CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA

INTRODUCTION

The term 'child labour', suggests ILO,[21] is best de ned as work that
deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and
that is harmful to physical and mental development. Interferes with their
schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging
them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to
combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.
UNICEF de nes child labour differently. A child, suggests UNICEF, is
involved in child labour activities if between 5 and 11 years of age, he or
she did at least one hour of economic activity or at least 28 hours of
domestic work in a week, and in case of children between 12 and 14
years of age, he or she did at least 14 hours of economic activity or at
least 42 hours of economic activity and domestic work per week.[22]
UNICEF in another report suggests, "Children’s work needs to be seen
as happening along a continuum, with destructive or exploitative work at
one end and bene cial work – promoting or enhancing children’s
development without interfering with their schooling, recreation and rest
– at the other. And between these two poles are vast areas of work that
need not negatively affect a child’s development."
India's Census 2001 of ce, de nes[23] child labour as participation of a
child less than 17 years of age in any economically productive activity
with or without compensation, wages or pro t. Such participation could
be physical or mental or both. This work includes part-time help or
unpaid work on the farm, family enterprise or in any other economic
activity such as cultivation and milk production for sale or domestic
consumption. Indian government classi es child labourers into two
groups: Main workers are those who work 6 months or more per year.
And marginal child workers are those who work at any time during the
year but less than 6 months in a year.
Some child rights activists argue that child labour must include every
child who is not in school because he or she is a hidden child worker.[24]
UNICEF, however, points out that India faces major shortages of
schools, classrooms and teachers particularly in rural areas where 90
percent of child labour problem is observed. About 1 in 5 primary
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schools have just one teacher to teach students across all grades.[25][26][27]
[28]

After its independence from colonial rule, India has passed a number of
constitutional protections and laws on child labour. The Constitution of
India in the Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles of State
Policy prohibits child labour below the age of 14 years in any factory or
mine or castle or engaged in any other hazardous employment (Article
24). The constitution also envisioned that India shall, by 1960, provide
infrastructure and resources for free and compulsory education to all
children of the age six to 14 years. (Article 21-A and Article 45).[20][29]
India has a federal form of government, and labour being a subject in the
Concurrent List, both the central and state governments can and have
legislated on child labour.

OBJECTIVES

The main object of the Child Labour ( Prohibition and Regulation)

Act, 1986 is to address the social concern and prohibit the
engagement of children who have not completed 14th year of age in
certain employments and to regulate the conditions of work of
children has been prohibited in occupations relating to (i) transport of
passengers, goods or mails by railways (ii) bidi making (iii) carpet
weaving (iv) manufacturing of matches, explosives and re (v) soap
manufacture (vi) wool cleaning (vii) building and construction
industry. The Government has also prohibited employment of children
in the following occupations or processes: (i) Abattoirs/Slaughter
houses (ii) hazardous processes and dangerous operations as noti ed
(iii) printing, as de ned, (iv) cashew and cashewnut descaling and
processing 9v) soldering processes in electronic industry. The Act
prohibits employment of child in about 13 occupations and about 51
processes. [1] The Fundamental Rights mentioned in the Constitution
of India (the law of land) in the Article 24 under Right Against
Exploitation also mentions for prohibition of employment of children
in factories, etc.[2]

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
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The present research is, descriptive and based on non- empirical
design. In order to collect data on the dimensions of the study, a
research instrument was designed. The study was conducted on
secondary source of data books, articles, journals, e-sources, theories
and the relevant provision with decided case laws.

Causes[edit]
For much of human history and across different cultures, children less
than 18 years old have contributed to family welfare in a variety of ways.
UNICEF suggests that poverty is the biggest cause of child labour. The
report also notes that in rural and impoverished parts of developing and
undeveloped parts of the world, children have no real and meaningful
alternative. Schools and also teachers are unavailable. Child labour is
the unnatural result.[32] A BBC report, similarly, concludes poverty and
inadequate public education infrastructure are some of the causes of
child labour in India.
Between boys and girls, UNICEF nds girls are two times more likely to
be out of school and working in a domestic role. Parents with limited
resources, claims UNICEF, have to choose whose school costs and fees
they can afford when a school is available. Educating girls tends to be a
lower priority across the world, including India. Girls are also harassed or
bullied at schools, sidelined by prejudice or poor curricula, according to
UNICEF. Solely by virtue of their gender, therefore, many girls are kept
from school or drop out, then provide child labour.[32]
The international labour organisation (ILO) and Spreading Smiles
Through Education Organisation (OSSE) suggests poverty is the
greatest single force driving children into the workplace.[33] Income from a
child's work is felt to be crucial for his/her own survival or for that of the
household. For some families, income from their children's labour is
between 25 and 40% of the household income.
According to a 2008 study by ILO,[33] among the most important factors
driving children to harmful labour is the lack of availability and quality of
schooling. Many communities, particularly rural areas do not possess
adequate school facilities. Even when schools are sometimes available,
they are too far away, dif cult to reach, unaffordable or the quality of
education is so poor that parents wonder if going to school is really
worthwhile. In government-run primary schools, even when children

