Child Labour 2

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23 JILI (1981) 336
Child Labour
CHILD LABOUR
by
S.N. Jain*
I Introduction
AN EXTREMELY difficult role of the law is to give leadership to the social order by
trying to control the social mores and behaviour of the people, particularly attempting
to abolish certain social evils, which may have been entrenched in long traditions,
history and convictions and beliefs. Though law tries to give a lead as to the future
behaviour of the society, yet it cannot essentially change human nature and the long-
accepted habits and behaviour-pattern and the environment in which they developed
and flourished. To avoid disappointment this limitation of the “prohibitory social-
practices law” (or what may simply be called “social policy legislation” or “social policy
law”) should be duly recognised. This however, does not mean that because of the
failure of law in a large measure on this front, the law should cease to play this
leadership role. Whatever little impact such laws may create is better than having no
impact at all in the absence of these laws.
The laws relating to child labour fall in the category of “social policy legislation”
where the main task of law is to play a leadership role to change the socio-economic
structure of the society. The operation of child labour laws demonstrates the
difficulties of the law in playing this leadership role—particularly when isolated laws
are passed to deal with a particular subject within the basic structural-wise status quo
society. The various empirical studies conducted on child labour bring forth
predominantly this point. If we wish to enact a social policy law it has to be
accompanied by other measures, be they enactments of other laws, or machinery for
the enforcement of laws, or other social and economic welfare measures, and changes
in the entire socio-economic environment. In the absence of developing such
measures the laws are bound to fail miserably—it may even lead to the creation of
worse situation than before the laws were enacted to achieve a desired result. This is
what has happened in the case of child labour laws.1 In the present context and the
state of
Page: 337
our social and economic structure, child labour laws are to be regarded as a grand
example of “symbolic legislation.”
The I.L.O. study entitled Children at Work has emphasised that the “problem of
child labour cannot be solved only through legislation. In the developing countries it
has unfortunately not been possible to put an end to child labour (despite the fact that
almost all these countries have good legislation in this respect)”2 . It recognises that
like “all social problems, child labour is not an isolated phenomenon, nor can it even
be so.”3
The study says:
If we are to understand why child labour today takes the forms that it does, the
phenomenon must be set against its social background. Broadly speaking, we may
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say that child labour persists in inverse relation to the degree of economic
advancement of a society, country or region. The exploitation of children is one
result of the complex, unchanging nature of society, not only in most of the
developing countries but also in some regions of the developed world. The notion of
child labour is rooted in the traditions and attitudes of the regions where it is
practised, as a remnant of the past, a form of resistance to change.4
Speaking about the adverse impact of the child labour legislation the study states:
For the very reason that the work that the children do is illegal, the law makes no
provision for safeguarding their working conditions. Children thus constitute a
labour force outside the law, and consequently do not enjoy the right to claim the
social benefits that should be due to them. In other words, children make up a
submissive and defenceless labour force with no possibility of negotiating their
conditions of work (which are usually imposed unilaterally and arbitrarily by the
employer), with no trade union to defend them
Page: 338
and with virtually no access to sickness or employment injury insurance or social

