New Delhi: Among the total 40.34 million working children and adolescents within the age-group of 5-19 years, only 9.9 million attend educational institutions, which mean only 24.5 per cent of the working children go to school. Put in simpler terms, three in every four working children are virtually denied of their right to education.
Children engaged in agricultural work majorly miss out on the opportunity of education, says Child Rights and You (CRY) – an NGO quoting numbers from Census 2011 data.
”As the World Day against Child Labour (12 th June) this year comes with the slogan ‘Children shouldn’t work in fields, but on dreams’, CRY calls for taking a closer look at the reality and taking them back to schools,” the organisation said in a statement.
As the data suggests, it is a huge challenge for children to balance work and education.
Census 2011 data reveals that only a miniscule percentage of children who are involved in agriculture are able to continue education, despite the provisions of the Right to Education (RTE) Act being in place.
Priti Mahara, Director Policy Advocacy and Research at CRY said, ”The Child Labour Law allows children under the age of 14 years to ‘help’ in family enterprises beyond school hours. This is fraught with far-reaching effects on children’s right to learn, play and develop, as a whole, and more specifically on those who are ‘helping’ out their parents in agricultural work.”
According to recent global estimates by International Labour Organisation (ILO), there are approximately 152 million children in child labour and seven out of every 10 working children are in agriculture.
The current trends in India reflects a very similar picture, with more than 60 per cent of children in India being part of the economy sustained by agriculture and related activities.
ILO also considers agriculture to be the second most hazardous occupation globally.
In some states in India, however, the figure is much higher than the national average. While in Himachal Pradesh the percentage of children working in agriculture soars as high as 86.33 per cent, in Chhattisgarh and Nagaland it stands at 85.09 per cent and 80.14 per cent respectively.
Among the big states, Madhya Pradesh (78.36 per cent), Rajasthan (74.69 per cent), Bihar (72.35 per cent), Odisha (69 per cent) and Assam (64.42 per cent) fare poorly in comparison to the national figures.
Overall estimates suggest that in India there are 40.34 million working children and adolescents between 5-19 years (62 per cent of them are boys and 38 per cent are girls).
(UNI)
