SLUM CHILDREN

ARE ENGAGED IN
SEVERAL WORKS
(CHILD LABOUR)
BELOW THE AGE OF
14
(Lost Spring)

Project By:
1. Vaidik Khatri
2. Anuj Sinha
 Acknowledgement
I would like to extend my sincere and heartfelt obligation
towards all those who have helped me in making this
project. Without their active guidance, help, cooperation
and encouragement, I would not have been able to present
the project on time. I am extremely thankful and pay my
sincere gratitude to my
teacher____________________________ for her valuable
guidance and support for completion of this project. I also
acknowledge with a deep sense of reverence, my gratitude
towards my parents, other faculty members of the school
and friends for their valuable suggestions given to me in
completing the project.

Date:

Place:
 CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the project work on
____________________ based on the curriculum of
CBSE has been completed by
_______________________________________________
of Class-XII Section ______ of KENDRIYA VIDYALAYA
ORDNANCE FACTORY KATNI. The above mentioned
project work has been completed under my guidance
during the academic year 2021-22
 INDEX
1. Introduction
2. Slums in Chennai
3. Their Livelihood
4. Role of Constitution
5. Education in Slums
6. Role of NGO’s
7. Conclusion

Introduction
Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any
form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with
their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically,
socially and morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by
legislation worldwide, although these laws do not consider all work by
children as child labour; exceptions include work by child artists,
family duties, supervised training, and some forms of work
undertaken by Amish children, as well as by indigenous children in
the Americas.
Child labour has existed to varying extents throughout history.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many children aged 5–14
from poorer families worked in Western nations and their colonies
alike. These children mainly worked in agriculture, home-based
assembly operations, factories, mining, and services such as news
boys – some worked night shifts lasting 12 hours. With the rise of
household income, availability of schools and passage of child labour
laws, the incidence rates of child labour fell.
In the world's poorest countries, around one in four children are
engaged in child labour, the highest number of whom (29 percent)
live in sub-saharan Africa. In 2017, four African nations (Mali, Benin,
Chad and Guinea-Bissau) witnessed over 50 percent of children
aged 5–14 working. Worldwide agriculture is the largest employer of
child labour. The vast majority of child labour is found in rural settings
and informal urban economies; children are predominantly employed
by their parents, rather than factories. Poverty and lack of schools
are considered the primary cause of child labour.

Globally the incidence of child labour decreased from 25% to

10% between 1960 and 2003, according to the World Bank.
Nevertheless, the total number of child labourers remains high, with
UNICEF and ILO acknowledging an estimated 168 million children
aged 5–17 worldwide were involved in child labour in 2013.
 Slums In Chennai
Chennai is the capital city of the South Indian state of Tamil
Nadu and is the fourth largest metropolitan city in the country. A total
of 30% of Chennai's population resided in slums as of 2011. The
state government of Tamil Nadu has established a Slum clearance
Board, with a minister heading it. Out of the major cities with the
highest population in slums, Chennai ranks fourth after Mumbai,
Hyderabad and Kolkata. Rapid urbanization and employment in the
unorganized sector is the major factor for the slum population in
Chennai.
The Tamil Nadu Slum Areas (Improvement & Clearance) Act of
1971 empowered the government to protect the rights of slum
dwellers from eviction or relocation. The policy helped in creating the
Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB), which comes under the
Department of Housing of the state government of Tamil Nadu. The
slum development works of the government are managed by TNSCB
and also externally funded by agencies like World Bank.
According to the 2011 Census of India, 30% of Chennaities were
living in slums. Chennai (1.39M) is fourth in the list of total slum
population among Mumbai (5.21M), Hyderabad (2.29M) and Kolkata
(1.41M). As of the provisional population totals of 2001, the slums in
Chennai 10, 79,414 persons, which constituted 25.6% of the total
population of the city, salem and Trichy had 23% and 19% of the
population living in slums. Out of the totals in Chennai, 548,517 were
males and rest were 530,897 females. The child sex ratio was 968
females to every 1,000 males compared to the non-slum sex-ratio of
945. The literacy rate of the slum population was 80.09% with
85.77% in males and 74.21% in females. There were a total of
125,725 households constituting 81,128 permanent (64.53%), 22,415
semi-permanent (17.83%) and 22,182 temporary households
(17.64%). 66.96% of houses had single rooms, 24.19% had two,
5.85% had three and 2.17% had more than three rooms. There were
totally 70,689 (56.23%) own houses, 50,764 (40.38%) rented houses
and 4,272 (3.39%) other houses.
The major factor contributing to the development of slums is the
lack of employment in rural areas and rapid urbanization in Chennai.
People migrate from their hometowns to Chennai and get employed
in different unorganized sectors. Most of the slums were single room
houses and had poor living conditions. The room had to be used for
all domestic purposes like cooking, sleeping and cleaning vessels.
Most of the slums do not have drainage facilities and open toilets are
widely used, resulting in the spread of diseases.

