Yasmin Tandon's List: Justice Project- Child Labor

• Some common causes of child labor are poverty, parental illiteracy,  social apathy, ignorance, lack of education and exposure, exploitation of cheap  and unorganized labor. The family practice to inculcate traditional skills in  children also pulls little ones inexorably in the trap of child labor, as they  never get the opportunity to learn anything else.
  
  
• parental ignorance regarding the bad effects of child labor, the ineffictivity  of child labor laws in terms of implementation, non availability and non  accessibility of schools, boring and unpractical school curriculum and cheap  child labor

  • This shows some of the reasons why kids are being mistreated- education
• Poverty and over population have been identified as the two main causes of child  labor
• send little children into hazardous jobs for reasons of survival, even when they  know it is wrong.

  • This shows some parents don't want to do it but this is to save their own lives
• This is the case in most Asian and African countries.

  • Can research- for comparison
• Adult unemployment and urbanization also causes child labor.
• Illiterate and ignorant parents do not understand the need for wholesome proper  physical, cognitive and emotional development of their child. They are  themselves uneducated and unexposed, so they don’t realize the importance of  education for their children.

  • The parents themselves are uneducated and don't have the technique to work. Due to this their children are sent to work
• The industrial revolution has also had a negative effect by giving rise  to circumstances which encourages child labor.

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• FAMOUS ENGLISH poet William Wordsworth once said, “The Child is the father of  the Man.”
• For those unlucky children living in misery, the International Labour  Organisation (ILO) has declared June 12 as World Day Against Child Labour, which  is observed across the world
• Sadly the day is not popular as Valentine Day, Friendship Day or other  celebrated day,
• According the ILO estimate, about 165 million children between the ages of five  and 14 are involved in child labour across the world.
• ’Worst Forms of Child labour’
• India has the highest number of child labour of the world
• Poverty and illiteracy are the main reasons behind the increasing number of  child labours in India

  • Add this to reasons why child labor happens
• Traditionally, girls suffer more from boys, as parents prefer the boys to send  school and send girls to work for household works
• At the same time, rich people and owners of factories never think about the  health and freedom of the children.

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   "When we return the kids, we ask the parents why they sent them," says Kasbe. Many say they cannot afford to look after them. Some believe that by sending the children they save them from a miserable life in the village. Those who live in border areas say sending children to Mumbai prevents them from joining terrorist or naxalite outfits. In Mumbai, they believe the child, will get at least an education and the opportunity of a better existence.
• Immediately after the boys' deaths, 400 children were rescued in a dramatic raid in the Madanpura area, which has perhaps the highest number of zari factories in Mumbai. In the following months, about 16,000 children were rescued and sent back to their villages. Another 1,080 were rehabilitated in shelters. The Labour Department says there must be at least another 25,000 children working in this sector, whom it plans to rescue.
• Towards the end of 2005, the State government set up a Special Child Labour Task Force. In February 2006 Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil declared that Maharashtra would be "child labour free" by August 15 - an ambitious goal given the complexities of the problem but nonetheless a move in the right direction. Furthermore, Patil announced that employing children would be made a non-bailable offence in the State.
• While a task force may solve the immediate problem, the child labour situation in Mumbai is so grim that the greater issue that needs addressing is why these children come here and what happens to them once rescued, says Ashok Agarwal, lawyer and civil rights activist. With no long-term rehabilitation plan, many of the children "saved" return to these sweatshops. "This is nothing but recycling of child labour," says Agarwal.
• "Our aim is to conduct mass raids, which involve 50-60 officers who target an area and begin a "combing operation". If we raid one owner, the others get to know very fast and chase the children to hideaways. We need to go in there and attack as many factories as possible in one go," says Jagtap. The children that are rescued are taken to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), which takes them home. Those who have nowhere to go would be given shelter. Currently they are kept in an observation home. But they are not delinquents, so they should not stay there. The Chief Minister has promised to set up residential schools for these children, says Jagtap.

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• Meet with the people-- can send email
  This will help to show that people are making a difference - Yasmin Tandon on 2009-05-04

• Somewhere in Chicago, 11-year-old Michael begs his mother to buy him a new pair of shoes... the kind with wheels on the heels, like his best friend has. Michael's mother says she doesn't have the extra money to spend on things like special sneakers with wheels. She suggests Michael try to earn part of the money for the sneakers, by getting a paper route, or helping some of the neighbors with their yard work.
  "Aw, man! What about child labor laws?" complains Michael.
  Contrary to what Michael thinks, not all child labor is bad for kids. In fact, the type of work Michael's mom has suggested, like a paper route or odd jobs, can teach Michael about responsibility, and about the "value of a dollar"... and in the end, he'll be able to get his new sneakers, and feel great about himself for having earned them

  • - First Story
    - In America
    - The Child Labour is not as bad as other places
    - Paper routes and helping neighbours
• Meanwhile, in Tanzania, 9-year-old Joseph doesn't know what "child labor" is. Joseph works in a gem mine. Each day he descends under the ground and digs through narrow tunnels, along with other children, searching for gems. It is hard to breathe under there, and he has only a small flashlight to lead the way. Joseph does this for eight hours each day. Often Joseph is scared at work. He knows some children who have gotten badly injured, or even died, when tunnels have collapsed with the children in them. But Joseph can't quit... he needs the earnings to help support his family.

