Child Labour: A Denial of Human Rights and Human Potential

Child Labour: A Denial of Human Rights
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
SUBJECT
Chapter-1
INTRODUCTION
Chapter-2
OBJECTIUE AND LOCATION
Chapter-3
METHODOLOGY
Chapter-4
OBSERUATION AND FINDING
Chapter-5
CHILD LABOUR IN CULTIVATION FIELD

CHILD LABOUR IN HOUSE HOLD
CHILDREN WITH A BONDED LIFE
CHILDREN SUPPLY
INTERVIEW OF TWO CHILD LABOUR
EFFECT OF CHILD LABOUR
PREVENTION OF CHILD LABOUR
CONCLUSION & REFERENCE
INTRODUCTION
"As a very rough weather destroy the buds of spring so
does too early an experience of life's hard toil blight the young
promise of a child's faculties, and render any true education
impossible," these words of pope Leo XII indicate the issue of
children being forces to work.
Despite planning, welfare programmes, legislation and
administrative action in the past few decades, a large majority of
children of the age group of 5-14 years continue to remain in
distress and turmoil. Child labourer are exploited, exposed to
hazards work conditions and paid a pittance far their long hours
of work. They are forced to leave schooling, shouldering
responsibilities for beyond their years. On June 17 1999 the
number-states of ILO unanimously voted to adopt convention
182 on the world from of child labour. It was recognised that
ending the commercial exploitation of children must be one of
the mankind's top priorities.
Definition:
There is no universally accepted definition of "Child
Labour". Varying definition of the term is used by International
Organisations,
non-Governmental organisations,
trade unions and other interest groups. The avoid confusion, it is

to explain- 'Child Labour' is work for children under age 18 that
in some way harms or exploits them physically, mentally,
morally or by blocking children from education.
ILO's Survey:
Reliable data on Child workers is virtually non-existent. In
2000, the ILO estimates, 246 million child workers aged 5 and 17
were involved in work that by its nature is hazardous to their
safety, physical or mental health, and moral development.
Moreover, some 8.4 million Children were engaged in so-called
unconditional worst form of child labour, which include forced
and bonded labour, the use of children in armed conflict,
trafficking in children and commercial sexual exploitation. Many
forms of child labour are hidden from the statistician's eyes,
particularly if girls doing domestic work at the cost of their
education are considered; it would push the total still higher.
Child Labour in Puri :
1961 Census-21.13. %
1971 Census - 17.33%
1981 census - 15.25%
1991 Census - 19.43%
2001 Census - 14.73%
1961
1971
1981
1991
2001
Child Labour in India:

Census -12.69%
Census -7.13%
Census - 13.6 Million
Census - 11.28 million
Census - 12.5 million
A universal difficulty in obtaining accurate data may be that

individual fail to report Child Labour participating during survey,
for fear of legal action. Moreover, all the above estimates fall
short of the actual figures of definition, different methods of
computation, diverse sources of data, lack of information on the
vast unorganized sector of the economy.

r:
Area of Distribution
The 2001 census of India divided Child labour into nine
divisions:
Cultivation
Agricultural Labour
Livestock, Forestry, Fishing, Plantations
Mining and Quarrying
Manufacturing Processing, Servicing and Repairs.
Construction
Trade and Commerce.
Transport, storage and Communication.
Other services.
Child labor ranges from four-year-olds tied to rug looms to

keep them from running away, to seventeen-year-olds helping
out on the family farm. In some cases, a child's work can be
helpful to him or her and to the family; working and earning can
be a positive experience in a child's growing up. This depends
largely on the age of the child, the conditions in which the child
works, and whether work prevents the child from going to school
OBJECTIVES
r:
According to the UNICEF report on the "Roots of child

labour" published in 1997 child labour is in increasing rate in
poor countries poverty is the main reason behind child labour
system. The combination of poverty and the lack of social
security network are also responsible for bonded child labour.
For the poor, there are few credit sources and even if there are
sources like co-operative loan bank loan etc available any poor
families manage to satisfy the essential criteria related to access
those. Here enters the local money lenders with exorbitant high
interest rates. Most of the times it is not possible for the poor to
return back those loans and the parents exchange their child's
labour to local money lenders. Since the earnings of bonded
child labours are less than the interest on the loan, these bonded
children are forced to work. Again, lower caste children lend to
be pushed in to child labour because of their family's poverty
furthermore the attitude of parents also contribute the child
labour. Some parents feel that children should work in order to
develop skills useful in the job market instead of taking
advantage of formal education.
The objective of the present study is to find out What censes the massive growth of child labour despite
Constitutional protections provided for it.

