A study of child labour in the queen of hills: issues & remedies

Abstract

The paper encounters two terms or concepts viz. human resources and labour mobility. “Human resources’ refers to the set of individuals who make up the workforce of an organizational business sector or an economy as per to its definition in the dictionary. And the latter i.e. ‘labour mobility’ means the geographical and occupational movement of works which tends to make the entire economy more productive. So conclusively, human resource mobility is the maneuverability of human capital; the diversification of which leads to increased productivity. But does productivity due to mobility justify its means, whether it is the economic welfare of the entire commercial sector or a single entrepreneur? The frequent allusion in context to human resource mobility is this, it is a process in which individuals or groups mobileze to different sections of an economy to suit their educational qualifications or simply needs. What we ought to taken into considerations is that human resource mobility also refers to involuntary and illegal mobilization of underage individuals to suit the requirements of their employers or to increase ‘productivity’. So in the mentioned scenario we are dealing with the crime, the intensity of which is no less than any other i.e. child trafficking. In the lesser Himalayas lies the Queen of Hills better known as Darjeeling. Here child labour prevails masking itself as human resource mobility. The intensity of this practice is left unnoticed by the concerned executives. the Child Welfare Committee of Darjeeling has recoded that in the past year (2011–12) there have been more than fifty of these cases. This paper attempts to highlight the illegal mobility of trafficking of underage individuals from opther parts of India to Darjeeling for domestic and commercial labour, where a certain number of them have had suicidal incidents due to unbearable circumstances. The paper focuses on the reasons behind child trafficking for domestic and commercial exploitation in Darjeeling and the counteract steps that should be taken.