Question

Some of the most serious abuses taking place in developing countries deal with child labor, human slavery, sweatshops, bad governance, and environmental degradation. Select one (1) developing country, and examine the extent to which two (2) of these five (5) issues are occurring. Support your response with specific examples.

Answer 1

The developing country selected for this analysis is India because India has shown outstanding growth ever since its independence. Drained and exploited by 200 years of British-Raj, India has to start from scratch when other countries were already far ahead. However, she has shown tremendous performance in terms of growth mainly especially in the tertiary sector, even though primarily, most of its population is still devoted to agriculture. However, despite the growth, there are various social evils like Child Labour and Child marriage are still prevalent. At the same time, the environment is degrading and the air that a newborn breathes is no more pure. This article is going to address two issues: Child Labour and Environmental Degradation in the light of the Indian Economy.

Child Labour:

Children in every country are the hope of a bright future. The more the investment on education and human capital, the better is the productivity of the country. Although India stands at a good level of higher education, the problem lies at a very basic level, at the stage of enrolment into schools. Apparently by looking at the number of Indians opting for higher studies abroad or working abroad, it might seem that the standard of education is very good-which is absolutely true. However, the problem is in the access of everyone to this education. Stricken by poverty, children in rural areas an also in urban areas are forced into daily-wage labour, to arrange for two square meals a day. Even after over six decades of independence, a female newborn is sometimes seen as a burden to the family and a newborn boy starts working at an age as early as 6. Child labour is defined as the illegal practice of forcing children below the age of 14 engage in labouring activities. The work can be of any type, but is mostly manual and physical labour where little children are forced to carry heavy materials at construction sites, or wash dishes as tea stalls at as less as 10 Rupees a day, which amounts to roughly $0.15 dollars a day. The lack of access to education and therefore a forced entry into labour is due to a variety of reasons starting from lack of monetary support to lack of schools in certain villages. Even though the Right to Education Act is trying its level best to enrol children into schools, that still doesn’t solve the problem of child labour as children work before or after school in hope of some money or at least one plate of rice. Children are made to work in hazardous conditions which include working in mining and quarrying jobs, lock making factories etc. A factsheet presented by the UNICEF states that about 10.1 million children are engaged in Child labour, according to the 2011 Census. Some of the reasons for forcing children into this monstrous activity are:

• Poverty of the family and the fact that it is in debt.
• Rural-Urban migration by families that force children to take up jobs in local stalls
• Droughts or floods that lead to a bad crop can prove very harmful for a marginal farmer and his family to an extent that leads them to take to the streets.

The problem of child-labour cannot be seen as a problem that has a unique solution to itself. Rather, it in a problem that has various socio-economic factors that need to be addressed to find a proper cure. Needless to say that it is time consuming, but not impossible, some of the acts that are already working to prevent child labour and exploitation are The Child Labour Prohibition Act 1986 and The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000.

Environmental Degradation:

Environmental degradation can be simply put as the deterioration of the environment’s quality through depletion of its resources, damage to its ecosystems, destruction of habitats, etc. In the face of development and globalization, India faces a huge trade-off between economic growth and environment protection. One of the key elements to a healthy economy is sustainable development that requires developing the present generation by utilizing resources in a way such that the needs and resources for the future generations are not compromised. India’s potential has been obstructed to a large extent due to environmental degradation in various forms. The Environmental Protection Index is ranking India as one of the worst in terms of air pollution with a very high level of suspended particular matter. Crop yields have been falling due to soil erosion and pollution. The sacred river Ganga has also not been spared when it comes to dumping of wastes into the water in the name of religious practices. Some of the forms in which India is experiencing environmental degradation are:

Land Degradation: India is prone to landslides that due to heavy rain in hilly areas. Moreover, meaningless cultural practices which take the form of deforestation also lead to land degradation. Overgrazing of cattle, a very commonly used case study for ‘The Tragedy of Commons’ is also prevalent in India. Water logging, soil erosion, contamination of ground water, fall in the underground water table ct are all part of this category of environmental degradation that are very much visible in India.

Air Pollution: India is known for its petroleum refineries and iron and steel industries. While these contribute to a rising GDP, they also contribute a rising environmental degradation in the form of air pollution. Rapid urbanization and industrialization which are mandatory for economic growth are stripping the air of its health. Some automobiles also produce poisonous gasses like CO which lead to further fall in the air quality.

Loss of Biodiversity: If variety is the spice of life, then India is famous for this spice which offers a variety of cultures, languages, climatic conditions and even type of plants and animals in India. However, in the urge for commercialization of agriculture, more profitable crops are being preferred to less profitable crops. When the same crop is grown on the same land over and over again, the productivity of the land diminishes, which is why to restore productivity there is crop rotation practices. This crop rotation is decreasing as the less profitable variant is not being produced, which alternatively acted as home for various other plants and animals that depended upon it and are now becoming extinct.

Thus, the abovementioned points are only some of the many ways in which India has been experiencing environmental degradation in the recent time.