RED KP
14-July-2021
-The COVID-19 health pandemic and the resulting economic and labour market shock are having a huge impact on people’s lives and livelihoods.
-Unfortunately, children are often the first to suffer. The crisis can push millions of vulnerable children into child labour. Already, there are an estimated 152 million children in child labour, 72 million of which are in hazardous work.
-These children are now at even greater risk of facing even more difficult circumstances and working longer hours.
-First, children are forced to work because family incomes are not enough to survive. With many people losing their jobs due to COVID-19, the financial crises being faced by families has increased manifold. These families will need extra pairs of hands to earn to provide two meals a day, leading to more children entering the economy or working on family-owned enterprises and farms.
-Second, children are considered cheap labour, and with businesses and enterprises facing massive financial losses, the demand for cheap labour is going to increase.
-Due to reverse migration from urban centres, there is also going to be a shortage of adult labour.
- Children, especially adolescents, will be increasingly in demand to fill this gap. as they are cheap labour who will be treated as an unquestionable commodity.
-Third, the pressure on children staying at home, especially girls, will be made to contribute to household chores and sibling care. More and more girls will be pulled further away from education and into managing the household. This means like reverse migration we society are going back in a reverse direction with depreciating values.
-Forth, the closure of schools will lead to a gradual detachment from education, especially for those children who cannot access online education. This detachment will eventually lead to dropouts among children, which in turn will lead to them.
-Fifth, with every livelihood crisis, the risk of trafficking increases. In India, a large number of children are already trafficked for labour. So be assured to lose one of our fundamental rights (Right against exploitation).
-To add to these, the recent changes in labour laws in the country will further weaken law enforcement when it comes to child labour. To boost the economy, states such as Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Assam have amended the Factories Act, 1948 through an ordinance, to allow companies to extend a factory worker’s daily shift from eight to 12 hours per day. Most of these states also have a high burden of child and adolescent labourers.
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