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show up, government-paid teachers do not show up 25% of the time.[34]

[35][36] The 2008 ILO study suggests that illiteracy resulting from a child

going to work, rather than a quality primary and secondary school, limits
the child's ability to get a basic educational grounding which would in
normal situations enable them to acquire skills and to improve their
prospects for a decent adult working life.[33]
An albeit older report published by UNICEF outlines the issues
summarized by the ILO report. The UNICEF report claimed that while
90% of child labour in India is in its rural areas, the availability and
quality of schools is decrepit; in rural areas of India, claims the old
UNICEF report, about 50% of government funded primary schools that
exist do not have a building, 40% lack a blackboard, few have books,
and 97% of funds for these publicly funded school have been budgeted
by the government as salaries for the teacher and administrators.[37] A
2012 Wall Street Journal article, reports while the enrollment in India's
school has dramatically increased in recent years to over 96% of all
children in the 6–14-year age group, the infrastructure in schools, aimed
in part to reduce child labour, remains poor – over 81,000 schools do not
have a blackboard and about 42,000 government schools operate
without a building with makeshift arrangements during monsoons and
inclement weather.[35][38]
Biggeri and Mehrotra have studied the macroeconomic factors that
encourage child labour. They focus their study on ve Asian nations
including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. They
suggest[39] that child labour is a serious problem in all ve, but it is not a
new problem. Macroeconomic causes encouraged widespread child
labour across the world, over most of human history. They suggest that
the causes for child labour include both the demand and the supply side.
While poverty and unavailability of good schools explain the child labour
supply side, they suggest that the growth of low paying informal
economy rather than higher paying formal economy – called organised
economy in India – is amongst the causes of the demand side. India has
rigid labour laws and numerous regulations that prevent growth of
organised sector where work protections are easier to monitor, and work
more productive and higher paying.[40][41][42]
The unintended effect of Indian complex labour laws is the work has
shifted to the unorganised, informal sector. As a result, after the
unorganised agriculture sector which employs 60% of child labour, it is
the unorganised trade, unorganised assembly and unorganised retail
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work that is the largest employer of child labour. If macroeconomic
factors and laws prevent growth of formal sector, the family owned
informal sector grows, deploying low cost, easy to hire, easy to dismiss
labour in form of child labour. Even in situations where children are going
to school, claim Biggeri and Mehrotra, children engage in routine after-
school home-based manufacturing and economic activity.[39] Other
scholars too suggest that in exibility and structure of India's labour
market, size of informal economy, inability of industries to scale up and
lack of modern manufacturing technologies are major macroeconomic
factors affecting demand and acceptability of child labour.[40][42][43]
Cigno et al. suggest the government planned and implemented land
redistribution programs in India, where poor families were given small
plots of land with the idea of enabling economic independence, have
had the unintended effect of increased child labour. They nd that
smallholder plots of land are labour-intensively farmed since small plots
cannot productively afford expensive farming equipment. In these cases,
a means to increase output from the small plot has been to apply more
labour, including child labour.[44][45]
In 1953 Rajaji legalised the child labour under Modi ed Scheme of
Elementary education 1953.

Bonded child labour in India[edit]

Main article: Debt bondage in India

Bonded child labour is a system of forced, or partly forced, labour under
which the child, or child's parent enter into an agreement, oral or written,
with a creditor. The child performs work as in-kind repayment of credit.[46]
In the 2005 ILO report, debt-bondage in India emerged during the
colonial period, as a means of obtaining reliable cheap labour, with loan
and land-lease relationships implemented during that era of Indian
history. These were regionally called Hali, or Halwaha, or Jeurasystems;
and was named by the colonial administration as the indentured
laboursystem. These systems included bonded child labour. Over time,
claims the ILO report, this traditional forms of long-duration relationships
have declined.[46][47]
In 1977, India passed legislation that prohibits solicitation or use of
bonded labour by anyone, of anyone including children. Evidence of
continuing bonded child labour continue. A report by the Special
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Rapporteur to India's National Human Rights Commission, reported the
discovery of 53 child labourers in 1996 in the state of Tamil Nadu during
a surprise inspection. Each child or the parent had taken an advance of
Rs. 1,00,000 to 2,50,000. The children were made to work for 12 to 14
hours a day and received only Rs. 2 to 3 per day as wages.[48][49]
According to an ILO report, the extent of bonded child labour is dif cult
to determine, but estimates from various social activist groups range up
to 350,000 in 2001.[46]
Despite its legislation, prosecutors in India rarely use the Bonded Labour
System (Abolition) Act of 1976 to prosecute those responsible.
According to one report,[50]the prosecutors have no direction from the
central government that if a child is found to be underpaid, the case
should be prosecuted not only under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and
the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986, the case should
include charges under the Bonded Labour Act of India. The few
enforcement actions have had some unintended effects. While there has
been a decrease in children working in factories because of enforcement
and community vigilance committees, the report claims poverty still
compels children and poor families to work. The factory lends money to
whoever needs it, puts a loom in the person's home, and then the family
with children works out of their homes, bring nished product to pay
interest and get some wages. The bonded child and family labour
operations were moving out of small urban factories into rural homes.[50]

