Child Labour

Child Labour refers to the situation where minor boys and girls are engaged into commercial activities.

Child Labour is a big social problem. Very often we see some minor boys and girls are working in the tea stalls, restaurants, and hotels and in the small shops. In some big industries also, minor boys and girls have been working for full working hours.

At present in the agricultural sector, they were working with their parents or other workers. These minor workers are called child labourers.

The poverty is the main reason which has forced the children to work. As a result, the children do not get the time for education. As they have to accept hard work before their maturity, they lose their health and they are deprived of having the scope for spiritual, psychological and cultural development.

It is altogether inhuman to engage the children as laborers. William Blake, the great poet and Charles Dickens, the novelist raised their voice of protest against it for the first time. They have exposed the misery of child labourers in their many writings. Afterwards, many effective rules and regulations have been passed against the cruel system.

In India, child labour system has become a problem to the society. Though in the Factory Act some rules are framed for the unemployment of labor at a specified age, the employment of the child labour has not been totally stopped. Thus, it violates the Constitution of India.

Only the law cannot protect the children from being engaged in hard work and becoming the labourers. Anti-poverty programme should be taken in a vast way and that should be applied all over the country as a whole. And, a comprehensive propaganda planning against child labour should have to be taken which will make the people conscious about their problem.