: Source

Though rules and regulations are not strict in India, the day is not far off when we would see our country working towards bringing an Empanelment that work for the rights of children.

Meaning & Definition of Child Labour

The actual definition of child labour can be technically explained as the fearless violation of the child rights act, wherein the act provides protection for the child and safeguards him by providing him with safeguards he is entitled to.

When child rights are not followed properly and the society misuses them to employ them in conditions unfit for their working, it is grossly equivalent to child abuse.

Child abuse and violation of child rights at workplace lead to a scenario that is discussed in the later part of this article.

Children under the age of 17 are strictly prohibited to take part in any kind of economic activity that will provide those wages.

In many cases they may be employed under worst conditions and may not even receive wages. So being part of a work environment, even if it’s for a few hours under the age of 17 is grossly treated as child labour.

Different types of Child Labour

In India, child labour occurs in various forms. Some of the most common types of child labour include bonded child labour , child labour in the mining industries , in manufacturing sectors, in domestic jobs, in fireworks industries and the worst of all, in the trafficking menace.

If we employ a small girl to work as a maid in our house and the girl happens to be under the age of 17, then that is treated as child abuse and we would be booked under Child Labour Act .

We can find many young boys and girls working in the fireworks and perfumed incense stick industries.

These kinds of tasks are easily performed by young boys and girls and they don’t have to be paid too much.

So, cheap labour is a cause of child labour in India.

In the manufacturing sector, children can be easily employed to do not-so-tough jobs like packaging work. These are identified as simple and can be done by small age groups with a little training.

Hence, not very high skills are required to employ children in this category. It works in both ways for the industries.

Firstly, the cost of employing a child would be definitely less compared to employing an adult, secondly, there is no training cost involved in teaching a child how to package things.

In the fireworks industry, particularly in the southern regions of India, there are huge factories employing children to work on fireworks.

Children are employed to coat the fireworks with a chemical substance that is not just harmful for their skin but may be hazardous to their health too.

In case of scented incense sticks, children employed in these types of industries tend to inhale the chemical coated on top of the incense sticks. Long term inhaling of these substances can cause injury to the respiratory system.

The bonded labour system is a banned system, for both adults and children. But in many remote parts of our country, these practices continue to exist and even children are made part of the inhuman practise.

A certain less known fact lies in employing children in cigarette industries. This is not talked about openly in the public since smoking itself is considered injurious to health.

Smoking ads have been banned by the government recently. Due to these strict norms, nobody discusses in the open about children being employed in their industries.

Rolling nicotine rolls and placing a tobacco may seem easy for any child to do, but the detrimental effects on thousands of children is hardly ever thought of.

So, these are some of the types of child labour that we commonly see in India. There are many more depending on the type of industry a particular child is associated with.

Child Labour in India

In India, child labour is a major problem because of the many reasons.

The fact that child labour is easily available and cost-effective puts it at the top most criteria for people to employ children blindly without taking note of their future.

For example, if we go to any suburban hotel in any part of our country, we are sure to spot at least one helper or cleaner being a guy under the age of 17.

Rules are made to prevent child labour acts. But the correct implementation of these rules is far from reality. There is no check in place. There are no officials who would check if these rules are strictly enforced.

So in India, the situation is more likely that rules and laws made are only for purposes of printing on paper and not beyond that.

The correct implementation of these rules would come to light when people start thinking about the children they have employed.

If we take our car to a service centre, we can find a whole lot of boys doing service work for the cars, cleaning them up, checking up the parts of the vehicles, etc.

The cheap labour these small guys are entitled to works as a double whammy for both the employer as well as the working guys. The employer makes a profit by employing small guys at cheap rates.

Guys whose families are stooped in misery and financial breakdowns are forced to go to work for making an earning to run the family.

Poverty and financial imbalances in society are therefore, trouble creators and their effects are seen directly on children.

