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The President’s declaration of 2006 as the year devoted to the Child makes us often wonder, how close we are in realizing the rights of the child as stated in the Convention proclaimed by the UN General Assembly resolution of 20th November 1959. Sri Lanka was one of the signatories.

The Convention spells out the basic human rights that children every where should enjoy; the right to survival to develop to the fullest; to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life. Children in Sri Lanka, specially those in the rural and under developed areas of the country are the most vulnerable and few enjoy any of the rights set out.

Article 9 of the Convention is specific on child labour and states that ‘the child shall not be admitted to employment before an appropriate minimum age; he shall in no case be caused or permitted to engage in any occupation or employment which would prejudice his health or education, or interfere with his physical, mental or moral development’ This condition is most violated in countries where poverty exists.

According to the National Survey of Child Labour conducted in Sri Lanka in 1999, 926, 037 children living in the country are involved in some type of economic activity, however this number includes children who work while attending school, but as many as 234,618 of them, nearly 25% are engaged in some type of employment and do not attend school at all. The survey highlights that 52 % of all working children are under the age of 15.

In 1998 Parliament passed the National Child Protection Authority Act (NCPA) to combat the problem of child abuse, including unlawful child labor. The act consolidated existing legislation and stated what types of employment are restricted for children, which age groups are affected, and what the minimum age for child labor is for particular jobs.

The minimum age for employment is 14, although the law permits the employment of younger children by their parents or guardians in limited agricultural work.

Despite legislation however child labour still exists. The school dropout rates in areas such as the Uva province, the marginalized areas in the North central province and in the plantation sector is high, mainly due to the level of poverty that exists and this provides a large number of available child labour.

Regular employment of children occurs mainly in the informal sector and in family enterprises such as family farms, crafts, small trade establishments, eating houses, and repair shops. Children also are involved in the manufacture of coconut fibre products, bricks, fishing, wrapping tobacco, street trading, and farming. The majority of these children are boys (62.3 percent). And 95 per cent of all working children reside in rural areas.Children are also employed in domestic service. The number of child domestic labourers is estimated to be 19,111, of which the majority are girls from rural areas. In many instances these children are subjected to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Children also are taken on as prostitutes and the trafficking in male children is high with estimates ranging from 2,000 to 30,000 thousand. In addition the LTTE too is said to recruit children some as young as ten years old to work in their services and often forced recruitment of children is carried out for this purpose.

Poverty is one of the reasons for the existence of child labour. Marginalized parents are anxious that their children have at least one proper meal a day; they often tend to believe those who offer to take these children promising that the children will be well cared for and even in certain instances assuring that the children will be sent to school.

However, if the government is truly concerned about making this year meaningful for the child, then it must introduce more practical programs to alleviate poverty. Lack of basic necessities such as food, clothing, school stationery, and bus fare; lack of support and guidance and the inability of the formal education system to provide an employment base are all common reasons for children leaving school at an early age and of parents using these children as a marketable commodity.

Furthermore, many of these children, particularly girls, are forced to stay at home caring for their younger siblings since often the mother has to go out for some type of work.

It serves no purpose having highly impressive acts of legislation if the ground reality is such that a poor family would use their child to provide the labour they need in order to feed that child. If one travels to the often forgotten colonies, colonies such as those set up by the late Minister C.P de Silva, in the Puttalam district , where groups of resettled families, try their best to eke out a living one can experience the actuality of the situation that exists.

It does not matter to these people living way below the poverty line, the profound legislation we have on child labour or compulsory schooling for their children, what matters is that they do not have the wherewithal to feed their children or themselves.

Child labor prohibition has to address the dual challenge of providing children with both short-term income and long-term prospects for a sustainable future. Many children may have to work in order to attend school. So abolishing child labor may only hinder their education and any plan of abolishment depends on schooling.

The state could help by making it worthwhile for a child to attend school, whether it be by providing students with nutritional supplements or perhaps resorting to a method used by the late President Premadasa of providing a supplementary income to parents who provided their children with a school meal consisting of substitute food items such as cow pea, green gram etc,.

There must be an economic change in the condition of a struggling family to free a child from the responsibility of working. Family subsidies can help provide this support and both the private sector and civil society must join with the Government to ensure that a child is not sacrificed for employment by circumstances or undue parental pressure.