Girl Child Labour

Neera Burra (2001), in one of her articles, seek to draw attention to the issue of child labour and education with a special focus on girls’ education. The paper argues that unless the full-time work of children at the cost of education is recognized by policy-makers as ‘child labour’, universalizing elementary education will remain a distant dream. It also argues that the definition of child labour needs to be widened beyond just wage employment for otherwise there are both little recognition of the economic contribution of girls to the economy and also fewer efforts to get girls out-of-work and into school. It is also necessary to widen this definition of child labour to include all children out of school for purposes of planning and resource

In the Indian context, many commentators and development agencies have sought to distinguish between children who work at home, in agriculture or in assisting petty family business from those who work outside the home for a wage. Moreover, since it is primarily girl children who work at home assisting their mothers in the household tasks of looking after younger siblings, cooking, cleaning, washing, etc. such a distinction would openly discriminate against female children. It is such that engendering of the development strategy links up with the rights of all children especially who are out of school.

One of the major reasons for children being kept out-of-school was the lack of education of parents. At the same time it seems that when either of the parents is literate or especially when women are literate, they are more willing to send their children, especially girls, to the school. The paper argued that the labour of children – particularly girls who assist their mothers and fathers in activities like rearing younger siblings, cooking, cleaning and washing, tending livestock

The paper also evaluated the regular monthly meetings being held by the women’s groups where issues such as girl child marriages, girl child labour, gender discrimination, education and health were discussed. These women’s groups were the active participants in bringing dropout children back to school and motivating parents and girls about girls’ education. In spite of the strong presence of MVF in the area and their success in withdrawing children from work and putting them in schools, MVF experience has been that getting parents to withdraw adolescent girls from work and putting them to school is harder than releasing bonded child labour. For the first time, they have had to set up special motivating centres for adolescent girls in order to make the girls aware of their rights and the gender-biased environment in their homes. It was observed that when it comes to girls’ education, mindsets are so deeply fixed that parents find several excuses for not sending the girls to school. Distance from the village becomes a common excuse and parents fear sexual abuse if children have to leave their village to go to another village for schooling. The fact that girls are routinely sent out to work in cotton fields, to fetch fuel and water for the household, which often requires them to go beyond the village