Child Labour and Poverty Are Inextricably Linked. 125 Marks

Structure of the Essay:

Introduction:

You can start the introduction through following ways:

• Start with a general introduction/anecdote/an example/a short story/a poem/a quote/a recent event or trend etc which can help in describing the need for self-reliance.
• “Today’s cheap labour is tomorrow’s uneducated, inefficient workforce.”
• The saying is appropriate given the link between child labour and future economic prospects. Child labour and poverty were so inextricably linked that it had become impossible to separate them. Poverty is regarded as one of the most important causes of child labour, as it denies a child’s fundamental right to an education. Parents are forced to send their children to work because of their association with lower income groups. Children are denied an education and forced to join the labour class and society in order to maximise extra income for their families.

Thesis Statement:

• It is a transition statement between introduction and body of the essay.
• In thesis statement, you should write outline of the body with your own arguments. You should prove these arguments in body of the essay with relevant examples.

Body of the essay:

• To delve deeper into the link between child labour and poverty, we must first understand what child labour entails. Child labour is defined by the International Labour Organization as work that is mentally, physically, socially, or morally dangerous and harmful to children, interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school, forcing them to leave school prematurely, or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work. Child labour, in its most extreme forms, involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses, and/or left to fend for themselves on large city streets – often at a very young age.
• Understanding the definition of child labour allows us to state that it impedes a child’s mental, physical, social, and moral development. It deprives it of the opportunity to develop and become a more skilled and better individual. The higher rate of school dropouts due to child labour deprives them of their childhood and an opportunity to grow and learn together. It reduces their learning capacities and creates an uneducated class of workers who are highly unskilled and work for low wages for longer hours. In addition, a lack of skill creates a subliminal category of employment. This creates a child labour trap and a vicious cycle of child labour and poverty.
• Poverty causes children to enter the labour force at a young age in order to supplement their parents’ earnings. As a result, they compromise their studies, resulting in high school dropout rates. According to economic studies of public work programmes such as MGNREGA, the involvement of adult labour in these programmes resulted in school dropouts because children, particularly girls, became involved in household chores and caring for their siblings, while boys tend to find work outside the home. Children frequently became directly involved with the household small business or supplemented the family chores.
• The unskilled workforce produced by this cycle is forced to work in hazardous environments such as manual scavenging, mining, and hazardous chemical factories. The hazardous working conditions and environment expose them to a variety of communicable and noncommunicable diseases, including respiratory diseases, and increase their metallurgical exposure. The lack of a health-care safety net, combined with their low income levels, makes it more difficult to live a healthy life. Disease makes their lives more pitiful and devoid of any comfort.
• This vicious cycle of poverty makes them vulnerable to crime and drug use. Several studies have found that where there is a large disparity in economic well-being, there is a high level of violence. A study of the elasticity of education and crime found that a 10% increase in per capita education spending in India results in a 9.2-11.2% decrease in overall property crime rates. This adds to the burden on society and traps poor children in a cycle of poverty and inequality.
• Another aspect of this poverty-ridden child labour cycle is the lower capacity of skilled labour, which is a burden on the economy in and of itself. According to the Economic Survey 2018-19, India’s Demographic Dividend will peak around 2041, when the working-age population (2059 years) is expected to reach 59 percent. However, poverty and higher dropout rates are two major impediments to realising India’s demographic potential. The unskilled workforce will always be a drain on the economy. This demographic dividend must be converted into a skilled workforce in order to propel India forward.
• To break the cycle of child labour and poverty, both societal and government initiatives are needed on the ground. A thorough investigation into the causes of child labour and poverty eradication is required. According to studies, there is no single method of poverty reduction that can be used to eliminate this threat. To maintain school enrollment and reduce poverty, a comprehensive approach is required.
• Public work programmes such as MGNREGA to support family income, credit financing such as microcredit programmes may increase household income, business training interventions, and health security benefits may help in poverty reduction, which may lead to a reduction in child labour participation solely for economic reasons. It has been observed that social work programmes or microcredit programmes increase family members’ involvement in earning and shift the burden of the family to the children. As a result, they frequently drop out of school and become involved in household chores.
• Conditional cash transfer programmes provide income transfer and require recipient households to comply with schooling requirements such as enrollment of their children and health requirements such as vaccination, health clinic visits, and so on. Cash transfer programmes may have an offsetting effect on child labour participation. Increases in household income have a tendency to reduce child labour participation.

Conclusion:

• The skill India programme could be one of the government’s most difficult initiatives to train the unskilled poor for job opportunities and to alleviate poverty. Women can also play an important role in this because they do not pass on the burden to their children and work hard to break the cycle of poverty. This entire process necessitates a shift in the poor’s attitude and way of thinking. As a result, they do not regard their children as merely a source of income, but rather as human beings with natural rights to grow and flourish as living creatures.
• Poverty and child labour are so inextricably linked that a change at the social, political, economic, and mental levels is required to break free from the maze of these two phenomena. A single approach for all cannot be applied here; instead, participation from all stages and platforms of society and state is required.