Migrant Domestic Child Labourers in Nepal (A case study of Lalitpur District)

Abstract

Nepal is an under developed country where large number of people are living under poverty line. Majority of the population depends on agriculture for their survival. Large sections of rural and urban population are land less, unemployed, lack of skill as a result they are forced to send their children to the urban centres in search of better job and earning. Such children who are deprived from their basic rights like education, love from their parents and proper atmosphere for their growth and development and are working in different houses are termed as domestic child labour. Domestic child labour has become an issue of concern for the policy and programme implementers, academics and government. Few researches have been made on this issue so far. So child labour has become a serious problem which can be named as inhuman, intolerable and exploitative situation in Nepal. This study is expected to be of great importance in the context of the study area selected. The specific objectives of the study are to assess the socio economic characteristics and problem of domestic child labourers, to examine the present situation of them and to find out the reason for the child migration. In this study sample of 50 children working in different houses were selected. Children were interviewed through standard questionnaire who were aged between 5 to 17 years. Out of 50 domestic child labourers, 30% were male where as rest of them were females. Most of the child labourers were aged between 14 to 17 years of age. The highest number of respondents were from ethnic community. The rest belonged to chhetri, brahmin, and madeshi respectively. Majority of children (18) were migrated from the peripheral regions of Lalitpur district. Majority of the migrated domestic child labourers (38%) had responded that they possesses insufficient land and insufficient food production which will produce food only for 4 to 8 months and 28% have sufficient land and their family survive for the whole year. Majority of the children (74%) have come to work with the consent of their family, 26% of them have ran away from their home. Majority of the child workers were found to be receiving the salary above Rs 1500 per month however there are still other children who are less paid or underpaid. From this study poverty and illiteracy are found to be the key factors for the migration of child labourers in Nepal. Parents were seemed to be not aware about the rights of children, not aware of the importance of the education and hence they do not prefer to send their children at school. Because of hand to mouth problem they send their children in this sector either knowingly or unknowingly.