Their Livelihood
Children growing up in slums experience a childhood that often
defies the imagination of both the ‘innocent childhood’ proponents
and the ‘universal childhood’ advocates. The slums typically lack
proper sanitation, safe drinking water, or systematic garbage
collection; there is usually a severe shortage of space inside the
houses where the children live, and no public spaces dedicated to
their use. But that does not mean that these children have no
childhood, only a different kind of childhood that sees them playing
on rough, uneven ground, taking on multiple roles in everyday life,
and sharing responsibilities with adults in domestic and public spaces
in the community.
Children were to be seen everywhere as one entered the Slums.
They played in the parks. They played on the rough ground and
vacant lots dotted with graves, in the open spaces in the centre
where garbage was manually sorted. The parked rickshaws, vending
carts, cars and bikes all served as play props in the streets. As soon
as they could walk, children could be seen outdoors walking around
mostly barefoot, climbing on debris and petting goats that freely
roamed around. Girls as young as 5 carried infants and toddlers on
their hip and moved around freely in the narrow pedestrian by lanes
of the village, visiting shops for sweets and the houses of friends
down the street. Many houses open out directly onto the street
through a doorway that often is nothing more than a 5-foot-high
opening in a wall. Infants reach out of these holes in the wall and
interact with passers-by.
Children use the public realm of neighbourhoods not only for
playing but for many other activities including privacy needs and
concealing secrets. This requires a range of spaces of different
scales and character. Well-designed parks are no doubt very
desirable for slum kids, but throughout the day more play happens in
the streets and informal open spaces of the neighbourhood than in
formal parks. Children referred to the importance of having friendly
adults around their play territories, which tells us we need to create
new, more imaginative solutions for children’s play than resource-
intensive parks which inevitably become sites of conflict between
different user groups.
Children from both communities routinely sought out open
spaces in the local area outside their neighbourhoods. This points to
the importance of integrating slums with the wider local area and
securing access to open-space resources for slum children outside of
the slum. The importance of community-level open spaces for
children living in slums cannot be overemphasised. As there is little
opportunity for innovation within the 12.5 m2of cramped private
domestic space that Delhi slum dwellers are typically allocated,
children in slums, including very small children, spend a large portion
of their day outdoors. The cleanliness, safety and friendliness of the
outdoor spaces in a slum thus play an important role in the health
and well-being of children. Slum improvement plans will work better
for children if we consider environmental improvements to the slum
neighbourhood as a whole by involving children and by considering
slums to be an integral part of the city.

Role of Constitution
As compared to other countries, child labour in India is more
prevalent. Out of 179 million children, 90 million who are in the age
group of 6 to 14 years are employed and they don’t go to school. It
contributes to 50% of children in our country who are involved in child
labour. Since 1933, various laws have been made in India to control
child labour. These laws include:

The constitution of India has following provisions which are

applicable for children. These are constitutional mandate which the
state has to deliver.
• Article 14: The state shall not deny any person equality before
the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.
• Article 15: The State shall not discriminate against any citizen
on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, Place of birth or any of
them.
• Article 15(3): Nothing in this article shall prevent the state from
making any special provision for women and children.
• Article 19(1) (a): All the citizens shall have the right to freedom
of speech and expression.
• Article 21: Protection of life and personal liberty-No person
shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to
procedure established by law.
• Article 21 A: Free and compulsory education for all children of
the age of 6 to14 years.
• Article 23: Prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced
labour-Traffic in human being and beggars and other similar forms of
forced labour are prohibited and any contravention of this provision
shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.
• Article 24: Prohibition of employment of children in factories
etc –No child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed to
work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous
employment.
• Article 39: The State shall, in particular, direct its policy
towards securing.
 • Article 39(e): that the health and strength of workers, men and
women, and the tender age of children are not abused and that
citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter vocations
unsuited to their age of strength.
• Article 39 (f): that children are given opportunities and facilities
to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and
dignity and that childhood and youth are protected against
exploitation and against moral and material abandonment.
• Article 45: The State shall endeavour to provide early
childhood care and education for all children until they complete the
age of six years.
• Article 46: Right of weaker sections of the people to be
protected from social in justice and all forms of exploitation.
• Article 47: Right to nutrition and standard of living and
improved public health.

