Act Now: End Child Labour

Surasma Lamichhane

Childhood is one of the premier segments of life. It is full of contentment, joyfulness, and innocence. We, the children and the youths of today need to be well educated, healthy, and prepared so that we can become good leaders tomorrow. Children learn a lot during the childhood stage of life. Some children are treated significantly whereas some are treated dreadfully.

Child labour refers to the crime where children are forced into doing works from a very early age. Child labour takes away the kids’ opportunity of having a normal childhood, a proper education, physical and mental well-being.

12th june is considerd the day against child labour. On this day, the government and different officials organise various kinds of programmes in this regard. The slogan ILO has given for this day is ‘Act now: end child labour’. So every party of the ILO must eradicate the all form of child labour.

All over the world, children are being abused by child labour which is very dangerous and petrifying. There are several reasons for child labour in different parts of the world. Some of the base of child labour are similar in countries, however some tend to differ from country to country. The foremost grounds of child labour are poverty, inadequate rules and laws, broken family, lack of educational resources, illiteracy, supperesion of child rights etc.

Some children that don’t have parents, that live ina the streets include themselves in child labour to earn money. I am sure that most of all have seen children work as conducters in micro vans. Some kids work in construction areas carrying bricks, sand etc, some of them collect plastics,glasses, bottles and other stuffs from the streets. Some children also work in the small hotels etc.

Here are some of the Constitutional and legal provisions made against Child labour:

• Article:39 of the constitution states about the rights of children and prohibits child labour.
• The act related to children 2075 prohibits different kinds of child labour and emphasises different types of rights for children like rights to food, education, shelter, health etc.
• Nepal has signed various international treaties and convention related to children which prohibits child labour.
Here are the things we can do as a whoe to eliminate child labour:
• Stop hiring children below the minimum age.
• We can organize different programmes in our community to raise awareness about child labour.
• More strict laws should be formed and effective implementation should take place.
• Discourage people to employ children in homes, shops, factories, etc
• Support NGOs and INGOs that help the victims of child labour and provides them with safety.
• Review national laws regarding child labour.