security schemes (where such exist). A good number of these problems also affect
children who work legally—that is, those who work in countries where the minimum
age for admission to employment is fixed by law at a very low level (12 or 13 years).
The great social advances secured by adult workers do not in fact apply to working
children, who are exploited as if those advances had never been won.5
The reasons for child labour are poverty, lack of educational and cultural facilities to
which the energies of the child could be diverted, the necessity for early training for
certain jobs, and crafts (e.g. zari brocade) “which cannot achieve the highest degree of
sophistication unless their learning is initiated in childhood itself”6 , and family
background and traditions. As to the existing facilities for child education the
Committee on Child Labour says:
By the end of the Fifth Plan, it is estimated, not more than 50 per cent of
children in the 11-14 age group would have been provided full-time compulsory
education…according to the enrolment ratio, ⅔rds of children in age group 11-13
and roughly 1/5th in the age group 6-10 are still out of school.
In many far-flung areas of the country side, schooling facilities are scarce and
inaccessible. Out of the 547, 672 villages in the country, as many as 48,566 do not
have schools and 167, 382 rural schools are functioning with just one teacher a
piece. In most places, the school presents a drab and dismal picture and holds little
attraction for the child. Many children are forced to stay at home because their
parents cannot afford the prescribed minima of uniform, books and stationery, etc.7
Child labour is not an unmixed evil. About the advantages of child labour, the I.L.O.
study points out:
In the developing countries today, and within the limits of the opportunities open
to them, children who spend their time at work do at least keep clear of
delinquency, begging, the marginal subcultures of the street and other similar
evils.8
Page: 339
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Before analysing the operational aspects of the child labour laws, a conspectus of
the child labour laws may be given.
II The child labour laws—a conspectus
There are both central and state enactments on child labour—the former covering
mainly employment in industries and mining, and the latter covering shops and other
establishments. At the international level there are I.L.O. conventions and
recommendations. India is a party to the I.L.O. and as such has an obligation to adopt
the I.L.O. conventions. India has ratified several I.L.O. conventions. Some of the
conventions have special provisions for countries like India; these lay down lower
standards than those to be followed by the developed countries. In the matter of
labour laws relating to children, India tries to follow the standards set by the I.L.O.
conventions. So far the I.L.O. has adopted 18 conventions and 16 recommendations in
relation to children.
The Indian laws and the I.L.O. conventions mainly deal with four matters—(i)
minimum age for employment of children; (ii) medical examination of children; (iii)
maximum hours of work; and (iv) prohibition of night work for children.
There are several enactments which deal with the above four matters, e.g., the
Factories Act, 1948: the Mines Act, 1962; the Employment of Children Act, 1938
(concerned with the employment of children in hazardous occupations, such as
transport of passengers, goods or mail by railway, or by a port authority within the
limits of a port, or workshop wherein is carried on the process of bidi-making, carpet
weaving, cement manufacture, cloth-printing, dyeing and weaving, manufacture of
matches, explosives and fire-works, mica-cutting, shellack manufacture, canning,
etc.); the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958; the Motor Transport Workers Act, 1951; the
Plantations Labour Act, 1951; the Beed??? and Cigar Workers (Conditions of
Employment) Act, 1966; and the state Shops and Establishments Acts covering such
employments as shops, commercial establishments, restaurants and hotels, and
places of amusements in urban areas.
By way of illustration the provisions of the Factories Act may be mentioned here.
The Act prohibits employment of a child below 14 years in any factory. Children above
that age can be employed subject to certain restrictions. Thus, children above 14 years
and below 18 years are required to obtain a certificate of fitness from a certifying
surgeon before they can be employed. The Act also provides for initial and periodic
examinations, at intervals of not more than 12 months, of such children. A child
belonging to the age group of 14 years and below 17 years is not to be employed at
night. A child between the age group of 14 and 15 years cannot be employed for more
than 4½ hours on any day and he cannot be employed in two shifts and is not allowed
to work in more than one factory on the same day. Subject to what is stated above, a
child between the age group of 15 and 18 years is considered to be an adult for
purposes of the
Page: 340
various provisions of the Factories Act, provided he has a certificate from a certifying
surgeon that he is fit for a full day's work in a factory. There are provisions in the Act
for prohibition of a child in a factory in tasks which are dangerous. The Act provides for
creches to be established by the employer in factories employing 50 or more women
workers for the use of children under 6 years of age. The Act makes provisions for
penalties for contravention of its provisions. An employer is punishable with
imprisonment for a term up to three months or a fine up to Rs. 500 or with both.
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Penalty can also be imposed on a parent or guardian for permitting double

employment of a child. The Factories Act applies only to factories which employ a
minimum number of ten persons where a manufacturing process is being carried on
with the aid of power, or twenty persons where it is being carried on without the aid of
power.
The other statutes also prohibit employment of children below a certain age and
regulate their employment above that age. There are, however, variations with respect
to several matters—age of employment, hours of work, medical examination, etc. For
instance, provisions of the Mines Act with respect to employment of children are more
stringent than the Factories Act, but such provisions are less strict in the case of
employments in shops and commercial establishments.
There is the Apprentices Act, 1961 which regulates the training of apprentices in
industry so that programme of training may be organised on a systematic basis and
the apprentices may get the maximum advantage of their training. The Act prohibits
engaging children below 14 years as apprentices.
The survey of statutes reveals that the legislature has duly kept in view the welfare
of child labour and prohibits employment of children below a certain age in different
occupations. However, the laws are deficient as compared with the international
standards as laid down by the I.L.O. Some of the reasons for this are economic
backwardness necessitating a family to seek employment for children, lack of
educational facilities and unorganised nature of some of the economic sectors and
small size of manufacturing units making enforcement of the laws difficult. Thus, for
employment of children, the various ages prescribed for different occupations are
lower than the I.L.O. standards. We do not have any law for agriculture labour. Smaller
factories employing workers below a certain minimum number are left uncovered by
law. The same is the position with regard to medical examination. We do not have
laws with respect to medical examination of children in non-industrial occupations,
establishments which are not factories, establishments engaged in transport, and
mines above ground. Further, the age up to which medical examination is required in
factories and mines is less than the I.L.O. standards. With regard to night work also
our provisions are less stringent than those laid down by the I.L.O. conventions.9
Page: 341
III Impact analysis of child labour laws

