Child labor : causes, consequences and solutions
The subject: How to fight against child labor in
Morocco?
Child labor in Morocco is a worrying phenomenon: young
children, whether in the city or in the desert, are deprived of school from an
early age and forced to work in the fields, workshops and laboratories. How to
eliminate this phenomenon or at least reduce it?
Reasons for child labor
Many families are forced to deprive their children of
the right to study and play during their childhood, and to send them to work in
the fields or workshops of mechanics, forges, carpentry, etc., and young girls
often work as good in the houses of the affluent. The number one reason fathers
thrust their hard-earned children into the working world from an early age is
poverty. Faced with the rising cost of living and the decline in job
opportunities and unemployment, the father resorts to employing his son or
daughter to help him meet the needs of the rest of the family. family. However,
there are other causes unrelated to poverty, and they can be boiled down to a
deep-rooted idea among some parents that the child should learn a trade or
craft that will protect him from the evil of time, as the saying goes. popular
that "if the craft is not enriched, it allows its owner to live a decent
life". What justifies this argument is the virtual bankruptcy of the
school: because of the unemployment of young people with higher education,
people have lost confidence in the educational institutions, and they have come
to consider it a waste of time and effort. And because children constitute
cheap labor which can be exploited at the whim of the employer, the owners of
factories and workshops convey rhetoric of despair and incite parents to put an
end to the schooling of their children.
The consequences of child labor
Child labor has disastrous economic, social and
psychological consequences. Children who drop out of school add to the hordes
of illiterates, since illiteracy constitutes one of the greatest obstacles to
development in Third World countries. Therefore, the efforts made by the State
to fight against illiteracy are in vain: public expenditure in the field of
education weighs on the State, yet the results are meager, and on the economic
level, employment children deprives the State of taxes because the owner of the
workshop or factory who employs children works outside the law and in the
greatest secrecy. At the same time, these factories, which benefit from work
licenses, constitute an unfair competition for the structured companies which
employ adults who have reached the legal age allowing them to work. On the
psychological level, the effects of early employment accompany the child
throughout his life. According to psychologists, a child who has not enjoyed
his childhood well continues to suffer from psychological disorders when he reaches
the age of majority, and the effects appear on the child before he reaches this
age. age: how many girls have fled the homes of their employers subjected to
hideous exploitation and abuse to fall into the arms of vice, how many children
have taken to the streets as their home, and perverted family. In short, the
effects of child labor are devastating and it is necessary to fight against
this phenomenon. But how?
Effective solutions to reduce child labor
Undoubtedly, the first decision to be made is to enact laws that expressly prohibit child labor and to intensify penalties against those who engage in child labor, including parents. This law must not remain ink on paper, but rather work to activate and implement it. But the enactment of a law is not enough: we must work to make people, especially parents, aware of the dangers of child labor and encourage them to send them to schools where they are naturally in their place at this age. However, the most important measure to be taken in this regard is to fight against poverty, because need is the main factor that pushes parents to employ their children.
Conclusion
Child labor is therefore a complex phenomenon in which
economic, social and cultural interference. To counter this phenomenon, we must
fight against the causes of poverty and school wastage, and restore the image
of the school in the eyes of the majority of parents, who consider it a waste
of time and money. Mentalities must be changed.