Child labour laws in India

Some of the rules and acts enforced against carrying out child labour are given below:-

Free and fair education to all citizens of India in the age group of 6 to 14. Education for children in this bracket is declared compulsory too. (This is mentioned in the fundamental rights and directives of state policy.)

Child labour (Prohibition and regulation act) was formed in 1986 to protect children against working in factories under the age group of 14.

Persons found to be employing such children will be imprisoned for 3 months (extendable up to a year) and a fine imposed for INR 20,000.

A national policy on child labour was formulated in the year 1987.

The article 24 of the Indian constitution prohibits child labour in India.

The factories and Mines act also have special provisions to protect the rights of children.

These are just some of the rules and regulations present in India to protect children against child labour.

But the issue is about the effective implementation of these acts and ordinances which has not taken place as yet. If there were strict enforcement, children would not be employed so easily in various work forces.

People do not tend to the rules with fear, they know very well about the lenient nature of these regulations. Hence, approval or disapproval of these entitlements do not come into the picture in most of the cases.

Child Labour – A Big Social Menace in India

India is plagued by many social evils that bring a very bad picture to the nation and people belonging to the country.

Due to a certain section of the population that involves children in such activities, the entire society faces threat from becoming part of illegal activities.

Since long, there have always been cases of child labour thronging the country and have been a very bad impact on the society.

Today, looking at the facts and figures we can still claim that the situation hasn’t improved much in spite of strict enforcement of law and the judicial grounds.

It is high time we look into these aspects with deeper perspectives and set our thinking forces into action.

Child labour is a practice where children engage in economic activities on a full time basis. The practice deprives children of their childhood and is harmful to their physical and mental development.

The constitution of India, in its fundamental rights and Directive principles of state policy prohibits child labour below the age of 14 years. (Source Wikipedia )

Young children are enrolled in many business activities, house hold activities or forced to work in industries, totally ruining their future.

At a time when they should be attending school and play with other children, they are being enrolled in activities that deprive them of the very essence of childhood.

Many colors of child labour

There are countries which are facing worst form of child labour in the form of child slavery.

In such cases, they use children for illicit activities such a drug trafficking, exposing them to much hazardous work that is likely to harm the health, safety and morals of children.

It has been noticed that many industries such as coal mines and others that prepare chemicals like silicon, aluminum etc. employ children to carry out harmful tasks in their work areas.

This turns out to be even worse for the children as they end up suffering non curable disease and contract infections that may sometimes prove fatal also.

Child labour is not just an issue, it’s a social menace, right from the law makers to the normal citizen, everyone is involved in helping this social issue grow from its seeds to a big tree.

It has plagued India since time immemorial when strict enforcement’s were not prevalent.

Today, we find many people openly involving people in child labour activities and being proud of it as they are not afraid of lawmakers and are quite happy about doing so.  

There are several reasons behind the causes of child labour and over population being one of the biggest and major factors.

Other possible causes could be poverty, lack of social security, lack of proper education or no education, no visible alternative measures to make a livelihood.

Worst of all, the high prevalence of low income groups in a developing economy like India where rigid labour laws and numerous strict regulations are rampant make it even easier for the growth of child labour in the organized sector.

Girls are the ones who are the most deprived and underprivileged among all children.

Descriptive reasons for child labour in India

Overpopulation.

The population of India has been growing at an alarming stage and will soon cross China , which is currently holding the top position in terms of most populous country of the world.

In such a scenario where an underprivileged family has a minimum of three to four children, there is not much scope for people to earn well.

Hence, they make their children their own desirable medium to earn daily wages for the family.

It’s a normal scenario that people having more than two children (in fact people are preferring just one kid these days) are facing difficulties in planning for their kids’ education, clothing and jobs.

Children who belong to the poorer sections are forced to help their parents and siblings financially for their livelihood.

In developing countries unemployment is a major problem and on account of this, they cannot afford even the basic of facilities like food, shelter, clothes etc.