What are the efforts of the Governments in this regard and
How the judiciary has attempted to fight against child
labour
To suggest the steps to be taken for location.
LOCATION
The study has been conducted in the C.T Road, Srikhetra
Colony under Puri Municipal Corporation. This is ward No. 25 of
the Municipal corporation having a population of 15,000 and a
very high number of floating population. There are 20 big Hotels
more than 28 medium sized Restaurants and a large number of
tea stall, Tiffin vendors and foot path shops Bus Stand area
encompasses a good number of different kinds of shops in most
of the shops, hotels, teashops, Hotel cleaning agencies, the
children in the age braket of 7 to 17 are working.
METHODOLOGY
A note book is used to record data on the flowing matters
collected through the circulation of a questions among 100 child
labourers working in different shops, hotels etc.
1. Name of the child : K. Narayan Reddy
2. Father's Name & occupation K. Krishna Chandra reddy &
labour.
3. Age of the child labour : 7 Years.
4. Name of the work place. CT Road , Puri
5. How long is he in this place of work? 2 years

6. What was his previous place & nature of work? Nuapali,
Khurda
7. Educational qualification. Standard II
8. Wages received by him (a. whether paid regularly No
9. Whether he spends all his earnings for himself: No
10. How much he spends for his family. 200/per month
11. Whether he is willing to continue to study or not? Yes
12. What is the attitude of this owner? Brutal
OBSERATION AND FINDINGS

By analyzing the informations collected from 100 child
labour of Haripur - Puri Bus stand area. It is clear that the child
labours mostly come under the age group of 7 - 15, 20 out of
100 have not gone to school, 80 form the remaining 80 have left
school only between class 2 and 4 and 10 are there who have
completed HSC and 02 from them have also cleared +2 Com. In
all these cases proverty is the main reason lower caste children
with poor economic condition prepare to work in small sized
hotels. 95% child labours of exploitation. The child labour are
economically exploited by the employers by playing them very
poor wages which are also paid irregularly and putting them to
work for a very lengthy period and also in a interested to return
to schools in the absence of sound economic support to them
and their family.
GOVERNMENT EFFORTS

Non- availability of accurate and up-to date data on child
labour has been a major handicap in planned international for
eradication of this social evil. However from the time of
independence India has committed fourteen years shall be
employed to work in any factory or mine or employed in any
hazardous employment to their age of strength. The Indian
government implemented the child labour Act in 1986. The
purpose of this Act is to prohibit the employment of children who
have not completed their 14 years in specified hazardous
occupations
and
process
besides
this
Government
has
accounced the National policy and child labour in August 1987.
The action plan under the policy included Focusing
of
general
development
programmes
benefiting children whenever possible.

Project based actions plans in areas
of
for
high
concentration of child labour engaged in wage / quasi

wage employment.
A bold step in government policy occurred in August 15,
1994, when the then Prime Minister Narashima Rao announced
his proposal of the elimination of child labour programme. This
programme was designed to end child labour for two million
children hazardous industries as defined in the child labour act
of 1986 by the year 2000. The programme revolves around an
incentive for children to quit work and enter non formal
schooling work a one hundred rupees payment as well as one

meal a day for attending school recently government has
adopted two schemes namely National Child Labour Project
Scheme ( CLP) of child labour. There are currently 100 NCPL
covering 2.11 Lakh working children. It has been decided to
sanction additional 150 NCLPs during the tenth plan.
A significant announcement by the government was done
on
August
1.2006
by
issuing
notification
of
banning
employment of children as domestic servants of works and it as

helpers in Dhabas Restaurants hotels teashops, resorts and
other recreational centers. The ban has been will be effective
from October 10 this year. It has been imposed under the child
labour (Prohibition and Regulation) ct 1986 violators are liable
under
the
Act.
Government
servants
have
already
been
prohibited from employing children as domestic servants. By this

notification the Government has imposed the restrictions on
everyone.
SUPREME COURT DIRECTION

The supreme court in a significant judgment given on
December 10, 1996 aimed at preventing exploitation of children
an safeguarding their economic, social and humanitarian rights,
banned child labour on hazardous jobs an or ere t e setting up of
a child labour rehabilitation welfare fund offending employee
would have to deposit Rs. 20,000 as compensation for each
children the fund.
CHILD LABOUR IN CULTIVATION FIELD

