Education can end child labour: Sucheta Mahajan

Education can end child labour: Sucheta Mahajan
By Devyani Verma

More than 90 per cent of working children are in rural areas and lack of education is the reason for the growing number of child labourers in the country said Sucheta Mahajan, Chairperson, Centre for Historical Studies, JNU while addressing first year students of the Times School of Media.

In her insightful lecture, Mahajan brought to light some upsetting yet startling facts about child labour in India:

1. 90 per cent of the child labourers are in the rural areas contrary to the perception that cities have more child labourers

2. Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of child labourers, followed by Bihar and Maharashtra

3. Children above 14 can be employed in non-hazardous work

Citing lack of education as the main reason for the growing number of child labourers, Mahajan said that most of the children engaged in labour are from poor families.

In South Asia, only 62 per cent of the children are able to finish primary school. “Every child who is not in school is a child labourer,” she said, adding, “Free education and a proper childhood is the right of every child.”

So why don’t the parents of these children send them to school? Mahajan clarified the ‘poverty argument’ that parents don’t send their children to school because they are poor does not hold water. In fact, parents want to send their children to school but they don’t know how to enroll their child in a school. “Because they are not literate themselves, they don’t know how to fill the admission forms,” Mahajan informed.

But, thankfully, there are ways to get past this hurdle. Mahajan shared the concept of Child Labour Free Zones (CLFZs) and contributing to ‘Vidya Daan’, or gifting knowledge.

She said that with the help of state governments and the locals, poor parents can be encouraged to send their children to school. “Remember that it is their right, you are not doing them a favour. We must change the mindset, not let anyone justify a child doing labour or receiving anything less than a formal and proper education,” Mahajan said.

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