Opinion
Child labour can be ‘Make in India’ programmes undoing.
While the ‘Make in India’ programme is a great initiative for attracting foreign investments in India. However, weak labour laws can turn away potential investors.
"Make in India" cannot be successful on the toil, miseries and abuses of young children in the manufacturing sector," said the 62-year-old founder of 'Bachpan Bachao Andolan'.
This statement in itself sounds like a wakeup call to everyone involved in making the ‘Make in India’ programme a grand success. Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi feels that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ programme will prove to be a “big disaster” if child labour laws are not strengthened.
In a timely letter to the Prime Minister, Satyarthi has written, “If investors are coming from foreign countries to manufacture in India and if your laws are so weak in child labour in comparison to international standards then it will become a big disaster”.
He says that the ‘Make in India’ programme is a great move, but it also exposes a serious weakness of the country. A country that boasts of a rich demographic capital of a dynamic young working population simply cannot afford to tarnish its image by having weak child labour laws and allowing children to work when they should be studying and giving our country an edge rather than a bad name.
Giving the example of Apple, he said the US-based company faced a lot of flak after allegations that child labour in China was being used to manufacture their products. “In India, child labour is working because your law allows it. These big brands will be dependent on local producers who are free to employ children. But the international media and human rights organisations are not going to spare us,” said the child rights activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 along with Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai. He was in Kolkata to support the Rotary India Literacy Mission.
Image Courtesy: @k_satyarthi