PROJECT REPORT ON CHILD LABOUR

SUBMITTED TO:- SUBMITTED BY:-

Mrs.PARUL ALOK KUMAR GAUTAM
ROLLNO:05
SECTION:-A
MASS COMMUNICATION
 AKNOWLADGEMENT

Through this acknowledgment, we express our

sincere gratitude to all those people who have been
associated with this assignment and have helped us
with it and made it a worthwhile experience.

Firstly we extend our thanks to the various people

who have shared their opinions and experiences
through which we received the required information
crucial for our report.

Finally, we express our thanks to our lecturer Ms.

Parul who gave us this opportunity to learn the
subject in a practical approach and who guided us
and gave us valuable suggestions regarding the
project report.
 CONTENTS
1. ACKNOWLEDGMENT

2. INTRODUCTION

3. CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA

4. CHILD LABOUR-FACT FILE

5. SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS A YOUNG CHILDREN IN DELHI

6. RURAL SCHOOL AND ITS OBJECTIVE

7. CHILD LABOUR PROHIBITATION

8. ELEMENTARY EDUCATION AND CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA

9. CAUSES OF CHILD LABOUR

10.CONSEQUENCES FOR CHILDREN LAWS

11.INITIATIVE TWORDS ELIMINATION OF CHILD LABOUR

12.THE CHILD LABOUR ACT 1986

13.UNICEF IN INDIA

14.WORK OF UNICEF IN INDIA

15.SUPPORT UNICEF

16.UNICEF IN EMERGENCIES

17.CONCLUSION
 INTRODUCTION

Child labor is one of the more harrowing aspects of 19th century history and
undoubtedly an emotive topic. To get employment reform acts passed as legislation,
reformers highlighted stories of the horrific treatment of children in mills and down
the mines.

Not all work is bad for children. Some social scientists point out that some kinds of
work may be completely unobjectionable — except for one thing about the work
that makes it exploitative. For instance, a child who delivers newspapers before
school might actually benefit from learning how to work, gaining responsibility,
and earn a bit of money. But what if the child is not paid? Then he or she is being
exploited. As UNICEF's 1997 State of the World's Children Report puts it,
"Children's work needs to be seen as happening along a continuum, with
destructive or exploitative work at one end and beneficial 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." Other social scientists
have slightly different ways of drawing the line between acceptable and
unacceptable work.

Children's participation in economic activity - that does not negatively affect their
health and development or interfere with education, can be positive. Work that does
not interfere with education (light work) is permitted from the age of 12 years under
the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 138. So child engaged in
part time work to learn practical skill linked to social or inherited custom or crafts
is not child labor. It becomes "child labor" only when child weaves carpet in a
factory or factory; earns money to support family without schooling, social
development. On the other hand if child works for 3-4 hours to learn or earn for
self or parents after schooling, would not be known as child labor as is additional
education and practical skill that a child learns.
 CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA

With official estimates of 12.6 million

children in hazardous occupations, India
has the highest number of labourers in
the world under 14 years of age. Although
the Constitution of India guarantees free
and compulsory education to children
between the age of 6 to 14 and prohibits
employment of children younger than 14
in any hazardous environment, child labo
ur is present in almost all sectors of the
Indian economy Companies
including Gap, Primark, Monsanto etc
have been criticised for using child
labour in either their operations in India
or by their suppliers in India.

Child Labour
A girl working in the reconstruction effort carries a tile on her head in the city of Choluteca, Honduras
An estimated 158 million children aged 5-14 are engaged in child labour - one in
six children in the world. Millions of
children are engaged in hazardous
situations or conditions, such as
working in mines, working with
chemicals and pesticides in agriculture
or working with dangerous machinery.
They are everywhere but invisible,
toiling as domestic servants in homes,
labouring behind the walls of
workshops, hidden from view in
plantations.
 In Sub-Saharan Africa around one in three children are engaged in child
labour, representing 69 million children.
 In South Asia, another 44 million are engaged in child labour.
  The latest national estimates for this indicator are reported in Table 9 (Child
Protection) of UNICEF's annual publication The State of the World's
Children.
Children living in the poorest households and in rural areas are most likely to be
engaged in child labour. Those burdened with household chores are
overwhelmingly girls. Millions of girls who work as domestic servants are
especially vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.
Labour often interferes with children’s education. Ensuring that all children go to
school and that their education is of good quality are keys to
preventing child labour.
Child Labour in India
Millions of children in today's world undergo the worst forms of child labor which
includes Child Slavery, Child prostitution, Child Trafficking, Child Soldiers. In
modern era of material and technological advancement, children in almost every
country are being callously exploited. The official figure of child laborers world
wide is 13 million. But the actual number is much higher. Of the estimated 250
million children between the ages of 5 and 14 who are economically active, some
50 million to 60 million between the ages of 5 and 11 are engaged in intolerable
forms of labor. Among the 10 to 14year-old chil dren the working rate is 41.3
percent in Kenya, 31.4 percent in Senegal, 30.1 percent in Bangladesh, 25.8
percent in Nigeria, 24 percent in Turkey, 17.7 percent in Pakistan, 16.1 percent in
Brazil, 14.4 percent in India, 11.6 percent in China.

