Investigating Factors Affecting the Mental and Psychological Pathology of Child Labour in Mazandaran Province

Social issues and harms caused by the rapid transformations of human societies are important issues that have always occupied the minds of sociologists and thinkers. Accelerated social changes such as rapid population growth, the rapid growth of industrialization and urbanization, rapid migration of masses and migration to big cities and marginalization of megacities, increase in social inequalities and the class gap in megacities, transformation in The construction and functioning of the family, the collapse of traditional patterns and norms of behavior and the increase of social tensions have caused unfortunate social consequences in the urban life of societies. Children and teenagers are one of the most vulnerable groups in today's society. Working children are all people who are under 18 years of age and are directly or indirectly involved in earning money. In general, the importance working and street children in the city due to the lack of social abilities and skills to correctly and dynamically face the social environment and their dependence on adults in meeting their needs and going through the stages of their growth and development is more than other groups. Institutions such as family, education and religious institutions, government, and mass media under social changes cannot fulfill their obligations towards socialization and normalization of children and adolescents. Functioning as a city, the consequence of such inabilities is to abandon and even send children and teenagers to the unsafe and anxious environment of the streets of big cities. The entry of children into the road is mostly due to the unfavorable conditions of children in disorganized and broken families, child abuse in the family, and running away from home. In some cases, street children are considered to be the result of poverty and the inability of children's families to meet their living expenses, and street children are part of working children. Sometimes, a set of family factors such as divorce, lack of guardianship and mistreatment of children in the family, and economic problems are known to be effective in the emergence of street children. The phenomenon of street children, which is referred to as an urban tragedy, is a common social problem in the metropolises of contemporary societies, both in industrialized and developing countries, with the difference that the incidence of this phenomenon, the grounds, and factors of its spread And the way to deal with it is different in different societies according to their economic, social and cultural characteristics. The work of children on the street is a serious problem in the capitals and many big cities of the world, especially in developing countries, but it is difficult to accurately estimate the number of street children and the difference in how to define and classify the children who live on the street. Child labor is a global problem and has a broad research background. Although according to the statistics of the International Labor Organization, since 2000, the number of children working in the world has decreased to two-thirds, it still includes around 168 million children, of which 85 million are engaged in risky work. Therefore, this research aimed to investigate the factors affecting the mental and psychological pathology of working children in Mazandaran province.

This survey study was approved by the code of ethics IR.IAU.BABOL.REC.1399.142 in the Code of Ethics Commission of the Islamic Azad University of Babol branch. The statistical population of the research was made up of working children of Sari city, who were selected as a sample of 200 people based on Cochran's formula. The sampling method was a multi-stage cluster and random sampling. The data was collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. This questionnaire has 60 items that measured the number of injuries by working children in Sari city in 2019. Each item was graded on a five-point Likert scale from one (very little) to five (very much). The number of items in each component of the questionnaire made by the researcher for the components of the feeling of objective physical security was 15 items, the feeling of objective verbal security was 7 items, the feeling of mental security was 8 items, the family breakdown was 6 items, sense of parental responsibility was 10 items, social support was 4 items, child labor was 11 items. Construct validity, which is the most important part of validity investigation in this research, was obtained through Cronbach's alpha in Spss24 software, based on which the coefficient of research variables and dimensions for social support components was 0.855, sense of responsibility of parents 0.836, sense of security 0.884, the family breakdown was 0.799, and child labor was 0.879, which indicated the high reliability of the questionnaire components. To analyze the research data, correlation coefficient tests with Spss24 software and confirmatory factor analysis of the second stage with Amos25 software were used.

Demographic descriptive results showed that out of the total of 200 people in the sample measured in this research, 110 people equal to 51.8% are girls and 90 people equal to 48.2% of working children are boys. There are 169 children, equivalent to 84.5%, in peddling, 20 children, equivalent to 10%, are engaged in deviant jobs such as garbage collection, etc., and 11 children, equivalent to 5.5%, are engaged in vaccinating on the street. . Also, 111 people, equal to 55.5% of the children working on the street, stated that they were verbally and physically abused by their parents. Among these children, 110 people, equivalent to 55%, are illiterate, and 70 people, equal to 35%, have primary education, and only 20 of them, equivalent to 10%, were studying. In this research, the relationship between the variables of verbal and physical violence and parents' sense of responsibility, the sense of objective and mental security, family disintegration, and the injury of working children were measured, and the relationship of all variables was confirmed.

In general, based on the results of the research, it can be stated that the family and the consolidation of relationships between family members is an important issue in preventing the phenomenon of child labor at the community level, and it is necessary to change variables such as parents' sense of responsibility, family breakdown, and support. Social issues should be taken into consideration and parents must pay attention to the important issues of child-rearing before getting married and having children to reduce the phenomenon of working children at the community level. One of the limitations of the current research was relying on the data obtained from the self-report questionnaire, in this style of information collection, the participant will probably have difficulty in expressing his emotions and cognitions, so it is suggested to increase the statistical power and reliability of the findings to collect information from methods Other than an interview or qualitative study. The results of the present research can be generalized and applied in different situations by considering the mentioned limitations. It is also suggested that the officials of counseling centers consider training courses for couples and affected families so that their children do not get involved in issues such as street work. Among the limitations of the current research was the difficulty of coordinating and establishing communication with the participants, which was time-consuming. Another limitation is that the current research was conducted at this point and place. Perhaps, if it was conducted at another point in time and place, different results would be obtained.