CHILD LABOUR

(INTRODUCTION)

BACKGROUND: “Todays child is tomorrows citizen”. His is

auniversally accepted truth . Child labour is not a new phenomena. It
has existed in one form or the other throughout man’s history.

MEANING AND DEFINITION OF CHILD LABOUR:

The term “working child and child labour are often used
synonymously. Every child labour isa first a child with all the needs
like other children.

“Child labour is a person in the age group of 5-14 yrs employed for
hire or reward on a full time or part time basis, or self employed or
assisting his or her parent in their occupation for two or more hours a
day”. Over 90% working children are employed in agricul;ture and
10% are engaged in other sectors. According to Homer Folks “ any
work by children that interferes with their full physical development,
their opportunities for a desirable minimum of education or their
needed recreation”.

PROVISIONS UNDER INDIAN CONSTITUTION:

Child labourer are exposed or exploited to hazardous work

conditions and paid a pittance for their lonf hours of work . The Indian
constitution enshrines that :

(i) ARTICLE 24: No child below the age of 14 yrs shall be

employed to work in any factory or in any hazardous employment .

(ii) ARTICLE 39 f : Childhood and youth are to be protected

against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment.

(iii)ARTICLE 45: The state shall endeavour to provide with a

period of 10 yrs from the commencement of the constitution free and
compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of
14 yrs.
 CAUSES:

1) Main causes appear to be POVERTY, UNEMPLOYMENT AND

UNDER EMPLOYMENT OF PARENTS in the family.

2) VESTED INTEREST OF EMPLOYERS is another factor. In their

greed to maximize profits, employers prefer children as they are cheap
labour, honest, hardworking and made to work long hours without any
grudge. Easy to hire and fire.

3) PARENTS ATTITUDES AND SOCIO-CULTURAL FACTORS are

another set of factors responsible for child labour.

4) LESS EDUCATION : Education- limited success in providing

compulsory education to all boys and girls in 5 to 14 age groups is
another important factor for child labour. However, the present
educational system fails to motivate poor parents to send their children
to school or for informal education.. Among lower strata caste and
communities girls are either not sent to school or they are hold back in
home for domestic work.

5) GOVERNMENTAL EFFORT: failure for legislation, governmental

effort is responsible for child labour. Child labour remains on paper .
Governmental administrators, factory inspectors often fail to their jobs
successfully, with the result children continue to be exploited as child
labour.
REMEDIES TO REMOVE CHILD LABOUR

1) MODIFY PARENTS ATTITUDES with respect to need for help,

education, recreation for children, rights for children and
responsibilities of parents, education and vocational skill training.

2) STRENGTHEN compulsory education, neighbourhood schools

need to attract and motivate the girls and boys.

3) PROVIDE neighbourhood child care , crèche services so that girls

are not retained at home for baby sitting when the mothers go out
for work.

4) USE MASS MEDIA for creating awareness with respect to the

need of children.

5) STRENGTHEN EMPLOYMENT GENERATION, minimum

wage and such other programme to provide employment to men
and women in the family.

6) COOPERATIONS OF GOVERNMENT and Voluntary

organization is needed eradicate child labour completely.
 GOVERNMENTAL MEASURES
The Government believes that it is not easy to completely eradicate child
labour. It therefore has only tried to improve their working conditions,
reduce working hours, ensure minimum wages and provide facilities for
health and education. It could be said that the national policy has three main
ingredients – legal action, focusing on general welfare, developmental
programme for child workers and their families and a project based action
plan.

The Union Government set up a national authority on October 2nd 1993 to

eliminate child labour in hazardous industry by the turn of the century . Rs
850 crores were provided i9n this plan for benefiting Two million children.
The plan aims at rehabilitating the child workers , giving them education in
15000 schools in different part of the country and providing compensation to
families whose wards are withdrawn from hazardous jobs.

