They Toil Even On Children’s Day!

Lakhs of children toil for meager incomes even on Children’s Day, a day observed to celebrate childhood.

Children’s Day, sometimes referred to as Bal Divas, focuses on the value of children’s rights, safety, and education, as well as strategies to ensure their overall well-being in society. But it is a fact that children are among the most vulnerable groups, especially in poor nations. These children of poor families frequently face inhumane treatment. Child labour due to economic compulsion is one of the most inhumane things that some kids have to deal with.

Millions of children worldwide are victims of child labour. The reasons behind it are many. As per a study around 160 million children were involved in child labour at the start of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic put an additional 9 million children in danger. This indicates that around 1 in 10 kids worldwide are engaged in child labour. Additionally, several children are victims of abuse, assault, trafficking, and sexual exploitation. All these violate the fundamental rights of our future generation.

Education is still a dream for a large number of children in Asian nations. Many of them take up risky vocations as child labourers. According to a study, there are over 3.5 lakh child labourers in Odisha. Most of them are involved in agriculture, beedi rolling, collection and processing of minor forest produce, servants in roadside hotels, Domestic help, cattle and goat rearing, workers in motor garages, work in brick kilns, stone quarries, weaving and dying, rag picking, loading and unloading in mining areas, construction work, country liquor selling etc.

In Kashmir Valley, usually termed as a heaven on earth,  sizeable number of youngsters leave schools because of economic compulsions. These kids work as domestic servants, garage helpers, cheap workers in weaving mills, and as street vendors. There are reportedly more than 2.5 lakh child labourers in Kashmir alone.

Inadequate legal enforcement has hampered the fight against child labour. Most of them support the financial condition of their poor families. This is the major reason behind the existence of child labour,   In addition to observing Children’s Day, our nation urgently needs greater legal safeguards and institutional commitment to enact constructive change for the benefit of children’s rights.