Guest Post by Pradeep Kumar Gangwar

Assistant Professor of Law at the school of C.C.S. University.

child labour kolhapur indiaThe government to India ratified the convention in
December 1992 but with the solitary rider in the relation to article 32 due to wide
spread poverty and illiteracy which are some of the reason beyond its control. Under
this article of the convention it mandates the state parties to recognize the right of
the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work
that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the Childs education, or to be
harmful to the childs heath or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social
development.
Mr. justice Suba Rao (former chief justice of India) had rightly said that social justice
must begin with child unless the tender plaint is properly nourished it has little
chance of growing into strong and useful tress so the first priority in the scale of
social justice should be given to the welfare of the child and we all know that the
child labour is hampering the growth and development of the child but its very hard
to remove this necessary social evil once Tony Blair had said that our history aim
will be for ours to be the first generation to end child poverty and it will take a
generation and with this he acknowledged that the problem of child labour is very
grievous.
Child labour is the universal problem and its very much in picture in developing
countries like India. In India poverty had prevented governments from expanding
mass education and compulsory education program. There are many instances seen
in the past where a large number of child labour are seen working in the industries
like match industry of sivakasi , glass industries of Firozabad pottery industry of
khurja , gem polishing industry of jaipur or the lock industry of Aligarh etc.
As per the census of India the number of child labours between age group of 5 to 14
years are given below;
1971= 10.75 million
1981= 13.64 million
1991= 11.28 million
2001= 12.66 million
About 5.77 million children can be classified as main workers and the rest 6.88
million as marginal worker. Main workers are those workers who work more than
183 days in a year and Marginal worker are those who work less than 183 days in a
year
Constitutional framework and legislation protecting interest of child Labour :

There are number of provision in the constitution of India which speaks about
children and their welfare. Starting with the preamble itself the constitution of India
promises to secure to all citizens of India (including child) justice, social, economic
and political; liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship. It further
provides for equality of status and of equal opportunity and assures dignity to the
individuals; enables the state to make special provision for children directs the state
to provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of 6-14
years.prohibits trafficking of human beings and forced labour;prohibits employment
of children below the age of 14 years in factories, mines or any other hazardous
occupations; enjoins the state to secure a social order for the promotion of welfare
of the people; directs the state to ensure that children are given opportunities and
facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity
and that the childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and against
moral and material abandonment; states that the state shall endeavor to provide
easily childhood care and education until they complete the age of six years.
In the face of this kind of constitutional provisions envisaging welfare and
development of children, the question of children toiling under hazardous and
exploitative conditions do not arise at all, however this isnt the reality we know of.
There are millions of children toiling under inhuman and subhuman conditions in our
country.
There are various other legislation which, make a significant contributions in the
protecting the exploitation of working children
The factories Act 1948 expressly prohibited Child Labour under Section 67 of the
act.
The Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, 1933 provides that an agreement to pledge
the labour of a child shall be void. And under section 2 of the act child was defined
as any person under the age of 15 years. This act also provides provision for the
penalty for parents and guardian pledging their child.
The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 has the main object to
prohibit the engagement of children in certain employments and to regulate the
conditions of work or children in certain other employments.
The Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act, 1966 says that no
child shall be required or allowed to work in any industrial premises.
The Plantation Labour Act 1951 says that the child under the age of 12 years are
not allowed to work.
What is child labour?
Child Labour is conventionally defined as a working child between age of 5 to 14
years who are doing labour or engaged in economical activity either paid or unpaid

