Browsing by Author "Pokhrel Bhattarai, Indira"

Child labour nowadays has become a pervasive problem all over the world, predominantly in developing countries. About 150 million of children are involved in child labour throughout the world. In South Asia, almost 17 million children between five and seventeen years of age are involved in child labour and 2 million of children are involved in child labour from Nepal. Child labour issue is high among Dalit/lower caste community where one in every three children in Nepal is child laborers and about 1 million children are engaged in hazardous and exploitative activities because of the caste based discrimination and extreme poverty. The Purpose of this research is to identify the reasons behind the lower castes children involved in laborers activities and further studying in details about the sub-caste of lower caste children, their physical working condition in brick kilns, how they are exploited in work and the pulling factors to work precisely in brick kilns. The research was conducted at the brick kilns of Kathmandu valley which consists: Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, and Lalitpur district. The sample size for the research was 60 which was taken from 2brick kilns from each district and from each kiln ten samples were taken, and the purposive sampling method was used. The study is based on questionnaires, interviews, observation, review of literature and reports. Poverty was the major reasons found behind the involvement of lower castes children in labourer’s activities in brick kilns. The second reason is the advance money provided by the owner/naikes of the brick kilns. The third reason is the caste discrimination in the village society where they work and get very less money, or sometimes they have to work without money. The wage in the kiln is based on the quantity i.e. the number of brick produced or the number of brick carried. So, the families who brought their children along with them knowingly or unknowingly involved their children in the work of brick kilns like clay making, carrying bricks, moulding the bricks, domestic works like preparing food, making tea, cleaning dishes and laundry and as well as looking after their younger siblings. Some of the parents send their children to their relatives and neighbour to work in the brick kilns. Being the lower castes children, they are primarily exploited in the labourer’s activities from their household conditions because of the poor economic background of the families and uneducated parents where they couldn't go to school and are compelled to involve in child labour.