Child agricultural workers frequently work for- long hours in
scorching heat, haul heavy loads of produce, is exposed to toxic
pesticides, and suffers high rates of injury from sharp knives and
other dangerous tools. Their work is grueling and harsh, violating
their rights to health, education, and protection from work that is
hazardous or exploitative.
According to the ILO's new report on child labor, the
number of children working in agriculture is nearly ten times that
of
children
involved
in
factory
work
such
as
garment
manufacturing, carpet weaving, or soccer-ball stitching. Yet

despite their numbers and the difficult nature of their work,
children working in agriculture have received little attention
compared to child labor in manufacturing for export or children
involved in commercial sexual exploitation.
Human Rights Watch has found that the children working in
agriculture are endangered and exploited on a daily basis.
Human Rights watch found that despite the vast differences,
many of the risks and abuses faced by child agricultural workers
were strikingly similar.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR) states, "Every child shall have . . . the right to such
measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor,
on the part of his family, society and the State." The Convention
on the Rights of the Child provides that children-all persons
under eighteen "unless under the law applicable to the child,

majority is attained earlier"-have a right "to be protected from
performing' any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere
with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health
or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development." All
states parties to the Convention-every Give administrative and
other measures complementation of the rights recognized in this
Covenant
CHILD LABOUR IN HOUSEHOLD

r:
Child domestic workers are nearly invisible among child

laborers. They work alone in individual households, hidden from
public scrutiny, their lives controlled by their employers. Child
domestics, nearly all girls, work long hours for little or no pay.
Many have no opportunity to go to school, or are forced to drop
out because of the demands of their job. They are subject to
verbal and physical abuse, and particularly vulnerable to sexual
abuse. They may be fired for small infractions, losing not only
their jobs, but their place of residence as well.
More girls work as domestics than in any other form of child
labour. Yet they have received little attention and even less
protection. Government laws often exclude domestic workers
from basic labor rights, labor ministries rarely monitor or
investigate conditions of work in private households, and few
programs addressing child labor include child domestics.
CHILDREN WITH A BONDED LIFE

Bonded labor takes place when a family receives an
advance payment (sometimes as little as RS 750) to hand a
child-boy or girl over to an employer. In most cases the child

cannot work off the debt, nor can the family raise enough money
to buy the child back.
The workplace is often structured so that "expenses" and/or
"interest" are deducted from a child's earnings in such amounts
that it is almost impossible for a child to repay the debt. In some
cases, the labor is generational-that is, a child's grandfather or
great-grandfather was promised to an employer many years
earlier, with the understanding that each generation would
provide the employer with a new worker-often with no pay at all.
Bonded labor is outlawed by the 1956 U.N. Supplementary
Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and
Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery.
Millions of children work as bonded child laborers in
countries around the world; the full extent of the problem has
yet to be shown. Millions work in India alone, as documented in
the Human Rights Watch 2003 report, and 1996 report, Many
bonded children are subjected to severe physical abuse, as in a
case cited in the July 1995 Human Rights Watch report,
CHILDREN SUPPLY
Gouri, age sixteen, told Human Rights Watch that she spent
three days on a truck to Kakatpur, before working as a

housemaid there for eighteen months. She said her journey
began in the village of Odasamala, where she and seven other
girls boarded a minibus with a woman who said they would be
looking after small children in Gabon. The bus drove as far as
Puri, stopped there for five days and then made a one-day
journey to Kakatpur.
When she arrived in Kakatpur, Gouri was abandoned by the
woman who brought her and told to wait to be collected by a
truck. "I stayed in Kakatpur for five months," Gouri told Human
Rights Watch. "It was a big house with not many people in it, and
the woman told me just to wait. I ate rice from the stock she had
left. After five months, a man came and took me to a boat."
Chameli went on to describe the journey "On the truck, there
were over a hundred children, and there were some adults, but
more children than adults," she said. "I talked to some of them,
and all the girls had come to Kakatpur to work.
Gouri's ordeal is a classic case of child trafficking-the
recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of a
child for the purposes of sexual or labor exploitation, forced
labor, or slavery. Trafficking in children is a human rights tragedy
estimated to in both girls and boys are trafficked-in its study of
trafficking in Togo, for instance, Human Rights Watch reported
on the trafficking of girls into domestic and market work and the
trafficking of boys into agricultural work Child trafficking is
prohibited under international law as both a "practice similar to
slavery" and one of the "worst forms of child labor."
States have an urgent and immediate obligation to
eradicate trafficking in children.
INTERVIEWS OF TWO CHILD LABOURS

