Eliminating child labour

A great deal has been reported on child labour in your paper. Therefore one assumes some awareness has been raised and that this is sometimes apparent when employers refer to their child workers as" children they treat like their own". One proud employer claimed that by keeping these children they are saving them from worse occupations. Others say they are dressed, clothed and sent to school. It's an attribute to the awareness raising programmes in the country, that many employers justify keeping child workers because they love kids and treat them as their own

Such practices, though rare, are indeed praiseworthy and should be well projected in the media.

What is the reason behind employing child workers, particularly as domestic helps? Reasons given by researchers include poverty of the parents and greed of the employers. Poor parents have no option but to turn their kids into slaves at the mercy of the employers who save money by employing child labour. These reasons are not good enough when in a poor country like ours there are many adults willing to work as domestic helps. When a child worker was asked as to why he works instead of going to school, he said, "If my parents worked I could go to school!"

Considering the prevalence of child labour in the country and the reported incidents of brutality suffered by such kids, it's time we looked into our hearts instead of delivering speeches on ratifying UN Conventions including the CRC. It' s time we brought more human practices to our homes. It's time we stopped justifying child labour.

NGOs have always been the first to set up good models of development. Their people are also the first to attend international seminars and global meetings where their voices are heard clear and loud against child labour. It's time we in the NGO community set up a policy for protection of working children:

To ban hazardous work for children.

To survey the status of parents of working children who could be substitutes as domestic helps.

To set up a system of contracts for domestic workers and code of conduct for employers.

To set up ethical standards for NGO people who employ domestic help and to restrict recruitment of personnel who employ child servants.

Obviously, something has to be done for the hapless children.