Being unhappy on the job can affect your kids for years, researchers find
This accounts for nearly 10 in 50 children worldwide. Almost half of them are in hazardous work that directly endangers their health and moral development. The lockdown caused by the spread of Coronavirus has severely affected human life and livelihood in the world and in India.
Though people are following social distancing norms to hope for a better future, yet according to experts there is a possibility. that some children may become victims of child labour due to preventive measures of lockdown. Various interlinked factors give rise to child labour. Child labour is both a cause and a consequence of necessity.
Poverty is the root cause which forces children to engage in any activity to earn money. Some children do child labour to supplement the family income, while many do it to survive. Whatever the cause, child compounds social inequality and discrimination and robs girls and boys of their childhood.
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. 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.
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 and threatening their futures. That global progress to end child labour has stalled for the first time in 20 years. The number of children aged 5 to 17 years in hazardous work defined as work that is likely to harm their health, safety or morals has risen by 6.5 million to 79 million since 2016.
In sub-Saharan Africa, population growth, extreme poverty, and inadequate social protection measures have led to an additional 16.6 million children in child labour over the past four years. Children in child labour are at risk of physical and mental harm. Child labour compromises children’s education, restricting their rights and limiting their future opportunities, and leads to vicious inter-generational cycles of poverty and child labour.
The pandemic has led to a sharp increase in the number of jobless jobs and economic losses in many sectors. So to overcome these situations and to meet the financial crisis the companies can involve child labour. They may try to compensate by employing children as labourers. In such a situation, there will be more chances of physical, mental and sexual abuse of children.
There is also a possibility of underage girls being married off and sold into prostitution. This kind of experiential understanding builds confidence in the learner. This confidence does not come from bookish knowledge. Sadly, our schooling does not give enough importance to experience.
As a result, passing the examination with the best marks by cramming the bookish information has become the ultimate aim of education. School education is of no use in solving the real challenges of life. Children learn from experience in all kinds of games.
They know that they cannot become a cricketer by watching a book or video written by a big cricketer. For that, he will have to take the batted ball and enter the field. Our skilled girls become skilled housewives in their teenage years by helping their mothers. Poor children working in motor garages very quickly become good motor mechanics.