The Supreme Court in a significant judgement given on 10th of December

1996 aimed at preventing exploitation of children and safeguarding their
economic , social and humanitarian rights, banned child labour on hazardous
jobs and ordered the setting up of the child labour rehabilitation welfare fund
offending employer would have to deposit Rs.20000 as compensation for
each child in the fund. The court also said that the appropriate government
would be required to deposit Rs.5000 in the fund for each child employed in
a factory mine or any hazardous employment. The court also directed to
conduct a survey on child labour to protect them.
 LAW REGARDING CHILD LABOUR:

 The constitution of India provides safeguards against child labour.

ARTICLE 24 lays down that no child below 14 yrs shall be employed
in any factory , mine or any other hazardous work

 A number of ACTS has been enacted to prohibit the employment of

children in hazardous occupations, regulate their hours of work and
other work conditions.

 The child labour prohibition and regulation Act has recently been
passed in 1986 . It is the central Act applicable to the whole country.

Initiatives towards Elimination of Child Labour –

Action Plan and Present Strategy
The problem of child labour continues to pose a challenge before the nation.
Government has been taking various pro-active measures to tackle this
problem. However, considering the magnitude and extent of the problem and
that it is essentially a socio-economic problem inextricably linked to poverty
and illiteracy, it requires concerted efforts from all sections of the society to
make a dent in the probleWay back in 1979, Government formed the first
committee called Gurupadswamy Committee to study the issue of child
labour and to suggest measures to tackle it. The Committee examined the
problem in detail and made some far-reaching recommendations. It observed
that as long as poverty continued, it would be difficult to totally eliminate
child labour and hence, any attempt to abolish it through legal recourse
would not be a practical proposition. The Committee felt that in the
circumstances, the only alternative left was to ban child labour in hazardous
areas and to regulate and ameliorate the conditions of work in other areas. It
recommended that a multiple policy approach was required in dealing with
the problems of working children. m. Based on the recommendations of
Gurupadaswamy Committee, the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation)
Act was enacted in 1986. The Act prohibits employment of children in
certain specified hazardous occupations and processes and regulates the
working conditions in others. The list of hazardous occupations and
processes is progressively being expanded on the recommendation of Child
Labour Technical Advisory Committee constituted under the Act.

In consonance with the above approach, a National Policy on Child Labour

was formulated in 1987. The Policy seeks to adopt a gradual & sequential
approach with a focus on rehabilitation of children working in hazardous
occupations & processes in the first instance. The Action Plan outlined in the
Policy for tackling this problem is as follows:

Legislative Action Plan for strict enforcement of Child Labour Act and
other labour laws to ensure that children are not employed in hazardous
employments, and that the working conditions of children working in non-
hazardous areas are regulated in accordance with the provisions of the Child
Labour Act. It also entails further identification of additional occupations
and processes, which are detrimental to the health and safety of the children.

Focusing of General Developmental Programmes for Benefiting Child

Labour - As poverty is the root cause of child labour, the action plan
emphasizes the need to cover these children and their families also under
various poverty alleviation and employment generation schemes of the
Government.

Project Based Plan of Action envisages starting of projects in areas of high

concentration of child labour. Pursuant to this, in 1988, the National Child
Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme was launched in 9 districts of high child
labour endemicity in the country. The Scheme envisages running of special
schools for child labour withdrawn from work. In the special schools, these
children are provided formal/non-formal education along with vocational
training, a stipend of Rs.100 per month, supplementary nutrition and regular
health check ups so as to prepare them to join regular mainstream schools.
Under the Scheme, funds are given to the District Collectors for running
special schools for child labour. Most of these schools are run by the NGOs
in the district.
Government has accordingly been taking proactive steps to tackle this
problem through strict enforcement of legislative provisions along with
simultaneous rehabilitative measures. State Governments, which are the
appropriate implementing authorities, have been conducting regular
inspections and raids to detect cases of violations. Since poverty is the root
cause of this problem, and enforcement alone cannot help solve it,
Government has been laying a lot of emphasis on the rehabilitation of these
children and on improving the economic conditions of their families.

The coverage of the NCLP Scheme has increased from 12 districts in 1988
to 100 districts in the 9th Plan to 250 districts during the 10th Plan.

