June 12 is observed as World Day Against Child Labour. On this day, we should unlearn the myth that poverty is to be alleviated first and then only we can solve the problem of child labour. This myth makes us unsure about how to react to someone who says that he is doing a great favour to a child’s family by employing her/him because otherwise the child would have starved to death but now the child is having a square meal and some monthly bucks as well. This excuse clears our conscience and makes us comfortable to order the child to prepare another round of tea. Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi points out that this excuse is as lame as it gets. He says that poverty does not breed child labour but it is the child labour that perpetuates poverty.
Now, to get to his point, we can consider a poor family consisting of parents and their two sons — one adult and one child. The market force will try to employ the child as a cheaper option of labour. This will have a negative impact on the child’s health, education and his acquiring necessary skills to cut the vicious cycle of his family’s poverty. Given India’s huge unemployment problem, the child’s entry into the job market will certainly hamper his elder’s (or at least one other adult’s) prospect of getting employment. If the adult brother gets the job in place of his little brother then their family income will, definitely, shoot up as a child labour usually earns much less than his or her adult counterpart. Moreover, there is every possibility that the parents will send their child who is fired from his job to school to fend for his mid-day meal. Therefore, in this case, the child with the help of increased family income can become a game changer for his family. So, it is not at all possible to eradicate poverty without giving top priority to end child labour.
Those who think that they are helping a poor family by providing employment to a child is actually pouring diesel to put out fires of poverty. We should all take the pledge of not visiting those houses and shops that employ child labour on and after June 12, 2016.
