Devendra Kothari PhD
Population and Development Analyst
Forum for Population Action
If a more rapid reduction in the incidence of child labor is a
policy goal, improving school education and expediting the process of
population stabilization may be
more useful solutions to the child labor problem than punitive measures
designed to prevent children from earning income.
The
shared Nobel Peace Prize 2014 for an Indian, Kailash Satyarthi, a crusader against
child labor, is both a feather in India’s cap, as well as a grim reminder of
the scourge that persists in vast tracts of the country’s hinterland.[1]
Satyarthi has dedicated over 30 years of his life to fight child slavery, a
crime that affects millions of children across India. He has become famous
for raiding and rescuing children in commercial establishments. Satyarthi has actively contributed to the rescue of around 84,000 child
slaves in the last three decades. These children have been terrorized and
dehumanized since their youngest age. Imagine the kind of hell these children
are coming from. They come from a place where children are beaten, abused,
treated like a production tool and destroyed. Mostly, they are forced to work in
dingy factories, wasting away their childhood in making firecrackers and doing
carpet or zari work, among others. They do not have a voice: they cannot press
for their rights, they cannot carry out demonstrations. The road to recovery for such
children is very long, and Kailash and his organization - Bachpan Bachao
Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement) play a crucial role in this process.
He
also founded the widely recognized international tag “RugMark” that guarantees
carpets being sold are made in factories free of child labor. The Nobel Prize
salutes Satyarthi’s work for silently helping them find their voice.
This post discusses the issue of “child labor”, and suggests a way out as how to expedite the
process of elimination of child
lobour in the world with special
reference to India.
According to the International Labour
Organisation (ILO), not all work done by children should be classified as child
labor that is to be targeted for eradication. Children’s participation in work
that does not affect their health and personal development or interfere with
their schooling is generally regarded as being something positive. This
includes activities such as helping their parents around the home, assisting in
a family business or earning pocket money outside school hours and during
school holidays. These kinds of activities contribute to children’s development
and to the welfare of their families; they provide them with skills and
experience, and help to prepare them to be productive members of society during
their adult life. On the other hand, the term “child labour” is often defined as
work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their
dignity, and that may compromise their physical, mental,
social or educational development.
UNICEF, the UN agency dedicated to children's rights and
welfare, estimates that around 150 million children aged
5 to 14 in developing countries are involved in child labor. This represents
about 15 per cent of all children in this age group. [2] Sub-Saharan Africa has the
largest proportion of child labourers (27 per cent of children aged 5 to 14
years). In South Asia, 12 per cent of children in this age group are performing
potentially harmful work compared to 5 per cent of children in Central and
Eastern Europe as well as in other parts of the developing world (Figure 1). In absolute terms, Asia, being the most
densely populated region of the world, has the largest number of child workers.
61 per cent are found in Asia (especially in South Asia), 32 per cent in Africa
and remaining 7 per cent in Latin America and elsewhere.
To employ children is illegal in India, but the country
has one of the largest working child populations in the world. There are close
to 50 million child laborers in the country and more than 10 million of them in
bonded labor, having been sold by their families to work off loans they
couldn’t repay and for some other reasons. A big chunk of these children are
used as cheap labor in hazardous factories making bricks, carpets, glass
bangles, fireworks, as well as in rice mills, cotton fields and mining, among
others and have been found to suffer from malnutrition, impaired vision,
deformities from sitting long hours in cramped over-crowded work places. In addition, millions of underage workers are employed
as domestic help.
Figure 1:
Child labor in India and rest of the developing world
India is in green with 10-20% incidence levels,
along with countries in peach (20-30%), red (30-40%) and black (>40%). The
lowest incidence level is shown in yellow (<10%).
Source: UNICEF and World Bank
Why Child lobour persists?
Available
studies reveal that poverty, poor quality of education, and presence of large informal
economy are the driving forces behind the prevalence of child labor worldwide. ILO suggests poverty is the greatest single cause behind child labour. For impoverished households, income
from a child's work is usually crucial for his or her own survival or for that
of the household. Income from working children, even if small, may be between
25 to 40% of the household income. Lack of meaningful alternatives, such as
affordable schools and quality education is
another major factor driving children to harmful labour. Children work because
they have nothing better to do. Even when schools are sometimes available, they
are too far away, difficult to reach, unaffordable or the quality of education
is so poor that parents wonder if going to school is really worth it.
