Child Labour in India: An Unavoidable Dilemma

By Kanan Malik

Childhood is the golden period of one’s life, but this doesn’t hold true for some children who struggle to make their both ends meet during their childhood years. At a tender age, which is supposed to be an age of playing and going to school, some children are compelled to work in factories, industries, offices or as domestic help. Child labour means employment of children in any kind of work that hampers their physical and mental development, deprives them of their basic educational and recreational requirements.

 According to the data from Census 2011, the number of child labourers in India is 10.1 million of which 5.6 million are boys and 4.5 million are girls.

HISTORY OF CHILD LABOUR

History of Child Labour in India Earlier, the children used to help their parents in agricultural practices such as sowing, harvesting, reaping and taking care of cattle etc. But industrialisation and urbanisation have in a way encouraged child labour. Now, children are employed in hazardous work such as bidi rolling, cracker industry, pencil, matchbox and bangle making industries, roadside dhabas (restaurants), hotels etc. Working in these industries possess great risk to child physically and mentally.

Some of them are :
In the bidi industry, children are expected to perform all the chores of rolling, binding and closing the ends of bidis using their nimble fingers. The cracker industry poses threat to the lives of the children due to their direct exposure to the explosive material. The bangle and pencil making industries make the child susceptible to different respiratory problems and lung cancer, in the worst cases. Besides, children are employed as labourers in the garment, leather, jewellery and sericulture industry where children’s health suffers due to poor working conditions.

Causes of child Labour
A number of factors could be attributed to the rise of this menace. In the poor and lower families, children are considered to be an extra earning hand. These families have a conviction that every child is an earner, so they have a greater number of children. The children are expected to shoulder their parents’ responsibilities. Parental illiteracy is also one of the contributors to this problem. Education tends to take a backseat in the lives of these children. The uneducated parents consider education as an investment in comparison to the returns which they get in the form of earnings of their children. Employers also prefer child labourers in comparison to adults. This is because they can extract more work and still afford to pay the children lesser amount.

Hardships Faced by Child Labourers
The child labourers are subjected to unhygienic conditions, late working hours and different atrocities which have a direct effect on their cognitive development. Due to poor working conditions and undernourishment, child suffers from various health complications. The young and immature minds of the children find it difficult to cope with such situations leading to different emotional and physical problems. Uneducated/Unguided children who work in society sometimes get influenced by criminal activities and commit crimes at a low age. Bonded child labour is one of the worst forms of child labour. In this, the children are made to work in order to pay off a loan or debt of the family. Bonded labour has resulted into trafficking of the children from rural to urban areas in order to work as domestic helps or in small production houses or just lead the life of street beggars.

Role of Government & NGOs
The government has an important role to play in this fight against child labour. As poverty is one of the major causes of child labour in India, the government needs to assure that it provides basic amenities to all its citizens and there is an equal distribution of wealth. It needs to generate sufficient jobs to assure employability to the poor. At the same time, NGOs can provide vocational training to people in order to get them good jobs or to make them self-employed. The government, in collaboration with NGOs, should reach out to the poor people to make them understand the importance of education. They should be made aware of the government’s initiative to provide free education to all the children between the age group of 6-14 years. The parents must be encouraged to send their children to the schools instead of work places.

Efforts to Stop Child Labour 
To prohibit child labour in India, the Nobel Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi took an initiative. He is the founder of Bachpan Bachao Aandolan (BBA), an organisation dedicated towards the eradication of child labour and rehabilitation of the rescued former child workers. The former President Pranab Mukherjee launched a ‘‘100 million for 100 million’’ campaign, that was conceptualised to end child labour, child slavery, violence against children, etc. 

Educated citizens can contribute significantly to spreading the awareness about the harmful effects of child labour. High income group families can pool in funds to support the education of poor children. Schools and colleges can come up with innovative teaching programmes for the poor children. The principle of ‘Each one, teach one’ can be followed. Children of the support staff (peons, clerks etc.) of schools and colleges can be offered free education. There are certain things we can do at our level to combat the menace of child labour. The need of the hour is to expand the machinery for enforcing the various laws on child labour. If child labour is to be eradicated from India, the government and those responsible for the enforcement need to do their jobs sincerely.


Laws to Safeguard Children’s Right
The Indian Government enacted many laws to protect child rights, namely the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, the Factories Act, 1948, the Mines Act, 1952, the Bonded Labour System Abolition Act and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000. Most of these acts prohibit the employment of children below the age of 14 years in factories, hazardous occupations or in bondage. The National Policy on Child Labour, 1987 looks into the rehabilitation of children working in hazardous occupations. Article 39 of the Indian Constitution declares the duty of the state to provide the children the facilities to develop in a healthy and congenial environment and in conditions of freedom and dignity. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 mandates free and compulsory education to all children between the age group of 6to 14 years. Apart from this, it also reserves 25 per cent seats in every private school for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) of the society. In May 2015, the government approved a proposal allowing children below 14 years of age to work in family enterprises or entertainment industry with specific conditions. In July 2016, the Parliament passed the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2016. This Act amends the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 by widening its scope against child labour and provides for stricter punishment for violations. This Act completely banned employment of children under 14 years in certain occupations like bidi-making, mines, power looms, domestic work etc and also provides for the rehabilitation of children. Key international laws dealing with child labour include the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 1989 and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions on the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment of 1973 and on the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999. Indian Government has ratified both the ILO Conventions which deal with the minimum age for admission to employment and with prohibition of the worst forms of child labour.

Conclusion 
The government needs to ensure that it has foolproof laws and they are properly executed as well as implemented. Strict measures need to be taken against those who encourage child labour in any form. Children are the future of a country and it is the childhood which has a profound impact on the future of a child. A nation full of poverty ridden illiterate children cannot make progress. So, it becomes the collective responsibility of the citizens, society and the government to provide them an environment which helps them to bring out the best of their capabilities, thus, participate in the nation building process.