Child Labor in Construction Industry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to a recent estimate of the International Labor Organization (ILO), more than 120 million children between the ages of 5-14 are employed as full time laborers around the world. A good number of such children labor in the most hazardous and dangerous industries. In India itself, it is estimated that there are at least 44 million child laborers in the age group of 5-14. More than eighty percent of child laborers in India are employed in the agricultural and non-formal sectors and many are bonded laborers. Most of them are either illiterate or dropped out of school after two or three years.

 

There are jobs that are hazardous in them and affect child laborers immediately. They affect the overall health, coordination, strength, vision and hearing of children. One study indicates that hard physical labor over a period of years stunts a child's physical stature by up to 30 percent of their biological potential. Working in mines, quarries, construction sites, and carrying heavy loads are some of the activities that put children directly at risk physically. Jobs in the glass and brassware industry in India, where children are exposed to high temperatures while rotating the wheel furnace and use heavy and sharp tools, are clearly physically hazardous to them.

 

The action plan proposes that Home For All and its member states continue to pursue the goal of effective abolition of Child labor by committing themselves to the elimination of all worst forms of child labor by 2018. To this effect, all member states would, in accordance with Convention No. 182, design and put in place appropriate time-bound measures by the end of 2010.