Children can be found employed in mines and industries, apart from other skilled areas like artisan jobs, etc. They have to work to make a livelihood out of it and to generate income for their family.

People who belong to the underprivileged sections of society tend to believe that the more number of off springs they produce, the more the working hands they receive to fulfill their daily needs.

In an educated society, the scenario is quite different. People understand the importance of attending school and the primary reason for getting employed in government jobs or in other good firms and MNCs.

On the other, illiterates undermine the value of education and do not realize the importance of going to school and further seek employment in a government job or in other good positions.

To see their children come out in flying colors in the future, they do not have big dreams or aspirations, hence they are limited to their own cringing world.

Early marriage

Being unemployed are one of the major issues in India, one of the major reasons being early marriage and also contributing to the factor of overpopulation.

It is practically impossible to create jobs or offer employment opportunities to all citizens of the country. On account of this, children are forced to help parents for their income and seek out on child labour.

Expensive higher education

For providing quality education , parents have to spend more money to get their children enrolled in good schools.

Today, many children don’t attend school for the sake of education, but rather stay at home losing out on precious time, simply because they cannot afford expensive education and the lack of important degrees and skill sets makes them unskilled in job fronts.

This could also play a major role in increasing child labour cases.

Lack of primary education

The Government of India has provided right to education to every child of India till the child reaches the fifth grade in school.

Government schools offer education at low and affordable rates to make education reach every child, so that child labour can be handled till a certain level and to avoid them in indulging in any economic activities.

But still poor people don’t understand the value of education and make their children working unsafe zones. These factors are depriving them from their basic compulsory education.

Effects of Child Labour

Letting children to get involved in age inappropriate activities leads to many bad influences on the child.

Some children suffer a bad childhood because their parents create a hostile environment for them, some others are unprivileged because they cannot afford good education and a basic livelihood, and some curse their own being as they are handicapped off their very existence by a section of anti-social elements in the country.

A quick peek into some of the damaging effects will provide a better idea:

Loss of quality childhood

Life does not offer a smooth ride at every stage. It is said that childhood is the golden period of one’s life and we cannot afford to get it back whenever we want it back.

Children should be allowed to play with their friends and make their childhood memorable.

Child labour, as a deadly evil, deprives children of a quality childhood as children engage themselves in hazardous work areas like mines and industries for their livelihood and to generate income for their family.

If children start working at such an early age they can in no way enjoy their childhood or have pleasant memories of a good childhood.

Health issues

If young children are forced to work at their tender ages in mines and industries, they are prone to various health issues and hazards, while they won’t even be having stamina to face mental and physical problems.

Working in mines and factories can lead to serious respiratory problems and can become lifelong victims of such dreaded diseases.

If children work in the mines and industries for their livelihood and to help their parents and siblings for generating money, they obviously cannot go to school for their education.

Education can help them to be self dependent and walk on their own feet in the society. Sadly, if we are not educated and are unskilled, we would not be employed by any good hirer and have to lead a life full of struggles.

Indulging in criminal cases / activities

As children remain uneducated they lose out on their sense of what is good and what is bad and many of them naturally tend to indulge in criminal activities.

This is a serious issue and of late, government is taking up strict measures to deal with it.

Many juvenile cases have been reported and are increasing at a very fast rate. It’s the moral responsibility of parents and teachers to take care of their children, guide them properly and monitor them.

Emotional harassment

When children who are not very privileged to be part of a larger civilized society see other children in a better picture playing, making merry and enjoying them, they are filled with thousands of stress creating questions about their existence and economic situation.

They are emotionally disturbed. And these emotionally disturbed children easily get influenced by criminal activities and take to anti-social elements very early in life.

Possible Solutions for Child Labour

Every problem has a possible solution. Yes and even a big menace like child labour can be stopped and prevented in a large country like India. It all depends on changing mindsets and evaluating situations from time to time.

Strict enforcement’s of laws together with rapid action committees to bring about execution of laws will be torch bearers for a better tomorrow and can throw light in the aspect of changing many innocent lives.