Mehrotra and Biggeri
have studied the macroeconomic factors that encourage child labour. [3] They focus their study on five Asian nations including India. They found
that child labour is a serious problem
in all five, but it is not a new problem. Macroeconomic causes encouraged
widespread child labour across the world, over most of human history. They
suggest that inflexibility and structure of labour market, size of informal
economy, inability of industries to scale up and lack of modern manufacturing
technologies are major macroeconomic factors affecting demand and acceptability
of child labour.
Eradicating child lobour:
No doubt, poverty is the greatest single force driving children into the workplace, but it is not easy to lift people out of poverty in a short time or with great speed. Edmonds and Pavcnik have noted: “Historical growth rates suggest that reducing child labor through improvements in living standards alone will take time”.[4] Further, enacting legislations or laws against the importation of products (like textiles, carpets, etc.) produced by child labor to “protect” children from exploitation and promote their education would have a devastating effect especially on the lives of those for whom it is being designed to protect, as argued by Thomas R. DeGregori, an economics professor at the University of Houston.[5]
Satyarthi’s struggle has
succeeded in rescuing around 84,000 children, even as the Nobel committee
estimates there are still 168 million child labourers around the world. So what could be an
alternative path to eradicate the child labour? Economist Swaminathan Aiyar argues: “No matter how many
establishments Satyarthi and others raid successfully, child labour will
continue till decent schools imparting real skills are available to all”. [6] The latest report of Pratham, an Indian NGO,
shows that the proportion of class V students who can read a class II text has
fallen 15% points since 2005, and the proportion of class VIII students who can
do division has fallen 23% points. What will poor people gain by sending
children to such schools? As such, the policy
makers need to articulate their views as how to ensure quality of education and
skill development across the country. [7] In
other word, unless
education is rescued from the quagmire of mediocrity, all talk about eliminating
child labour will be without substance.
In addition,
efforts towards population stabilization[8] could be another but very effective step to minimize the
incidence of child labour, as has been observed in the East and South-East Asia
(see Figure 1). The replacement level fertility of 2.1 children per
woman, required to initiate the process of population stabilization, has
already been achieved by most of the East and South-East Asian countries: South
Korea (1.2 children per woman), Thailand (1.5), China (1.6) and even Vietnam
(1.9), as shown in Table 1. As a result, the proportion children in the
youngest age group (0-14 years) have
declined significantly in the last 30-40 years.
For example, the total fertility in China declined from 6 children per
woman in 1970 to 1.6 in 2010 and consequently the proportion of child
population in the age group 0-14 declined from 40 percent to 18 percent during
the corresponding period, as per UN Population Division. On the other hand, population growth and the need for contraception are still major concerns
in the countries where incidence of child labour is very high. In most
of these countries, fertility rates remain very high. Sub-Saharan Africa in
particular has experienced less change than Asia or Latin America: Its total
fertility rate is around 6 children per woman and the youngest age group has
more than 45 per cent of total population. In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous
nation, the average woman gives birth to more than 6 children in her lifetime
and here incidence of child labour is one of the highest in the world.
Table 1: Trends in
total fertility, child population in age group 0-14 years and incidence of
child labour.
Country
|
Number of
children per woman (TFR)
|
% of total
population 0-14 years
|
% of children aged 5 to 14 years classified as child labour
|
|||
1970
|
2010
|
1970
|
2010
|
|||
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
|
East and South-East ASIA:
|
||||||
China
|
6.0
|
1.6
|
40
|
18
|
Less than 10%
|
|
South Korea
|
4.7
|
1.2
|
42
|
16
|
Less than 10%
|
|
Thailand
|
6.0
|
1.5
|
44
|
23
|
Less than 10%
|
|
Vietnam
|
6.5
|
1.9
|
44
|
23
|
Less than 10%
|
|
South Asia
|
||||||
India
|
5.7
|
2.7
|
41
|
30
|
10-20%
|
|
Nepal
|
6.0
|
3.0
|
41
|
37
|
More than 40%
|
|
Pakistan
|
6.6
|
3.7
|
43
|
35
|
10-20%
|
|
Shri Lanka
|
4.7
|
2.1
|
40
|
25
|
Less than 10%
|
|
Sub-Saharan
Africa
|
||||||
Chad
|
6.4
|
6.9
|
43
|
49
|
30-40%
|
|
Mali
|
6.9
|
6.8
|
41
|
47
|
More than 40%
|
|
Niger
|
7.3
|
7.6
|
48
|
50
|
More than 40%
|
|
Nigeria
|
6.4
|
6.1
|
43
|
44
|
30-40%
|
|
Source: World Population
Prospects: The 2012 Revision and UNICEF/World Bank
|
||||||
The case of India is interesting one. In spite of
economic development, India could not achieve a substantial breakthrough to
initiate the process of population stabilization. In the last forty years, the
total fertility declined from 5.7 children per woman in 1970 to 2.7 in 2010,
whereas the rate of decline was much faster in other emerging economies during
the corresponding period. As a result,
the proportion of population in the age group 0-14 is still high and so is the
incidence of child labour. High fertility in India and elsewhere is mainly
fuelled by unintended pregnancies.[9] Around 26 million
children are born in India every year and out of this about 5.5 million births
have been classified as unplanned/unintended. And there is no significant
decline in the proportion of unwanted births in the last twenty years, as shown
in Table 2 (Col. 5).