Strategy for the elimination of child labour under the 10th Plan

An evaluation of the Scheme was carried out by independent agencies

in coordination with V. V. Geri National Labour Institute in 2001. Based on
the recommendations of the evaluation and experience of implementing the
scheme since 1988, the strategy for implementing the scheme during the
10th Plan was devised. It aimed at greater convergence with the other
developmental schemes and bringing qualitative changes in the Scheme.
Some of the salient points of the 10th Plan Strategy are as follows:

Focused and reinforced action to eliminate child labour in the hazardous

occupations by the end of the Plan period.

Expansion of National Child Labour Projects to additional 150 districts.

Linking the child labour elimination efforts with the Scheme of Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan of Ministry of Human Resource Development to ensure
that children in the age group of 5-8 years get directly admitted to regular
schools and that the older working children are mainstreamed to the formal
education system through special schools functioning under the NCLP
Scheme.

Convergence with other Schemes of the Departments of Education, Rural

Development, Health and Women and Child Development for the ultimate
attainment of the objective in a time bound manner.

The Government and the Ministry of Labour & Employment in particular,

are rather serious in their efforts to fight and succeed in this direction. The
number of districts covered under the NCLP Scheme has been increased
from 100 to 250, as mentioned above in this note. In addition, 21 districts
have been covered under INDUS, a similar Scheme for rehabilitation of
child labour in cooperation with US Department of Labour. Implementation
of this Project was recently reviewed during the visit of Mr. Steven Law,
Deputy Secretary of State, from the USA. For the Districts not covered
under these two Schemes, Government is also providing funds directly to the
NGOs under the Ministry’s Grants-in-aid Scheme for running Special
Schools for rehabilitation of child labour, thereby providing for a greater role
and cooperation of the civil society in combating this menace.

Elimination of child labour is the single largest programme in this Ministry’s

activities. Apart from a major increase in the number of districts covered
under the scheme, the priority of the Government in this direction is evident
in the quantum jump in budgetary allocation during the 10th Plan.
Government has allocated Rs. 602 crores for the Scheme during the 10th
Plan, as against an expenditure of Rs. 178 crores in the 9th Plan. The
resources set aside for combating this evil in the Ministry is around 50 per
cent of its total annual budget.

The implementation of NCLP and INDUS Schemes is being closely

monitored through periodical reports, frequent visits and meetings with the
District and State Government officials. The Government’s commitment to
achieve tangible results in this direction in a time bound manner is also
evident from the fact that in the recent Regional Level Conferences of
District Collectors held in Hyderabad, Pune, Mussoorie and Kolkata district-
wise review of the Scheme was conducted at the level of Secretary. These
Conferences provided an excellent opportunity to have one-to-one
interaction with the Collectors, who play a pivotal role in the
implementation of these Schemes in the District. Besides, these Conferences
also helped in a big way in early operationalisation of Scheme in the newly
selected 150 districts.

The Government is committed to eliminate child labour in all its

forms and is moving in this direction in a targeted manner. The multipronged
strategy being followed by the Government to achieve this objective also
found its echo during the recent discussions held in the Parliament on the
Private Member’s Bill tabled by Shri Iqbal Ahmed Saradgi. It was
unanimously recognized therein that the problem of child labour, being
inextricably linked with poverty and illiteracy, cannot be solved by
legislation alone, and that a holistic, multipronged and concerted effort to
tackle this problem will bring in the desired results.

Children of Age Group (5-14 years)

Activities Number of Children Number of Children (in
(%) 100's)
Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total

Children
engaged in
"economic
activities" 4.18 3.86 4.02 52967 45618 98392
Attended
domestic
duties only 0.30 3.15 1.67 3770 37208 40788

Attended
domestic
duties plus
free
collection
of goods,
tailoring,
weaving
for HH
only 0.25 1.92 1.06 3178 22693 25897

Children at
Work 4.73 8.93 6.75 59915 105519 165077

Attending
schools 72.98 61.45 67.44 925350 725964 1651186

Children
neither at
work nor
at school 17.26 20.42 18.80 218889 241255 460205

Pradeep Narayanan
01 Jul 2006
Pradeep Narayanan is Manager, Research at Child Rights and You (CRY). The data in
these tables have been compiled from official sources.