Let us now explore some possible solutions here:

Free education

If free education for one and all is made mandatory by the government, then to some extent it helps to check child labour.

This is especially helpful for parents who have very poor financial aids to allow their children to seek education and in the long run, benefit the society at large, especially the impoverished and underprivileged groups.

Mid-day meal schemes can also can be provided to children for their daily food needs. Good educational support creates an independent standing for a person in his community and in the society he belongs to.

If a good awareness is created among citizens for eliminating child labour then it can be stopped to a large extent.

Parents should be aware of the benefits of education and should send their children to school for their formal educational process.

In this way, they can become self dependent and on par with others in the society, landing them in good jobs for their sustenance and livelihood.

To bring about awareness, social campaigns should be created and inform citizens about the problems of child labour and related health issues.

Empowerment to poor people

Children from poor families are most likely to get involved in child labour cases. They are exploited by rich and influential people for managing their household work.

It’s not right on the part of affluent people to bring in helpless people from their communities and involve them in age inappropriate chores.

It goes against laws and if we also take up initiatives to empower them enough, then they cannot be exploited by such persons .

Strict Child Labour law

Indian Government on their part has done a fascinating work in carrying on their mission of eliminating child labour from India.

They have made strict rules such as Factory act and mines act which prohibit any children to work in such hazardous environments.

Plus they have also made rules for free education and mid-day meals in various states of India which has currently garnered an overwhelming response from all sections of society.

Moral education to parents and children

  There is an urgent need for making education mandatory, not only for children but equally for parents to bring in a bigger perspective regarding the upbringing of their children.

They should be well aware of the consequences of child labour and how it can affect their child’s life.

Social Awareness

The citizens, on moral grounds should not rope in younger children less than age of 14 and force them into household activities or other workshop related work.

In fact if anyone sees any person misbehaving with children or forcefully employs them, they should be immediately taken under the action of law and such persons should be immediately reported to the authorities.

Children are god’s most precious gifts to human being. It’s not good to ruin their lives by employing them at inappropriate ages.

We should allow them to enjoy their childhood to the fullest. A well groomed child will become a responsible citizen of the country and will respect others and same will be carried forward to the coming generations.

People should come forward and join hands in removing child labour from India completely. It’s not a single day job but if we all work together towards the cause, then nothing is Impossible.

Let’s hold our hands together and take pride in making our nation child-labour free and take our nation a step forward from developing to a developed stage.

Child Labour Facts & Statistics 

Some of the facts and figures revealed under the latest census are

• Over 27 million children do not attend school in India. Some are school drop outs, some of them do not attend school because their families don’t encourage them, and some of them are forcibly made to seek employment to support families.
• Out of this huge number, around 10 million children spend every day in their lives by being employed in some or the other factory or industry.
• Almost 70% of children employed in child labour activities are in the age group of 5 to 14.
• Almost 20 to 30% of these children are from below poverty line families.
• Almost 43% of the 27 million children are employed as domestic helps in houses.

How to Stop Child Labour

Some of the possible steps that help in creating improved awareness about child labour and its prevention is discussed below:

By educating the public about the ill effects of child labour. Child labour is illegal. This statement should be etched in the minds of people who propose to employ children at their workplaces.

People should not only be told that child labour is illegal, but they should be enlightened about the fine and imprisonment that they attract if they happen to enforce child labour in their companies.

If we really want to stand up against child labour, then we must join hands with an NGO or a social service center that fights for the rights of children.

We must make effective use of child lifelines and if we spot children anywhere being employed for work, we must immediately call up the help center and aid them in rescuing such children.

Child labour quotes 

Children are the most precious gifts from God. We have to nurture them and provide them opportunities to fly with bright colors.