Education in Slums
According to the Census 2011, there are 13.7 million slum
households across 63% of India’s towns. The residents of
these households include migrants, half of them being among
the poorest of the poor. More than eight million children under
6 years live in approximately 49,000 slums. There are 22.72
million children (age group 5-18) living in urban slums who are
out of school.*
The migrant population in India is mostly illiterate and
constantly on the move, in search of new livelihood
opportunities.  Migrant children move with their parents and
often lose out on age-appropriate educational opportunities.
Often they engage in labour to escape poverty and support
their parents.
  Access to early childhood care, balanced nutrition,
education, health, and recreational facilities are keys to the
positive development of children.  However, in places where
clean drinking water and two square meals are a struggle, slum
children’s education, health and other contributing factors for
development will always take a backseat.
The Right to Education Act 2009 was expected to bring a
huge surge of enrolment in urban and rural schools. However,
after more than a decade there are millions of children who are
out of school in India, most live in urban slums and remote
rural areas. A higher proportion of girl children (3.23%)  are out
of school than boys (2.77%). Girls in slums and rural areas are
out of school as they are engaged in domestic work or do not
go to school to take care of the younger siblings. Boys drop out
of school to supplement household incomes. Lack of
healthcare facilities, absence of toilets in schools, and lack of
proper nutrition also lead to an increase in drop-out rates.

Role of NGO’s
This is one of the best NGOs which gives support to children by
the following schemes.
 a) Project Dayitva: Under this scheme, Tarang
provides education to children who became dropouts. This
organization arranges night schools for those children and at the
same time this organization gives food facility to the children. Before
starting food facility, attendance percentage is low. But, tied up with
other NGO, Tarang provided food facility to children. So, attendance
percentage was increased by 50%.
b) Project Lakshya: Under this scheme, Tarang would like to
give coaching in mathematics, English and computer skills to children
who live in slum area. These classes are taken on weekends. In a
week, on every saturday and sunday, these classes are taken by
professionals in respective subjects. With free of cost, this facility is
provided to children who live in slum areas.
c) Project Shiksha: This project is related to children who
became orphans. For those orphans, this project is established for
the construction of innovative school to accomodate nearly 250 to
300 children. In view of slum children particularly who became
orphans, for them this project is intended.
d) Project Aadhaar: This project is for the poor children to give
empowerment to their skills. In view of this notion, Tarang asks the
people who have interest to donate something to this children. This is
the part of this project. Those people who donate to this project, they
have the right to inspect the children any time.
 2. Pratham: This is one of the NGOs which provides education
to underprivileged children. To provide such facility to slum
children in Mumbai, this NGO was established in 1994. The following
programmes are conducted by Pratham to give education to children.

a)Pratham balawadis:These are schools for pre-school children.

In these schools, volunteers who were selected in area the school is
located. Those volunteers are not well qualified and they were given
training that what they have to teach to pre-school children.

b)Balasakhi programme:This programme is meant for out-of-

school children and in-school children who are in behind
academically. As Pratham felt that these children were first
generation learners and these children did not have support from
their families . For those children, Pratham started remedial
education through this programme. The aim of this programme is to
link up out-of-school children by mainstreaming into schools.
 Conclusion
Children are Nation’s valuable resources. The future of the
Nation depends on how a child is growing and developing. The great
poet Milton said “Child Shows the man as morning shows the day”. It
is the duty of society and its people to look after this problem and put
some input to remove it. Children are the future custodians; they will
become teachers, scientists, judges, doctors, engineers, politicians,
etc. on whom the entire country will depend but instead of getting
proper education these children are deprived of it and get stuck in
this child labour, which gets difficult for them to come out of it.

The concept of child labour in India is very complex and difficult

to understand. It is a complex economic problem. It is really
depressing to see these small children working and going through
pain in each and every step of their life. Harsh reality of our society,
difficult to curb the menace of it. It is observed that the problem of
child labour is global phenomenon which is found in both developed
and developing nations.

We don’t know how difficult it is for them to go through all these

things in their life, because we are living a good and healthy life.
Those who go through pain only they can understand the true
meaning of life and how to survive with minimum things. After
implementing so many laws, legislations, policies still children are
working in factories and shops, working in marriages washing
utensils or serving food.

Do we ever realize that although indirectly but we are also

ignoring them, even after seeing these children working at these
places we don’t take any action, why ? Because they are not part of
our family or our own children. Bitter truth of the society. They are not
related to us by blood so; we don’t even care about it. We are
humans but we don’t understand the pain of other humans. This
means humans are enemies of other humans. This has a negative
impact on the society. At this juncture, we must think, have we taken
any steps to tackle child labour?