Table 2: Trends in
unwanted child bearing, India
Year
|
Total Population
(in million)
|
Crude birth
rate/1000 population
|
Total births
(in million)
|
Per cent of unwanted births
|
Absolute number of
unwanted births.
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
1991
|
846.4
|
29.5
|
24.97
|
23.1
|
5.77
|
2001
|
1028.7
|
25.4
|
26.13
|
21.6
|
5.64
|
2011
|
1210.2
|
21.8
|
26.38
|
21.0
|
5.54
|
Computed from the
data obtain from the Registrar General of India and the National Family
Health Survey, 1, 2 and 3. Also see: Kothari Devendra. 2011. Implications of
Emerging Demographic Scenario: Based on the Provisional Results of Census of
India 2011, A Brief, a publication of Management Institute of Population and
Development, Parivar Seva Sanstha, New Delhi.
|
|||||
Unwanted pregnancies are a key reason for
the stubborn resilience of child labour. Since these pregnancies contribute significantly
to galloping population growth, which consequently compromises provision of
adequate social services like education and health. “More than two in five
pregnancies worldwide are unintended by the women who experience them, and half
or more of these pregnancies result in births that spur continued population
growth”, noted by Robert Engelman, who
authored the highly acclaimed book: More: Population, Nature, and
What Women Want.
To reduce the incidence of child labour in India and
elsewhere, the main attention, therefore, should be on reducing the incidence
of unwanted fertility. Unintended
pregnancies are primarily caused by nonuse and/or failure of contraceptives, implying that correct and consistent use of effective
contraceptives can lead to prevention of unintended pregnancies, thus revamping
of family planning program should be on the priority list. In short, it is clear that lower fertility is a vital ingredient in getting children
out of the workplace and into schools. Further, reducing the
proportion of school-age children reduces the burden on schools. Reducing child
dependency also allows families and nations to invest more in education,
improving the quality of the future labor force. [10]
[1] Kailash Satyarthi, 60, shares the
prestigious Swedish prize with Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, who braved
the fundamentalist Taliban’s guns to pursue her education and has become an
icon for the crusade for educating girls.
[2] For details, see:
http://data.unicef.org/child-protection/child-labour
[3] Mehrotra, Santosh and Mario Biggeri. 2007. Asian Informal Workers: Global
Risks, Local Protection, Routledge
Studies in the Growth Economies of Asia.
[4] Eric V. Edmonds and Nina Pavcnik (Winter 2005). "Child Labour in the Global Economy". Journal
of Economic Perspectives 19 (1): 199–220.
[5] Thomas R. DeGregori, 2002. Child Labor or Child Prostitution? Cato Institute, Washington, DC.
[6] Refer article by Aiyar: Child labour can’t end without good schools for all at http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Swaminomics/child-labour-cant-end-without-good-schools-for-all/
[7] Kothari, Devendra. 2014. Education in India needs intensive
care, not a quick fix, RAEA Policy Paper No. 1. Rajasthan Adult Education
Association, Jaipur.
[8] A population has stabilized when the number of births
has come into balance with the number of deaths, with the result that, the
effects of immigration aside, the size of the population remains relatively
constant.
[9] Unintended
pregnancies, defined as pregnancies that are mistimed or unwanted, pose
significant public health concern especially in low- and middle-income countries
due to their association with adverse health, social, and economic outcomes.
[10]
Julie DaVanzo and David M.
Adamson, Family
Planning in Developing Countries: An Unfinished Success Story, Issue Paper,
RAND Corporation, 1998