We have to help them shape their future. We must secure their future by giving them good education. Below are some quotes against child labour:

• “Child labour is not just a menace; it is the result of a weakened thought process.”
• “Eradicate child labour else the country may soon see a degradation of rich talent going in for a waste”.
• “Child labour destroys the future of children; the future of the country is at stake due to this”.
• “Employing children for free and cheap labour is equivalent to moral destruction of many innocent lives of the country”.
• “Think of your own children being part of a child labour act, wouldn’t that make you arise and awake to bring about a new change in the society?”

Child Labour slogans

These days there are many public campaigns carried out by various organizations and volunteers to act against child labour.

People come out in the open and are no longer confined to the comfort of their rooms to voice their concerns. They use effective tools of technology to validate their thoughts and act accordingly.

We can see many organizations shouting slogans to make people aware about this deadly menace:

• “Stop Child labour at once, children need better lives.”
• “Why child labour, why not child education?”
• “ Freedom for children illegally involved in child labour”
• “Children need freedom for their development, bonding them under child labour is a crime”.
• “Child rights and child freedom are gifts from god; let us not invade their territories”.

A Case study on child labour

In a particularly interesting case, a small town boy from West Bengal accidentally came into the hands of an agent who used children for easy money making.

He would stealthily catch hold of children or take them away from their parents and cheat them. He would actually steal children and once children are in his clutches, he would harass them and leave them homeless.

He was operating in a big network and his circles were present in south Indian regions.

He grabbed this particular boy named Ranjith who was just 14 years then and took him over from a small town in West Bengal all the way to Kerala. In Kerala, he had connections with a small time gold shopkeeper and handed over this guy to him. Ranjith saw the worst times of his life.

The shopkeeper made him work for almost 14 hours a day. He was left with no food and no sleep for days together.

He was physically and mentally abused at many times. The shop owner brutally hit him if he disagreed to doing his tasks.

He was morally disgraced and the boy entered depression gradually. But, he mustered courage and on the pretext of going out for some other reason, he found a way to escape from the clutches of the shop keeper.

Not familiar with the place in Kerala, he ended up somewhere at Kozhikode. The police at Kozhikode saw this particular guy wandering homeless and planned to rehabilitate him properly.

The personnel acted with concern and took him to a rehabilitation center where he was further referred to a child care center at Calicut.

During his stay at Calicut, the child began to feel better and started improving. With company of other children and friendly staff, he began to open up on his past experiences.

During one of his counseling sessions with an expert in child care, he briefly talked about his abusive master in the form of gold shop owner. He further threw light about the agent operating in circles and how he was nabbed by him.

The personnel at the child care center took up this matter seriously and soon informed the police about it. The police acted swiftly.

They sat out to nab the agent. 3 police personnel forming a group, including a lady sub inspector hatched out a plan to nab the agent.

The agent was found out by police sources and was contacted by the lady sub inspector who told him that she was actually a teacher.

She made the agent believe her that she wanted money. In return for money, she was ready to hand over Ranjith who was under his custody till some time ago.

The tricks of the police had worked. They contacted the agent again and told him the venue from where he could come and collect Ranjith.

The agent gave in. Instead of him, he sent one of his men to the pre-discussed spot. The police personnel, all three of them, arrived at the spot in plain clothes and successfully nabbed the agent’s man.

The agent’s man, upon strict interrogations, revealed his own identity and gave vital clues about the agent’s whereabouts.

Finally, the agent was tracked down and nabbed. Technology also played a major role in tracing the agent and nabbing him. The culprit was given his due punishment and booked under law.

The gold shop owner was also booked under the child labour act and was fined severely.

Thorugh several interrogations, it was finally revealed that around 6 children were trapped by the agent in total and he was part of a bigger network.

The network was traced down and all the six children were freed from their clutches. They were provided proper rehabilitation under the child care center in Calicut.

Ranjith was luckily sent back home and re-united with his family in the small town at West Bengal.

Implications drawn from the case study

Not everybody is as lucky as Ranjith. In most of the cases, children go unnoticed in crimes and become part of bigger networks that deport them to different parts of the world.

