At the cost of childhood…
Responding to child labour – a strategy
Child labour is
an issue of restoring children’s rights.
Every child has the right to grow up in a safe and nurturing environment
with protection and guidance from their family and society. Whether in home,
school, streets or workplace, a child is always a child and deserves a
childhood free form harm and abuse. Yet millions of children are being put to
labour at the cost of their childhood.
Over the
years, World Vision has been focused on mainstreaming child labour components
into all its Area Development Programmes.
World Vision is committed to keeping the child and her/his family at the
heart of its efforts during this process
World Vision is
committed to eliminating child labour in all its forms in the communities where
we work. This ‘Strategy for Responding to Child Labour’ outlines World Vision’s
principles, approach, and objectives for the program staff, Community Based
Organizations where we work, and the civil society at large, and in particular
its sponsors and donors.
Former child labourers have itself largely defined
this strategy. The impact of their
participation has been profound. Not
only on the children themselves, who expressed amazement that World Vision took
their views seriously, but also on the World Vision staff who were impressed by
the children’s insight into the issue.
The children passionately discussed the issues, challenged popular
assumptions and effectively drove the production of the final draft of the strategy.
THE
STRATEGY
OUR GOAL
Eliminate the practise of child labour in
5835 target communities by 2012.
What we mean by child labour.
·
Child labour is the exploitation of children and their
labour.
·
Children under the age of 14 forced to work.
·
Children between the ages 14 and 18 are forced to do work
that is illegal, detrimental to his/her right to education, hazardous or
exploitative.
KEY ELEMENTS OF THE
APPROACH:
World Vision understands that the social problem of
child labour need to be addressed in the full cycle of child labour in all its
ramifications. The key elements of the
strategy would be three pronged namely:
PREVENTION
All strategies to end child labour would come to
naught if the issue of more children entering the child labour market is not
addressed. The prevention strategy is
aimed at identifying existing ‘pockets’ of child labour in the communities
World Vision works in, building community capacity in preventing the spread
through rights awareness and making children aware of their own rights and
involving them in creating programmes to address the issue. This strategy also entails the building up
of World Vision India’s capacity to implement child labour programmes at a
heightened and more effective level.
RESTORATION
Bringing children out of labour is just the
beginning of a continuum that needs to be tuned to keeping them out child
labour. The restoration strategy is the
base on which the strategic approach is built. A key emphasis here is on building the capacity of the family so
that children are not forced again to work.
Education becomes the second buttress that keeps children out of
labour. This means that some children
would need to go through ‘bridge schools’ to get into the mainstream education
while the older children would need age-appropriate vocations skills and
placement in non-exploitative situations.
Some children may also need temporary residential care as well as
psychosocial and physical support and care.
ADVOCACY
All programmatic efforts need to be supported by the
creation of conducive social and legislative environment for the eradication of
child labour. Proper implementation of
existing laws that address issues of child labour becomes a key issue to
advocate for. The most effective
intervention would be to ‘give children a voice’ to make the general public
aware of child labour, both hidden and overt.
IMPLEMENTING THE STRATEGY
While
‘Prevention’ and ‘Advocacy’ interventions will be implemented across all the
Area Development Programmes, ‘and restoration ’ aspects will be focused in Area
Development and Special programmes where child labour is prevalent.
Conclusion
World
Vision’s vision seeks ‘life in all its fullness’ for every child. We are sure with God’s grace, this strategy
will provide this fullness of life, a life filled with dignity, justice, hope
and peace for every child who is caught under the yoke of child labour.