Extent of child labour
According to the 1971 census (India), the number of child workers (persons below
15 years of age) was 10.7 million which came to 4.7 per cent of the total child
population and 5.9 per cent of the total labour force. According to a World Bank
survey, 15 million child workers were estimated in India in 1975. The I.L.O. estimates
that in the world as a whole, 52 million children aged less than 15 years were working
in 1978-1979. In accordance with these figures India's share in child abour works out
to be more than twenty per cent. But as the I.L.O. study points out, the various
figures of child labour may be an underestimate. Thus, the study states:
This figure of 52 million may well be an underestimate, since in some countries
young workers less than 15 years old are not included in the labour force statistics.
In others, young people who both work and go to school are rarely considered as
being part of the labour force. Again, the statistics cover only those youngsters who
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have a fixed job, and thus exclude the majority of those who work only occasionally.
In short, it is impossible to make an accurate estimate of the numbers employed for
the simple reason that, since in most countries child labour is clandestine, it is in
the interest of all the parties concerned to conceal it.10
There is no reason to doubt that the 1971 census of India or the World Bank survey
suffers from the same limitations.
It is believed that in the year 1979 there were 36 times more child workers in India
than in the United States.
Child labour exists vastly in the unorganised sector of our economy like agriculture,
construction work, restaurants, laundry, bidi-making, tanning, carpet manufacture,
wool cleaning, manufacture of bangles, precious stone cutting and polishing (e.g. in
Jaipur), zari work and embroidery and host of other occupations. Even in the organised
sector the child labour is believed to exist though at a much smaller scale. It is stated
that “In the organised sector, match factories in chemical group, tea factories in food
group, mica factories in mineral products are supposed to be the villain of the piece.”11
The NIPCCD study on the working children in Bombay (conducted in 1978)
surveyed 4,962 families spread over 10 slum pockets in Bombay,
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covering children of 6 to 15 years of age. It found that there were 5,959 children in
this age group among those families. Out of these 5,939 children, 876 (14.7%) were
working, 3102 (52.2%) going to school, 1819 (30.7%) neither going to school nor
working, and 142 (2.4%) not working full-time and hence not included in the group of
working children. What adds poignancy to the whole situation is that the percentage of
working children to the total working children in the age group of 6-9 and 9-12
respectively was 5.5 per cent and 28.3 per cent.
An empirical study on child labour was also conducted for urban Delhi.12 The survey
covered 22, 196 jhuggis in 119 settlements. The total number of wage earners in the
jhuggis was 32,035, out of which child earners totalled 2. 4 per cent. In the 54
establishments registered under the Shops and Establishments Act, and in the 54
unregistered establishments the number of working children was 21 and 43
respectively.13
Further, the Delhi study mentions that according to the Delhi Municipal Corporation
survey of December 1974 there were some 48,000 children in the age group of 6 to 11
who were not attending the primary schools. Facilities for education is closely related
to the question of child labour.
A recent I.L.O. report submitted to the United Nations Sub-commission for Fight
against Discriminatory Measures and the Protection of minorities arrived at the finding
that the Indian child labour is the most exploited. A news item appearing in Economic
Times in this connection says:
Children employed in match factories in India and private mines in Meghalaya
are among those working under the “most inhuman conditions” in the world,
according to the Geneva-based International Labour Organisation (ILO), reports
UNI.
The report says about 28,000 children, some of them only five years old, were
working in match factories in India for 16 hours a day from three in the morning.
In Meghalaya, children work in mines of private companies, in trenches 90
centimetre wide and one metre high, where adult could only “crawl”. As soon as
their size is no longer profitable, they are thrown on to the streets, the report
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adds.14
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The recent report of the Committee on Child Labour also speaks of a very high
incidence of child labour.
The lack of employment opportunities both in rural and urban areas makes the
parents take the cynical attitude of the futility of the present educational system,
acting as a damper on them to send their children to school. This necessitates a total
revolution—social, economic and educational—if any dent has to be made on child
labour.
Working conditions
Children work in stringent conditions for long hours of work. The NJPCCD study
reveals the following broad adverse facts with regard to working conditions of children:
1. No medical certificate of fitness was obtained either by the parents or the
employer.
2. Children worked for long hours of work and the average was 8.86 hours per day.
3. Children began their work very early in the day. 11.4 per cent commenced work
between 6 A.M. and 7 A.M. and 39 per cent between 7 A.M. and 9 A.M.
4. In as many as 8 per cent of cases there was no rest period for the children, and
26 to 3.33 per cent enjoyed rest only for 30 minutes.
5. Children did not have the facility of a weekly holiday. The study found that as
much as 35 per cent of working children had to work on all days in a week.
6. The physical facilities at the place of work were poor. 1 he study highlights,
that in as many as 20 per cent of cases, the employers had not provided even a
shelter over head and the children had to work in the open, that more than 50 per
cent of the establishments had provided all facilities except rest place, medical and
recreational facilities. As the employers are eager to show off their benevolence and
welfarist orientation, some exaggerations in their statements might be expected.15
With regard to working conditions, the empirical study on the Working Children in
Urban Delhi16 also finds an unhappy state of affairs. So also does the Committee on
Child Labour.
It is believed that foundries in West Bengal employ a large number of children
between the age of 10 and 16 years under the most dirty and unhealthy surroundings.
Page: 344
Enforcement of the laws