or underpaid . But this definition proves insignificant if we see the book where there
is the picture of 3 years working in the match box industries so now we have to look
for some other definition so lets see the definition of Child as given under child
labour (prohibition and Regulation) act of 1986 this act defines child means a
person who has not completed his fourteen years of age so by this definition age
question of the child labour is solved.
Child Labour and Right to Education
Child labour and illiteracy go hand in hand as one tends to breed the other.
Numerous studies have examined the impact of education on the incidence of child
labour . Most of child labours are either illiterate or partially literate. The parents of
child labour are also more often not literate and also no study has ever found a child
labour coming from an educated family and to prove it we can take example of
kerala state where child labour is almost non-existent because the literacy rate is
very high.
In case of M.C.Mehta v. State of M.P the court has held that the employment of
children in the match factories directly connected with the manufacturing process
up to final production of match sticks or fireworks should not at all be permitted.
The court held further that children can be employed in the process of packing but
packing should be done in area away from the place of manufacture. The minimum
wages for child labour should be fixed. It is necessary that special facilities for
providing the quality of life of children should be provided. This will require facilities
for education, scope of recreation as also providing opportunity for socialization.
Facility for general education as also job oriented education should be available and
the school time should be so adjusted that employment is not affected.
Article 45 of Directive Principles of the Constitution having made it the duty of the
State to provide free and compulsory education to all children up to age fourteen in
ten years, the number of out of school children particularly from the disadvantaged
groups and those engaged in labour, and those receiving poor quality education has
remained very large.
Mohini Jain V State of Karnataka, the Supreme Court held that right to education is
fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Article 51-A (k) that it shall be a fundamental duty of every citizen of India who is a
parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his child/ward between
the age of six and fourteen years Because the objectives of democracy, social
justice, and equality can be achieved only through the provision of elementary
education of equitable quality to all; And whereas it is also imperative to improve
the present delivery system of elementary education by, inter alia, greater
decentralization of its management, and making it sensitive to the needs of
children, especially of those belonging to disadvantaged groups.

The Child Labour is the major problem due to poverty and hampers development by
driving wages down putting adult out of works and denying education to the future
workforce and so we can say that child Labour is due to poverty and vice versa.
Consequences of Child Labour
Child labour is a concrete manifestation of the violation of the rights of children,
especially the right to education and development. Working at a young age has
many adverse and direct consequences
Children are deprived of their right to education
Children are deprived of their right to play , leisure and healthy growth
Children are deprived of their free mental, physical, psychological and spiritual
growth owing to hazardous nature of their work and over work that is not
compatible with their age.
Children are deprived of their childhood itself
Child labour creates and perpetuates poverty.
It condemns the child life of unskilled , badly paid work and
Ultimately leads to child labour with each generation of poor children undercutting
wages
So in short we can say that Work at too early age take there right o education,
exerts physical, social and psychological stress, work and life on the streets and
industries in bad working conditions, inadequate pay, and work also undermines
childrens dignity and self esteem such as detrimental to full social and
psychological development take away their right to play and enjoy childhood and is
also a main cause of putting them as underpaid worker throughout the life.
Reasons for the Child Labour
There are many reasons for the Child Labour problem in India few of the main
reasons are highlighted below
(1)Child labours are always better than adult workers because they work for longer
time and most of the time underpaid so they are source of cheaper Labour.
(2) Education is not very wide spread with all the sections and all the parts of the
country so education is one of the biggest problem which helps in fostering the
growth of the child labours in India and we have also seen that failure of various
educational scheme also added to the increase in the number of child labour
(3) Unemployment and Underemployment of the parents and major members of the
family.

(4) Use of drugs and alcohols by the parents and the guardian of the child also helps
in the increase of the child labour.
(5) Homelessness
(6) Wide spread poverty in the country.
(7) Other problems due to single parenthood, population explosion, traditional
occupations and parental attitudes, lack of minimum wages etc
Accident of working members of family, illness, single parenthood, nonworking of
parents, drinking habits etc in these entire cases child voluntary enters to work to
protect his family from starvation but we know that the exploitive child labour is a
evil it cannot be uprooted overnight as it is deeply entrenched in the problems of
poverty , illiteracy and overpopulation.
We know that there is various numbers of children who are voluntary Labour to help
their family. We have also seen in the past that various Compulsory Education
program could not make a hallmark to remove the biggest problem of Child Labour
because they could not satisfy the call of economic needs of the working child. So
there can be learning while earning program which just not gives educational to the
child labor but also fulfils there economic needs we can also learn from the steps
taken in other countries.