Consequences of child labour[edit]

A young fruit seller in the streets of Kolkata

The presence of a large number of child labourers is regarded as a
serious issue in terms of economic welfare. Children who work fail to get
necessary education. They do not get the opportunity to develop
physically, intellectually, emotionally and psychologically.[51] In terms of
the physical condition of children, children are not ready for long
monotonous work because they become exhausted more quickly than
adults. This reduces their physical conditions and makes the children
more vulnerable to disease.[52]
Children in hazardous working conditions are even in worse condition.[53]
Children who work, instead of going to school, will remain illiterate which
limits their ability to contribute to their own well being as well as to the

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community they live in. Child labour has long term adverse effects for
India.
To keep an economy prospering, a vital criterion is to have an educated
workforce equipped with relevant skills for the needs of the industries.
The young labourers today, will be part of India's human capital
tomorrow. Child labour undoubtedly results in a trade-off with human
capital accumulation.[54]
Child labour in India are employed with the majority (70%) in
agriculture[55] some in low-skilled labour-intensive sectors such as sari
weaving or as domestic helpers, which require neither formal education
nor training, but some in heavy industry such as coal mining.[56]
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), there are
tremendous economic bene ts for developing nations by sending
children to school instead of work.[9] Without education, children do not
gain the necessary skills such as English literacy and technical aptitude
that will increase their productivity to enable them to secure higher-
skilled jobs in future with higher wages that will lift them out of poverty.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS WHICH SAFEGUARDS

CHILD LABOUR

Article 15(3) speaks that state shall make any provisions for
women and children

• Article 21 A speaks that no person shall be bereave for

life or personal liberty except procedure established by law

• Article 22 speaks about compulsory education

• Article 23 speaks about the human trafficking and

other forms of forced labor are prohibited and any

contraventions of this position shall be considered as an offense

• Article 24 speaks that child who is below the age of

fourteen shall not be employed to work in any

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 factories, mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment
(Salal Hydro Project Vs. State of J&K)

• Article 39 speaks about the state which is following

certain principles of policies

• Article 39 E the tender age of the children is not

abused and they are not forced by economic

necessities to enter avocations, unsuited to their age and strength

• Article 39 F the children are to be given opportunities

and facilities to develop in healthy manner and

in conditions of freedom, dignity, childhood and youth are to be
protected against exploitation

• Article 38(1) state shall strive to promote the welfare

of the people.

• Article 45 provides for free and compulsory education

for all children up to the age of 14 years.

• Article 46 provision for promotion with special care of

the education and economic interest SC/ST and

other weaker sections of the society
•

• STATISTICAL TOOLS
A recent analysis by CRY of census data in the country
shows that the overall decrease in child labour is only
2.2 per cent year on year, over the last 10 years. Also, it
has revealed that child labour has grown by more than
50 per cent in urban areas.

-There are 33 million child labourers between the ages

of 5-18 years in India as per Census 2011 data, and
10.13 million between the ages of 5-14 years.

-Considering that there are 444 million children in India

under the age of 18, they form 37 per cent of the total
population in the country. Therefore child labour in the
country in real gures boils down to 10,130,000 kids
involved various occupations across hazardous sectors.
And this is only data from six years ago. (Source:
Census 2011 data )
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 -As per the information gathered by labour economics, in 2011, most
child labour was reported in the elds of agriculture, hunting, forestry
and shing, which accounted for almost three-fourth of the total
(70%).

Out of the rest 30%, wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and similar
sectors employed 8% children, and this rate was exactly the same in
the manufacturing industry.