In the organised sector the number of children has gone down substantially though
not entirely eliminated. In the NIPCCD survey of Bombay, it was found that out of 65
factories covered by the survey, in about 25 (40 per cent) some children below 14
were working. These children worked for more than the stipulated number of hours,
i.e. 4½ hours. It is mostly the large-scale units which are free from child labour.
The enforcement of the children laws is weak. The two basic reasons for this are the
lack of adequate inspecting and other staff and deliberate circumvention of the laws.
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About the former, the NIPCCD study states:

In Greater Bombay, there are 6562 factories and the number of posts of class I
inspector is 18 and that of class IT, 9. Three or four posts of Factory Inspector
generally remain vacant…. The prevailing norm is that the inspector should visit 150
factories and every factory should be visited twice a year but because of the paucity
of staff, this is not praticable. If this norm is to be followed there should be in
position roughly 40 inspectors but the actual strength at the time of study was only
27. The result is that a large number of factories remain uninspected in a year. It is
generally large sized units that are visited more frequently and many of the visits
are only to enquire into an accident.17
The government has shown a more callous attitude in the matter of appointing
certifying surgeons. The NTPCCD study mentions that “there are 4 sanctioned posts of
certifying surgeons but three of them were vacant since long. The main reason was
that the low salary of this post carries, does not attract qualified persons.”18
The laws are circumvented by the employers in various ways, e.g. when an
inspector visits the factory, the children are sent away through a back door; names of
children are not entered into the labour register; it may be difficult to determine the
age of a child; even if an inspector finds a child inside the factory the employer
explains away the position that he came to visit his relation or friend; and the
inspector himself may take a lenient or sympathetic view of the child's presence in a
factory because the alternatives may be vagrancy, beggary or hunger, etc.
The NIPCCD study says:
The Inspectors feel that if the Act is strictly implemented, it is the child who
would ultimately suffer by being thrown out of employ-
Page: 345
merit. Therefore, on humanitarian grounds, generally they ignore violations of the law
and adopt a lenient view in the matter. They also overlook small breaches committed
by petty shop-keepers, for, even Magistrates criticise Inspectors for having brought
before them such poor people for prosecution. Trade Unions also do not complain
against child labour. No such complaints were received from them in the past, the
Inspectors averred. They do not seem to ill take child employment. The Inspectors,
sometimes, are harassed by Councillors and influential citizens when they launch
prosecution against an establishment owner.19
The Committee on Labour Welfare, 1969, had also stated that the implementation
of the child labour laws was weak.
The enforcement of the children laws presents an antagonistic picture the
enactment of laws requires their enforcement, but their strict enforcement in the
present socio-economic conditions prevailing in the country results in driving the child
labour force to unorganised and unregulated sector not covered by the labour laws.
This makes the matters worse as the protective umbrella of the law in the matter of
working conditions does not extend to this sector. Merely enactment of laws and their
enforcement will not solve the child labour problem which exists in an acute form in
our country. The enactment of the laws has to be accompanied by vigorous adoption of
those measures which cut deep into the root of the problem. These measures have to
be the removal of poverty amongst the masses and making available on an universal
basis educational, recreational and cultural facilities to children.
IV What do we do?
Abolition of child labour is a complex problem. This is obvious from the above
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analysis. 1 he NIPCCD study has very aptly raised the following three queries:
(i) Child labour should not be totally abolished.
(ii) Child labour should be abolished in hazardous employments.
(iii) Child labour should not be abolished but working conditions should be
improved.
We are inclined to the second and third courses. Total abolition of child labour is
simply an impracticable proposition in the context of the present day India. Let us
quote from the NIPCCD study in support:
It is rooted in genuine economic difficulties and must be viewed with patience
and understanding. There is nothing shocking or alarming
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about the problem when perceived from the perspectives of those who are its
unfortunate bearers. In a society where resource distribution is highly skewed, a
sizeable section of its population is condemned to utilise child labour as a survival
mechanism. A significant proportion of children of the urban poor (14.7% in the age
group 6-15 years in our study) are participants in the labour force and they cannot be
dispensed with through a legislative fiat, howsoever outrageous their presence might
be to our liberal sentiments. As long as the level of our economic development is what
it is, any thought of totally abolishing child labour would be an unrealistic and
unrealisable proposition, a pious intent without a relevance to contemporary social
pragmatics. In the absence of possible alternatives, a rash abolitionist measure would
simply aggravate the misery of the poor. What therefore seems feasible and desirable
is the dissipation of adverse and unhealthy conditions attendant to child labour rather
than its total elimination.20
The study recommends adoption of such other measures as strict enforcement of

