There are five states which are India's biggest child labour

employers - Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and

Maharashtra. Over half of India's total child labour population
works here. India's biggest hub of child labour is Uttar Pradesh
and it accounts for almost 20% of India's child labourers.
According to a Campaign Against Child Labour (CAC) study, India
has 1,26,66,377 child labourers of which UP has 19,27,997 child
labourers.
Reduction in child labour over the course of time
India has seen a dramatic fall in child labour in the last two
decades:
2004-2005 to 2009-10
For example, there was a marked 45% reduction in child labour
between 2004-05 and 2009-10, due to schemes like Right to
Education, MNREGA, Mid-Day Meal, which gave children an
incentive to study. The role of NGOs was also important in
bringing about this fall in child labour. For example, Save the
Children, which is widely hailed as the best NGO for charity has
been working in the cotton farms of Maharashtra to mainstream
the child labourers into schools.
The numbers from 2014
In 2014, there were even more optimistic signs - the number of
child labourers decreased by 65% - from 1.26 crore to 82.2 lakh
between Census 2001 to and Census 2011. This was part of an
answer to a Rajya Sabha question about child labour, which also
revealed that India's capital had seen over 1500 child labour
rescues between 2013 and 2014.
Fighting hazardous occupation - a critical short term
measure
While successive governments have fought to end child labour, a

short-term initiative worthy of mention here is the efforts

undertaken to eliminate child labour in hazardous occupations
and processes. The 2014 National Child Labour Project (NCLP)
scheme, enforced in 1988 in areas of high concentration of child
labour sees children (9-14 years) rescued from hazardous
occupations and given enrolment in NCLP training centres. These
centres offer bridge education, vocational training, mid-day meal,
stipend, healthcare services all as a precursor to mainstream
formal education. The scheme was rolled out in 24 districts in
Odisha.
Pan-India child labour: important findings
Child labour is prominent in rural India - 80% of working children
live in India's villages, where most of them work in agriculture.
Some of them also work in household industries and are
employed in home-based businesses. Children between 14-17
years engaged in hazardous work account for 62.8% of the India's
child labour workforce, 10% of whom are hired in family
enterprises. Over half of working adolescents do not study. This
number is higher for adolescents doing dangerous work. It is not
surprising that more boys than girls (38.7 million vs. 8.8 million)
are forced into doing hazardous work (according to International
Labour Organizations World Report on Child Labour 2015).
Save the Children - ending child labour in India
According to Census data, there are over 82 lakh child labourers
(aged between 5 14 years) in India. Save the Children aims to
make child labour not only redundant by a variety of schemes to
empower children, but also to make it "socially and culturally
unacceptable". In the fight against a hidden and pervasive form of
child labour, Save the Children has successfully withdrawn 50,000
child domestic workers from domestic help. Just last year, the
NGO rescued 9337 children from the clutches of child labour.
Today, the NGO has operations across 2000 villages and 9 Indian

states dedicated to free children from exploitative working

conditions, give them rehabilitation for the physical and
psychological trauma of brutal working conditions. For all this it
relies on donations. Going beyond a donation rebate in income
tax, it is the desire to help every Indian child be the best they can
be that should compel you to be a part of this change.
Child-Friendly Spaces during calamities and disasters
One of cruellest hubs of child labour is the site of any calamity or
emergency. While children are vulnerable in such situations, there
is the constant eye of child traffickers who seek to swoop in and
steal them from refugee camps. Save the Children, via its Child
Protection Programmes, protects such children, as well as others
from different kinds of harms abuse, neglect, exploitation,
physical danger and violence. Child-Friendly Spaces are created
for children to give them a safe environment to overcome the
trauma. In 2014, Save the Children kept 1.65 lakh children away
from harm.
Child protection through Children's Groups
Save the Children works with the disadvantaged local
communities, providing them information and awareness
regarding children's rights and the importance of education for
them. Children Groups formed by the NGO are taught to find
useful solutions that help other children, fighting issues like child
marriage, child trafficking, child abuse and the need to save
child labour afflicted children. Similarly, preparedness
programmes for disasters are designed to be child-centric.
Rescuing at-risk children
At-risk children, including those who are out-of-school, surviving
on the streets, and already engaged in child labour are led to
schools via enrolment drives. For older children (above 14), Save
the Children initiates skill-based vocational training to find them

meaningful employment.
Creating opinion and changing policy
Policy and law changes can only be brought about by changes in
perspective, via providing child labour information. As the
aforementioned numbers show, child labour is no small problem
in India. This has enabled the NGO to demand policy and
legislative action to abolish child labour.