A Child Labour Problem In India
After independence Child labour is a major problem in India. The major determinate child labour is Poverty. Even though children are paid less then adults, what ever income they earn is of benefit to poor families. India has the largest number of children employed than any other country in the world. According to the statistics provided by the Govt. f India around 90 million out of 179 million children in the six to 14 age groups do not go to school and are engaged in some occupation or other works. This means 50% of children are deprived of their right to a free and happy childhood. Unofficially, this figure exceeds 100 million but the fact that a large number of children are works without wages in field or in cottage alongside their parents, unreported by census, makes it very difficult to estimate accurately.
However, it is estimated that if there working children constituted a country it would be the 11th largest country in the world. A large number of children work in a cottage industries, matches, firecrackers, bidis, brassware, diamond, aluminum industries, glass, hosiery, hand loomed cloth, embroidery, leather goods, plastic bangles, mica mines, coal mines, hotels, rickshaw puller, local liquor industry, auto shop, vegetable shop Brick in and sporting goods.
The highest numbers of children are found in agricultural sector. Poverty has often been cited as the reason for child labour problem in India while it is true that the poorest, most disadvantaged sector of Indian Society supply the vast majority of child labourers, child labour actually creates an perpetuates poverty as it displaces adults from their jobs and also condemns the child to a life of unskilled badly paid work.