the Minimum Wages Act, strenthenging and expansion of the education system,
vocationalising education system, setting up of training institutions, providing
community creches (so that the children may not be prevented from going to school to
look after the younger siblings when both the parents go to work on account of the
economic necessity), provisions for social security and other welfare schemes for
children, etc. The committee also recommended that occupational hazards should be
identified from industry to industry and the measures be instituted to protect child
workers.
One basic dilemma, however, remains. How to improve the working conditions in
establishments and sectors not covered by labour laws like the Factories Act and such
other Acts? It poses two problems for the law. Firstly, if law tries to lay down
standards in relation to working conditions in such establishments and sectors without
prohibiting child labour then the law is putting its seal of approval on the employment
of children and giving countenance to the employment of children in those
establishments and sectors. Secondly, the basic reason for not covering very small
establishments and the unorganised sector by labour laws is both the difficulty of
compliance of laws by them and the difficulty of enforcement by the state. Therefore,
the real panacea in abolishing child labour lies in improving the socio-economic
conditions of the poor.
Some of the important recommendations of the Committee on Child Labour with
regard to child labour are:
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Page: 347
1. The existing laws relating to prohibition and regulation of employment of children

should be consolidated into a single comprehensive code. The new legislation
should have uniform definition of “child” and “adolescent”.
2. The minimum age for entry into any employment should be 15 years.
3. The new code should have the flexibility of gradually extending its provisions to
other occupations, such as, mechanised agriculture, horticulture, forestry and
fisheries.
4. Punishments for offences relating to child labour should be more stringent than
at the present. The punishment for the first offence should be imprisonment
which may extend to one year or fine extending to Rs. 2,000 or both. In the case
of second or continuing offence, the penalty should only be imprisonment up to
two years.
5. Concerted steps should be taken within a period of five years to achieve the
objective of minimum educational qualifications, say, eighth standard or
equivalent, for entry into any regulated employment. Further, there should be
integration of the educational system with the requirements of local crafts.
6. There should be advisory boards to keep a watch on the situation of child labour.
7. In rural areas, creches/child-care centres should be established at the school
premises or community centres so as to encourage girls who have to take care of
young siblings in the family to attend schools.
8. The existing law enforcement machinery should be strengthened and due
recognition should be given in this regard to the role of trade unions which may
be given power to initiate prosecution of employers violating child labour laws.21
A few comments on the above recommendations may be in order.
Recommendations 5, 6 and 7 are indisputable and they have to be commended.
Recommendations 2 to 4 and 8 should be pursued with great caution. Making child
labour laws more stringent or even their strict enforcement may be self-defeating,
unless this is accompanied by such measures as social security, expansion of
educational facilities and economic improvement of the general masses. When existing
legal provisions have failed to check child labour, it seems a bit odd to suggest that
the minimum age of employment should be 15 years. As regards uniformity in the
matter of age for the purposes of defining a “child”, the
Page: 348
matter was also examined by a working group appointed by the Government of India,
Department of Social Welfare in 1974. It had come to the conclusion that it is not
feasible to standardise the definition of the age of a child for application in all cases.22
Further, the suggestion that the trade unions should have power to initiate prosecution
against the employers violating child labour laws seems futile because the problem of
child labour is basically embedded in poverty. As stated above, the NIPCCD study had
found that in not a single case the trade unions had made a complaint to the
inspectors against the employment of child labour. On the other hand, such a power if
given to the trade unions may be used by them out of bad motive and for harassing
the employers, causing strains on employer-employee relationship.
To implement the recommendations of the committee that there should be child

