Challenges of Child Labor

Child labour has effectively proved to be an outrageous frame which has been consequently underlying the massive exploitation of children by robbing their rights to an innocent childhood. At this level of thought referring to the manipulation of the children, we have a better and precise position of child labour happening in the SADC countries and Mauritius as a whole. The government regulations and the relevant laws about the elimination of child labour has been weakly responded during the past few decades.

This is whether the law enforcement and the authorities are not fulfilling their responsibilities and duties as it should be or simply because these children are merely taken as the second vulnerable group concerning the society.

We cannot fully deny that the existing system has not made much efforts for the preclusion of child labour but the fact is that we as human being we all have human rights and we cannot afford to let other’s rights being extirpate emotionally or even physically. We all have rights as a human being and we can still raise our voice against any abuses and hence it is noteworthy that these children need us at the most to be their voice. As said by DR SUESS, “A person is a person, no matter how small” which is we cannot run away from reality we just have to confront it with effective measures. Having that acute paroxysm of rage and anger in you, which makes its way obvious each and every time you see a child working in a lamentable and disgraceful situation, just do something to stop this. It all starts with us first as we all know that there is no simple or quick fix for child labour however the change begins with us and then delegate to the appropriate institutions. Thus if we as citizens we can do something to eradicate this dishonourable situations, hence, the rest shall follow.

It can be said that child labour can however be more appeasing rather than dwelling on the quick and drastic eradication of child labour. Besides reporting, taking the matter to the court and waiting for a judgement to be rendered, there are other credible and operative measures which would certainly help to soothe the inhumane mentality of making children working at such tender age under nasty atmosphere. These could be classified as:

Education And Child Labour

Education has always proved to be a major component in children’s life. Child labour is considered as an obstacle to education which basically restrict children from going to school and get educated and on the same line of thought, education is the paramount and fundamental instrument to the soothing of child labour. It is indeed of great essential for a state to have a stable and reliable educational system to decrease the spread of child labour. Hence the educational system is known to be the core factor which can help the reducing of child exploitation. Following the honourable and the heartening precedent ruling in the South Africa, the Grootboom and the Tac cases where the government of South Africa is encouraged to give rise to its obligations with regard of realizing the socio-economic rights of vulnerable children. It shows a sense of responsibility towards a way to eradicate child labour by implementing social programmes to support families in need by helping them to find alternative way for a living rather than depending on their children’s income through dangerous and inappropriate tasks. This can fruitfully help in addressing the taboo of child labour. At such age (7-15) children were supposed to be allocated with school materials and not working tools. It is certainly true to say who would monitor the attendance pattern at school concerning the number of children in the region and the number of children register for the school program. There should be adequate checks and balances relating to the monitoring of the children which are not at school and why they are not at school and where they actually are during school hours. Moreover, the figure of number of children born in specific years should interlink and correspond with the number of children register for the start of the year. If these do not correspond, there should be an immediate consideration by the concerning authority.

Parents who are not financially stable / single parent

It could be possible in certain case that parents are not able to send their children to school. But in Mauritius this could be just an excuse as education is known to be free for children and also since July 2005, the government also introduced free transport for all students and emphasizes that schooling is mandatory up to the age of 16. They are also allocated with the social security to have an allowance based on their circumstances but free from child labour and are compelled to educate their children with the fund given. Hence there are many facilities that can be provided which help to educate the children if parents do not have the capacity of sending them to school.

Schooling programme offers

Educate them on the laws and allow them to voice out. School should be the resort where children are able to express themselves no matter what. Talk about the factors that cause child labour or even implement new books or chapters about child labour and make them aware that school is where they should definitely belong to at such age. It can also help to prove them the worth of being at school. Thus having incorporated child labour in its curriculum, they will be able to know about their rights and duties in regard to works at such age. For example, if the Child Labour Prohibition Act is taught at school as a mainstream or part of a subject, children will have the big picture of what child labour is and they will undoubtedly report any abuses related to child labour instead of just being a yes person and agree to anything pertaining to child exploitation. Also motivate them to learn as it is only their willingness to study and the good structure of schooling, and the joyful method of of teaching and also their interaction with teachers could be the way addressing child labour.

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