Out of the total children laboured worldwide, the rate of those who
were employed in community, social and personal services, this was
just 7%, which was 3% more than those who were found employed in
transport, storage and communication.
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Only 2% of them worked in the construction areas and the least
proportion of child labour was found in mining (just 1%).
LITERATURE REVIEW :-
There is an enormous range of researches speci c to an industry
related to child labour in the form of case studies, articles published in
journals, books related to child rights and child labour.

1. Kdevi and Gautam Roy. (2008) “Study of Child Labour

among School children in Urban and Rural Areas of
Pondicherry”. This article deals with very speci c case
studies on child labour.

2. Zutshi, Bupinder“(2002)”In the Name of Child Labour:

Eradication and Evaluation programme” cites evidence that
magnitude of child labour in India is under-estimated due to
inadequate and unreliable data.

3. Akansha Agarwal( November 2013.)“Child Labour in

India” - published in Indian ...04
th

Labour Journal, Through this Paper the Author has attempted to scale
the pattern and

magnitude of child labour in India by extracting the unit level data of

66

round of

employment - unemployment data.

4. Shakti Kumar (Assistant Professor, Department of

Economics and Rural Development)
(Dec.2012.) “Law to Combat Child Labour in India”
Through this Paper the Author has attempted to draw
attention of the society to combat child labour in India; and
its object to know laws pertaining to combat child labour in
India.

5. Lana Osment (1998) (Lund University, Sweden) “Child

labour; the Effect on Child, Causes and Remedies to the
Revolving Menace” - This Research Paper has illustrates




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 how both India and Nigeria have adopted laws and
regulations to eliminate Child Labour. However, despite all
these efforts, the child labour and the factors that in uence
the incidence of Child Labour continues to be prevalent.

6. Mr. Samsuddin Khan(Aligarh Muslim University)

(Dec.2014.) “The Overcoming of Child Labour in India: In
Perspective of Constitutional and Legislative Framework”
Journal of Business Management and Social Sciences
Research . In this Paper the Author intend to give scenario
in which Child Labour gets increased and various challenges
that have emerged due to this particular problem, like
violence, child traf cking, etc. are also elaborated. The
required efforts to overcome these problems are proposed.

2020 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor:

In 2020, India made moderate advancement in efforts to

eliminate the worst forms of child labor. During the reporting
period, the national government disbursed $13.5 million in
funding to expand Anti-Human Traf cking Units from 332
districts to all 732 districts, and provided additional training
and resources to existing units. In March 2020, the
Government of Karnataka released comprehensive
standard operating procedures on human traf cking in
collaboration with civil society organizations. The standard
operating procedures cover sex traf cking, child beggary,
child labor, and bonded labor. In addition, the Occupational
Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, which
included workplace safety standards for children ages 14–
18, was passed in September 2020. However, children in
India are subjected to the worst forms of child labor,
including in garment production, stone quarrying, and
brickmaking. Children also perform dangerous tasks in the
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production of thread and yarn. India also does not meet the
international standard for the prohibition of military
recruitment by non-state armed groups. Research has
found that that no illegal shelter homes were shut down
during the reporting period. Research has also found that
complicit government of cials were not held accountable for
helping to operate illegal shelter homes—no criminal cases
were initiated against government of cials in 2020.
Hazardous work prohibitions do not include all occupations
in which children work for long periods of time in unsafe and
unhealthy environments, and penalties for employing
children are insuf cient to deter violations. The government
also did not publicly release information on its labor law
enforcement and criminal law enforcement efforts.The
situation of child labourers

The UNICEF-sponsored Multiple Indicator Cluster (MIC) Survey of

Trinidad and Tobago in 2000 found that:

• About 1.2% of children aged 5-14 years were estimated to be

engaged in paid
work and less than 1% (0.3%) was found to be participating in
unpaid work for
someone other than a household member;

• Slightly more than half of the children were estimated to be

engaged in domestic
tasks, such as cooking, fetching water and caring for other
children for less than 4
hours a day while 1% spent more than 4 hours on such tasks;

• Overall, 4.1% of children were estimated to be ‘currently

working’ (involved in any
paid or unpaid work for someone who is not a member of the
household or who did
more than 4 hours of housekeeping chores in the household or
who did other family work).




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 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 di cult for
them to come out of it.

The concept of child labour in India is very complex and di cult 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, di cult 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[13].

We don’t know how di cult 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? This is a
harsh truth, think on.

“I am the child. All the world waits for my coming. All the earth
watches with interest to see what I shall become. Civilization hangs in
the balance. For what I am, the world of tomorrow will be. I am the
child. You hold in your hand my destiny. You determine, largely,
whether I shall succeed or fail. Give me, I beg you, that I may be a
blessing to the world”. – “Mamie Gene Cole[14]”
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