  • - Second Story
    - Tanzania
    - Young Child
    - In tunnels
    - the child is scared, it is worse and harder
    - the death risk is higher
• If she doesn't work hard enough, she'll be beaten

  • - Not working hard enough= abuse
    - Shows how two topics are related
• Besides, she couldn't leave, even if she did know how to get home... the man has chained her to this loom

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• Mumbai gets cracking on child labour
• A special task force in Mumbai has begun keeping tabs on housing societies to see whether children below the age of 18 are working there, especially in affluent households. ''We just cannot raid ho...

• 
    54% of Mumbai
  residents live in slums.
  World Bank
  
  
   ...of the 460 million
  [youth of India]
  between 6 and 24,
  170 million are not
  in the education system.
  Times of India, 6 July 2008
• Be the change you want to see...
  
   -Gandhi

• You have the right to live, and to live in freedom and safety.
• Nobody has the right to treat you as his or her slave and you should not make anyone your slave.
• Nobody has the right to torture you.
• You should be able to ask for legal help when the rights your country grants you are not respected.

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• Children Rescued From The Brothels of Mumbai 
  Deveraj and his team, literally rescue children from brothels and give them a new home and life away from the commercial child sex industry and slavery. The children have either been abducted from their homes and sold into the sex industry or they are toddlers or very young children born to young prostitute woman who are desperate their children escape their "prison."

• World Day against Child Labor (WDACL), 12th June, is a day celebrated across the globe each year to fight child labor. This year the day focuses on “Education, The Right Response to End Trafficking and Child Labor

  • Purpose of the day
• 165 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are involved in child labor.
• Many people don’t send their children to school because of poverty. Financial problems are the main reason. In place of school the kids are then sent for tiring jobs for small money.

• Government should come forward with major steps to achieve 100% education. Some of the steps can be:

   
   
  1. Free and compulsory education
   
  2. Provision of girls education
   
  3. Ensuring proper faculty and trained teachers
   
  4. Providing catch up education opportunities for children and youth who have so far missed out on formal schooling
   
  5. Enforcing laws on child labor and education in line with international standards
   
  6. Tackling poverty
   
  7. Raising public awareness to tackle child labor
   
  8. Promoting human rights and development

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• WHAT IS "CHILD LABOR"?

   

  "Child labor" is, generally speaking, work for children that harms them or exploits them in some way (physically, mentally, morally, or by blocking access to education).
• BUT: There is no universally accepted definition of "child labor"
• Not all work is bad for children
• 246 million child workers aged 5 and 17 were involved in child labor, of which 171 million were involved in work that by its nature is hazardous to their safety, physical or mental health, and moral development. Moreover, some 8.4 million children were engaged in so-called 'unconditional' worst forms of child labor, which include forced and bonded labor, the use of children in armed conflict, trafficking in children and commercial sexual exploitation."

•  

  WHERE DO CHILD LABORERS LIVE?

   

  61% in Asia, 32% in Africa, and 7% in Latin America, 1% in US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations In Asia, 22% of the workforce is children. In Latin America, 17% of the workforce is children. The proportion of child laborers varies a lot among countries and even regions inside those countries. See Child Labour: Targeting the Intolerable, Geneva, 1998, p. 7; and other ILO publications.

   

  "In Africa, one child in three is at work, and in Latin America, one child in five works. In both these continents, only a tiny proportion of child workers are involved in the formal sector and the vast majority of work is for their families, in homes, in the fields or on the streets." -- Unicef’s 1997 State of the World’s Children Report

• WHY SHOULD WE CARE?

   

  Many children in hazardous and dangerous jobs are in danger of injury, even death.

   

  Beyond compassion, consider who today’s children will become in the future. Between today and the year 2020, the vast majority of new workers, citizens and new consumers — whose skills and needs will build the world’s economy and society — will come from developing countries. Over that 20-year period, some 730 million people will join the world’s workforce — more than all the people employed in today's most developed nations in 2000. More than 90 percent of these new workers will be from developing nations, according to research by Population Action International. How many will have had to work at an early age, destroying their health or hampering their education?

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  1. It is a myth that child labor is only a problem in developing countries. "But in fact, children routinely work in all industrialized countries, and hazardous forms of child labour can be found in many countries. In the US, for example, children are employed in agriculture, a high proportion of them from immigrant or ethnic-minority families. A 1990 survey of Mexican-American children working in the farms of New York state showed that almost half had worked in fields still wet with pesticides and over a third had themselves been sprayed."
   
  2. It is a myth that child labor will only disappear when poverty disappears. Hazardous labor can, and should be eliminated by even the poorest countries.
   
  3. It is a myth that most child laborers work in sweatshops making goods for export. "Soccer balls made by children in Pakistan for use by children in industrialized countries may provide a compelling symbol, but in fact, only a very small proportion of all child workers are employed in export industries - probably less than 5 per cent. Most of the world’s child labourers actually are to be found in the informal sector - selling on the street, at work in agriculture or hidden away in houses – far from the reach of official labour inspectors and from media scrutiny."
   
  4. It is a myth that "the only way to make headway against child labour is for consumers and governments to apply pressure through sanctions and boycotts. While international commitment and pressure are important, boycotts and other sweeping measures can only affect export sectors, which are relatively small exploiters of child labour. Such measures are also blunt instruments with long-term consequences that can actually harm rather than help the children involved."
   
   

  <!--(Source: Unicef State of the World’s Children’s Report, 1997, "Four Myths about Child Labor," <a href="http://www.unicef.org/sowc97/" target="_blank">http://www.unicef.org/sowc97/</a>)-->

   

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