They can hardly be traced back or re-united with their families. Many of their identities would be erased and they would be totally blacked out.

In Ranjith’s case, it was the police which played the most crucial role in not just rescuing his life, but also providing a new life to six other children who were part of the trap.

The right attitude towards rescuing children and giving them their due rights provided the right steps in the right direction.

The case had many turning points but the police handled them with their intelligence. We salute such people and applaud them in our society. They are a true asset to the country and its citizens.

We may also come across similar child care centers operating in different parts of the country in various different ways for the welfare of children.

Some of the noteworthy mentions include CRY (Child Rights and YOU), Child line India foundation, Save the Children Foundation , etc.

We should understand that child labour is a problem, not just in developing countries like India but exists in developed countries as well.

The police cannot arrive at every workplace to check if there is existence of child labour. People and their mentalities should change to put an overall end to this issue.

People should be educated; they should be enriched with morals and values to stop this menace. They should be morally made responsible for their own acts and they should be made to own their mistakes.

http://www.childlineindia.org.in/1098/CaseOfChildLabour.htm

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Child Labour In Pakistan Causes And Effects Essay

Child Labour refers to the employment of children especially when considered illegal. It is the full-time employment of children in any industry or a business. In some countries, child labour is strictly prohibited and it is considered a violation of human rights. Pakistan is country in which half of the population lying below the poverty line. It is facing the problem of poverty due to which Child labour is working in almost every field but it mainly exists in the home-based industries. The practice of child labour ultimately harms the social, physical, moral and mental level of children. Most of the children in Pakistan are employed in any industry, business and factories instead of studying in any school. It is one of the social problems growing in Pakistan will alarming situation. The Federal Bureau of Statistics FBS released the report of last year survey which show that between 5 to 14 aged, more than 40 million child labour is working in Pakistan. There are so many causes and effects which lead to the child labour in Pakistan which are listed below in detail.

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Causes of Child Labour in Pakistan:

Poverty is one of the basic and major causes of Child labour in Pakistan. Half of the population of Pakistan is facing the problem of poverty and lies below the poverty line. Poverty forces the children from middle-class families to earn their living along with their parents to generate income. Children get employed in mines, factories and hawking in the street, working on street shops in order to earn money. Child labour in Pakistan is the alarming situation as it harms or damages the talented children which further prove to be the rising stars and maybe some of them are history makers.

Most of the people living in our society do not know the importance of education. They didn’t force their children on education but out them on labouring in any factory or any business. Illiteracy is also playing a vital role in child labouring. They to choice education to generate money instead of labour their children at a small age.

• High Cost of Education

There is a huge ratio of middle-class families are living in Pakistan. Some of them are not eligible to afford the expense of education in order to educate their children even from government schools.

• Over Population

Overpopulation is also the major cause of child labour in Pakistan. The birth rate in Pakistan is very high. A huge number of family member leads to poverty which ultimately results in working with the child along with parent in order to earn living for all family members.

Effect of Child Labour in Pakistan:

Society: Our society plays a vital role in developing child labour and causing bad effect on children. And the child labour is also affecting our society. They are not award with enough wage and they try to steal and snatch the thing from other in order to fulfil the need of money which results into the severe situation and they literally involve in criminal activities too.

Health Issues: Childhood is very innocent and delicate age in which we grow into potential skills. But unfortunately, due to child labour, it results into health complication such a mental disorders, depression, anxiety etc. working on an unsuitable or unfavorable place like mines, constructions places, factories etc with full time working hours lead to the lifetime health issues.

The government should take serious steps to overcome the social problem of child labour in Pakistan. They are the major assets of the nation and leads to the proud of a nation with their talent and potential. The government should impose the institute which solely works with the aim of preserving the rights of children and bring a law to avoid child labour. Some of the developed countries have imposed a restriction on child labour in order to save their assets and grow well for the success of their country. We hope that Pakistan will be one of them and took serious steps to overcome this social evil from Pakistan.

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