Child Labor

I want to share my experience with you all when I was going for a trip to Nainital. We stopped on our way to have some food, and as we were ready to order our meals what we saw was a little boy came to take our order. We gave our order without putting much thought into this matter. After few minutes there was another boy who brought our food. After few minutes we were shocked to discover that there were only small boys working at that particular place. They all were of 9-15 years of age. At the age they were expected to play and go to school for their education, they were just cleaning dirty tables and picking up dirty utensils and washing them. I was just looking them while having my meal. I gathered some courage walked up to the owner of that place and asked the reason for having all boys instead of adults. He smiled and said “Bhaisaab sasta padta hai”. I couldn’t believe my ears. Can people be so ignorant and fail to realize what are they doing? I had no option but walk away from there, got into my bus and sat. But i couldn’t took my eyes from them.  When the bus started to move I gave them a last look and thought “what a waste of childhood”.

In India, many places hire small boys to work for them just for one reason, they are cheap. People don’t realize that they are ruining that child’s childhood just because he can save some money of the owner. Sometimes these children are forced into begging or cleaning streets. Government of India should take some steps to resolve this issue. I know there is a section in Constitution of India, but I don’t see anyone following that. It’s high time that we should take a step to end Child Labor or else this will keep on growing and growing. One step can change many children’s life from slavery.

As Barry Commoner once said,”After all, despite the economic advantage to firms that employed child labor, it was in the social interest, as a national policy, to abolish it – removing that advantage for all firms.”

Sagar

(MBA-ITBM 2013-15)