The International Labor Organization recently stated that the number of child labor in the world has been declining in the past 20 years, but the coronavirus pandemic may reverse this trend.
The coronavirus pandemic has forced Indian children to drop out of school and enter farms and factories to work, worsening the already serious child labor problem in India.
"India Express" reported that during the global lockdown due to the epidemic, 16-year-old Maheshawa Ali Monkala Pali and her 15-year-old sister also had to stop school courses. Monkala Pali’s mother and sister lost their jobs as maids in Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana in southern India. Her sister had been living in a nearby village with her grandmother, and now, in order to survive, she is forced to become a farm worker like her mother.
Moncarapali said: “Working in the sun is very hard and difficult to adapt to, but we must at least earn money to buy rice and other groceries.”
国际 Trend
Since the coronavirus outbreak, it has been difficult to quantify the number of children affected, but civil society groups are freeing more children from forced labor and warned that many people are still forced to work in cities because there is more migrant labor there. shortage.
Before the outbreak, India had been working hard to give children a chance to stay in school. According to a 2018 study by DHL International (DHL), it is estimated that more than 56 million children in India have been forced out of school, which is more than twice the total number of countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
According to data from the International Labor Organization, of those children who are not in school, 10.1 million are working, either "main workers" or "marginal workers".
According to the International Labor Organization, the number of child laborers worldwide has been declining in the past 20 years, but the coronavirus epidemic may reverse this trend. As many as 60 million people are expected to fall into poverty this year, which inevitably drives these families to send their children out to work.
A report jointly issued by the International Labor Organization and UNICEF estimates that for every 1 percentage point increase in the poor population, the number of child laborers will increase by at least 0.7 percentage points.
Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, and there are also a large number of children from disadvantaged families who drop out of school to do child labor. The ILO estimates that under current conditions, approximately 11 million people are at risk of being exploited as child labor, especially in the less developed eastern regions of Indonesia, such as Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara and Papua. .
economic loss
In India, which has the most young people in the world, this “lost generation” will have a major impact on the third largest economy in Asia: reduction in productivity and income potential, and the future Tax revenues, rising poverty levels, and pressure for more government relief.
Lamia Subramanian, head of the Children’s Rights and Protection Research Unit of Innocenti Children’s Fund in Florence, Italy, said: “Even before the pandemic, the number of out-of-school children and child labor in India It is also very high. A bigger problem comes from the children who should be entering school during this period. If these children face delays in school, it may increase the number of children who are not in school, which in turn may push up the number of child labor.#
The Constitution of India provides free and compulsory education for all children aged 6 to 14. Although Monkalapari and her sister are no longer protected by the Act due to their age, they are protected by the local child labor law, which prohibits the employment of young people aged 14 to 18 in any dangerous occupation. The same law prohibits children under the age of 14 from engaging in any form of work, except as a child artist or working in a family business.
Forced Labor
Project Manager of Praxis, a social practice agency, said: “At the family level, it is difficult to distinguish whether children are involved in forced labor. Small businesses such as matchbox manufacturing canOperating at home, these jobs may still be dangerous and illegal, but it is difficult to be sure that these jobs are exploiting children. "
During the lockdown, the "Child Rights Protection Organization" founded by Nobel Prize winner Kailash Satyaerhi rescued 591 children from forced and mortgaged labor across India.
Mortgage labor, where people are forced to work for creditors to repay loans, is another major reason why families send their children to work.
The organization said in a statement: “Once the blockade is lifted , Manufacturing activities return to normal, and factory owners will seek to make up for their financial losses by hiring cheap labor. "
NGO pointed out that the real surge in the number of child labor has not yet arrived. When economic activities begin to recover, there is a risk that workers returning to big cities will take their children to the city.
SOS Children’s Village Abshek Kumar, the project coordinator of the company said: “When the hotel reopens, construction work begins, and when everything is open, this returning to normal society will encourage children to be taken to the city. ”
When migrant workers flee the city due to the epidemic and return to their rural families, the children may be seen as a stopgap measure to fill the job vacancies in the city.
Mumbai Tata Social Science Research Rahul Sapako, an assistant professor at the Institute’s Labor Research Center, said: “The burden has shifted to poor families in urban areas. "
He said that although children are not fully engaged in the heavy labor normally performed by adults, if parents take the children with them for the convenience of work, or just to avoid leaving them at home-these are already There are precedents to follow-such activities will also become the norm.
Yellow represents families willing to send their children to child labor
Monkala Pali’s mother does not want her The children are forced to work, but she doesn’t think she has other options, because the money they make is still not enough.
She said: “Vegetables, rice, spices, soap, although the four of us are working , We still cannot afford these necessities. If we can go back in time, the situation will be better. She said that although working as a maid in Hyderabad before the outbreak was very hard, the income would be higher.
India, child labor issues, epidemic
Translator: carrie
Editor: Fan子
