Domestic Child Workers in Kathmandu Metropolitan City (A Case Study of Chabahil Area)

Abstract

Children are the future citizen of the country on which the development of a society and country depends. Today’s children are the nation builders of tomorrow. But unfortunately, in our country, many children are forced to work in difficult and hazardous conditions simply to sustain their own lives and that of their family. According to an estimation of CIWISH, 2004, In Nepal, there are around 2.6 million children work on their childhood, out of them 1 lakh 27 thousands are involved in worst form of child labor and among them around 1 lakh are in different household working as a domestic worker.

The demand for domestic child workers is comparatively high than the adults because they are easier, cheap, unaware and unable to demand their human and legal rights. Domestic child workers mostly come from poor, often large rural families. DCLs are poorly paid, sometimes they are not paid at all. They are deprived of schooling, playing and social activity and emotional support from the family and friends.

The study “Domestic Child Workers in Kathmandu” has been conducted at ward no. 7 of Kathmandu Metropolitan city with a general objective to find out the socio- economic condition of domestic child labor in the study area and other objectives of the study were to identify the contributing factors leading to DCLs to access the major problems faced by the domestic child labor and to suggest for policy implications of the welfare of DCLs in the study area. To collect the data different tools like questionnaire, observation has been used. Descriptive and exploratory research design has been followed to describe and examine the findings of the study. The census of the DCLs of the study area had not been enumerated by any governmental or non-governmental organization, so the actual number of child labors of the area had not been found. From the universe, total 50 numbers of child labors were purposively selected with accidental sampling method on the basis of gender, caste and ethnicity.

The study concludes that children of the poor families are in vulnerable conditions. Poverty and deprivation are the root cause of child labor, simply, the ignorance of the guardians, family breakdown and the general trend of child exploitation in the societies are the other contributing factors leading to the child labor. Inequitable distribution of land, lack of people centered sustainable development, poor access of resources; environmental degradation and negative effect of the Maoist movement are also responsible for the child labor problem of Nepal.

When a child is exploited for the economic gain of others, the child loses and the world loses. A nation can not achieve prosperity on the backs of its children so that a progressive intervention should be done for the prevention and control of child labor exploitation. Meaningful education can be taken as an effective intervention to check the child labor. All the development actors GOs, NGOs, CBOs, COs should play effective role to control the child labor.Moreover,child laborers ,parents,students ,teachers,trade unionists ,employers,social workers and people from all walks of life should be influenced and mobilized for the prevention and protection of working children in society.