"I took care of two children .... I cleaned all parts of the
house, washed the floor, washed clothes, ironed, cleaned the
walls, and washed the car. I cleaned two houses, because I also
cleaned the grandmother's house. I worked from 4 a.m. to 7
p.m. I had no rest during the day. I worked every day and was
not allowed to go out, not even to walk on the street. The lady
employer yelled at me every day. She slapped me one or two
times a week. I wanted to run away, but I was afraid the
employer and security would catch me. I had to buy my own
ticket home. [When I returned to Orissa,] I called the labor
recruitment company in Ahmadabad to complain about my
salary, but they didn't want to take my call."
This was the painful statement of Ratna, a girl who works in
a household in Gujurat.
During the survey I came to know that; two years ago at
the age of seven, Babuli started weaving carpets in Puri. He was
given some food, little free time, and no medical assistance. He
was told repeatedly that he could not stop working until he
earned enough money to pay an alleged family debt. He was
never told who in his family had borrowed money or how much
he had borrowed. Any time he made an error with his work, he
was fined and the debt increased.
Once when his work was considered to be too slow, he was
beaten with a stick. Once after a particularly painful beating, he
tried to run away, only to be apprehended by the local police
who forcibly returned him to the carpet looms.
EFFECT OF CHILD LABOUR

The Children's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch of
Child Labor Convention. Children, who work long hours, often in
dangerous and unhealthy conditions, are exposed to lasting
physical and psychological harm.
Working at rug looms, for example, has left children
disabled with eye damage, lung disease, stunted growth, and a
susceptibility to arthritis as they grow older.
Children making silk thread in India dip their hands into
boiling water that burns and blisters them, breath smoke and
fumes
from
machinery,
handle
dead
worms
that
cause
infections, and guide twisting threads that cut their fingers.

Children harvesting sugar cane in EI Salvador use machetes
to cut cane for up to nine hours a day in the hot sun; injuries to
their hands and legs are common and medical care is often not
available.
These are some examples of sufferings of the child labors,
but their real sufferings are uncountable. Still they can't raise
any voice.
PREVENTION OF CHILD LABOUR

On the advocacy front, we have met with children's and
human rights groups, as well as representatives from the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the International Labor
Organization (ILO), the World Bank, and other organizations.
They are trying to develop a holistic strategy to prevent
children
from
losing
their
childhood,
education,
and
opportunities by being entrapped in bonded labor.

We have also worked to provide to children's organizations
and
international
advocacy
groups
objective
on-the-spot
reporting to support efforts to effect change.

From the survey I have estimated that above 50 children
between the ages of five and fourteen work in the area,
Kakatpur. At least 23 on a full time basis have focused its efforts
on the worst forms of child labor; though it is prohibited by the
ILO. Most working children in this area are found in agriculture;
many children work as domestics; other work in trade and farms,
with fewer in manufacturing and construction.
STASTICAL REPORT ON CHILD LABOUR IN PURl
YEAR
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2014
NO. OF
CHILDREN
50263
70651
85793
97987
125043
137800
NO. OF CHILD
LABOUR
7690
8753
9392
11987
17958
22351
Conclusion
Despite the hope aroused of some improvement in the lots
of the child workers, the enactment of child labour (Prohibition &
Regulation)
act,
1986,
has not
goaded
either
the
state
governments or the Centre to any sort of purposive action even

on a limited front. The legislation was drafted on the second
premise that since the root cause of poverty cannot be
eliminated overnight, the pragamatic approach was to regular
the practice of child labour. Accordingly, the employment of
children below 14 years has been allowed in selected areas of
the non-hazardous organized sector, with suitable safeguards
against their exploitation and provision for educational and
recreational facilities. But in the absence of an efficient and
rigorous inspection machinery, nothing prevents the employers
from flouting the legal provisions in the full knowledge that the
child workers themselves will become willing accomplices in
covering it up.
The only way to ensure compliance with the Act is to make
punishment for violations more stringent and incorporate a
provision for surprise checks and establish a separate vigilance
cell. With regard to the worker's interest. It should be made
mandatory for all employers to take steps for the intellectual,
vocational and educational well-being and enlistment of a child
worker. Let us hope, y the August notification of the government
to ban employment of children from October 10,2006, the child

of twenty-first century will find himself into the "Heaven
freedom".
Reference
Sambad, Bhubaneswar Friday, November 3,2006
ILO (International Labour Office) 1993 Bulletin of Labour
statistics
1993-3. Geneva.
ILO (International labour Office) 1992 World labour Report
1992 Geneva
Lindert P. 1976 "Child Costs and Economic development", I
R.A. Easterlin, ed., population & economic change in
developing countries, Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press.
Richards, M. 1988, 'Opportunity Costs of Education to Rural
Households" (USAIO, Guatemala, primary Education
efficiency sub sector Assessment)

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Child Labour: A Denial of Human Rights

OBJECTIUE AND LOCATION

OBSERUATION AND FINDING

CHILD LABOUR IN CULTIVATION FIELD

CONCLUSION & REFERENCE