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labour advisory boards, the central government in March, 1981 constituted a 35-
member Central Advisory Board on Child Labour, headed by the Union Labour and
Planning Minister. The terms of reference of the board are: reviewing the
implementation of the existing legislation administered by the central government,
suggesting legislative and welfare measures for working children, reviewing the
progress of such measures and identifying industries and areas where there must be a
progressive elimination of child labour.23
———
* LL.M., S.J.D., Director, Indian Law Institute, New Delhi.
1
Similarly, this has occurred in the case of working women. The Times of India, Bombay, dated 13 March, 1980
states:
Ironically, protective labour laws make difficult for them to get jobs in state-owned enterprises. This
indeed is a conclusion of a recent study sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR).
Managements do not want to take the “risk” of employing women because they “only stick to their jobs till
they get married”. Employers admit, moreover, that long maternity leave and statutory restrictions regarding
putting women to work on night shift are other inhibiting factors. The result is that total female employment
in the state-owned factories has fallen from 11.43 per cent in 1951 to 9.11 per cent in 1971.
Other studies also reveal that the legislation for special benefits to woman workers has proved to be
counter productive and has led to fall in the employment of women. See Patriot, dated 22nd January, 1981;
and Statesman, dated 28th May, 1981.
We are convinced that the anti-dowry legislation is bound to fail so long as the practice of arranged
marriages continues, and the evil of dowry cannot be eradicated unless there is a wide-spread education
amongst the girls, improvement in their economic status, and free mixing of boys and girls.
2 I.L.O., Children at Work 6 (1979).
3 Id. at 5.
4
Id. at 4.
5 Id. at 7.
6
See NIPCCD, Working Children in Bombay-A Study 15 (mimeographed, 1978). The study was conducted by
Musafir Singh, V.D. Kaura, and S.A. Khan.
7
The Report of the Committee on Child Labour 12 (1979). The committee was appointed by the Government of
India.
8 Supra note 2 at 10.
9 For details see S.N. Jain (ed.), Child and the Law, 9-38 (I.L.I., 1979).
10
Supra note 2 at 23-28.
11 The NIPCCD study, supra note 6 at 19.
12
The Indian Council for Child Welfare, Working Children in Urban Delhi (1977).
13
On the size of working-child population, see also M. Patanaik, Child Labour in India: Size and Occupational
Distribution, XXV Ind. Journ. of Pub. Administration 669 (1979); Rupa Kaul, Millions for Arms but Pittance for
Children, Economic Times, dated 6 January, 1980, pp. 4 & 7.
14 Economic Times, dated 8 April, 1980.
16
Supra note 12.
18 Id. at 266.
19
Supra note 6 at 282.
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20 Id. at 311-12.
21 Supra note 7 at 50-51. The committee also recommended the adoption of such supportive measures as
removal of poverty and unemployment, ensuring minimum wages, following a meaningful educational policy, and
providing various welfare facilities (e.g. health, nutrition, housing, recreation and cultural facilities,
apprenticeship and vocational training, etc.).
22
S.N. Jain (ed.), Child and the Law, supra note 9.
23 See National Herald, New Delhi, dated 24 March, 1981. Even before the constitution of the central board, in
the State of Tamil Nadu there existed an Advisory Board on Child Labour. It recently recommended to the
management of match industries in Sivakasi to provide two hours off with wages to child workers employed in
this area. See Financial Express, New Delhi, dated 27 May, 1981.
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SCC Online Web Edition, © 2024 EBC Publishing Pvt. Ltd.

Page 1 Tuesday, February 06, 2024

23 JILI (1981) 336

and with virtually no access to sickness or employment injury insurance or social

Penalty can also be imposed on a parent or guardian for permitting double

III Impact analysis of child labour laws

Enforcement of the laws

About the former, the NIPCCD study states:

The study recommends adoption of such other measures as strict enforcement of

1. The existing laws relating to prohibition and regulation of employment of children

To implement the recommendations of the committee that there should be child

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