ILO estimated that 250 million children between 5 and 14 work for a living, and
over 50 million children under age twelve work in hazardous
circumstances. United Nations estimate that there were 20 million bonded child
laborers worldwide. Based on reliable estimates, at least 700,000 persons to 2
million, especially girls and children, are trafficked each year across international
borders. Research suggests that the age of the children involved is decreasing. Most
are poor children between the ages of 13 and 18, although there is evidence that
very young children even babies, are also caught up in this horrific trade. They
come from all parts of the world. Some one million children enter the se x trade,
exploited by people or circumstances. At any one time, more than 300,000 children
under 18 - girls and boys - are fighting as soldiers with government armed forces
and armed opposition groups in more than 30 countries worldwide. ILO estimates
that domestic work is the largest employment category of girls under age 16 in the
world.
India has the dubious distinction of being the nation with the largest number of
child laborers in the world. The child labors endure miserable and difficult lives.
They earn little and struggle to make enough to feed themselves and their families.
They do not go to school; more than half of them are unable to learn the barest
skills of literacy. Poverty is one of the main reasons behind this phenomenon. The
unrelenting poverty forces the parents to push their young children in all forms of
hazardous occupations. Child labor is a source of income for poor families. They
provide help in household enterprises or of household chores in order to free adult
household members for economic activity elsewhere. In some cases, the study found
that a child's income accounted for between 34 and 37 percent of the total
household income. In India the emergence of child labor is also because of
unsustainable systems of landholding in agricultural areas and caste system in the
rural areas. Bonded labour refers to the phenomenon of children working in
conditions of servitude in order to pay their debts. The debt that binds them to their
employer is incurred not by the children themselves but by their parent. The
creditors cum employers offer these loans to destitute parents in an effort to secure
the labor of these children. The arrangements between the parents and contracting
agents are usually informal and unwritten. The number of years required to pay off
such a loan is indeterminate. The lower castes such as dalits and tribal make them
vulnerable groups for exploitation.

The environmental degradation and lack of employment avenues in the rural

areas also cause people to migrate to big cities. On arrival in overcrowded cities
the disintegration of family units takes place through alcoholism, unemployment or
disillusionment of better life etc. This in turn leads to emergence of street children
and child workers who are forced by their circumstances to work from the early
age. The girls are forced to work as sex -workers or beggars. A large number of
girls end up working as domestic workers on low wages and unhealthy living
conditions.
Some times children are abandoned by their parents or sold to factory owners. The
last two decades have seen tremendous growth of export based industries and mass
production factories utilizing low technologies. They try to maintain competitive
positions through low wages and low labor standards. The child laborers exactly
suit their requirements. They use all means to lure the parents into giving their
children on pretext of providing education and good life. In India majority of
children work in industries, such as cracker making, diamond polishing, glass,
brass-ware, carpet weaving, bangle making, lock making and mica cutting to name
a few. 15% of the 100,000 children work in the carpet industry of Uttar Pradesh.
70-80% of the 8,000 to 50,000 children work in the glass industry in Ferozabad. In
the unorganized sector child labor is paid by piece-by-piece rates that result in
even longer hours for very low pay.
Inadequate schools, a lack of schools, or even the expense of schooling leaves some
children with little else to do but work. The attitudes of parents also contribute to
child labor; some parents feel that children should work in order to develop skills
useful in the job market, instead of taking advantage of a formal education. From
the time of its independence, India has committed itself to be against child labor.
Article 24 of the Indian constitution clearly states that "No child below the age of
fourteen years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or employed in any
hazardous employment" The Bonded Labour System Act of 1976 fulfills the Indian
Constitution's directive of ending forced labour A Plethora of additional protective
legislation has been put in place. There are distinct laws governing child labour in
factories in commercial establishments, on plantations and in apprenticeships.
There are laws governing the use of migrant labour and contract labour. A recent
law The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation law) of 1986 designates a child
as a person who has not completed their 14th year of age. It purports to regulate
the hours and the conditions of child workers and to prohibit child workers in
certain enumerated hazardous industries. However there is neither blanket
prohibition on the use of child labour, nor any universal minimum age set for child
workers. All of the policies that the Indian government has in place are in
accordance with the Constitution of India, and all support the eradication of Child
Labor. The problem of child labor still remains even though all of these policies are
existent. Enforcement is the key aspect that is lacking in the government's efforts.
Child labor is a global problem. If child labour is to be eradicated, the governments
and agencies and those responsible for enforcement need to start doing their jobs.
The most important thing is to increase awareness and keep discussing ways and
means to check this problem. We have to decide whether we are going to take up
the problem head-on and fight it any way we can or leave it to the adults who might
not be there when things go out of hand.
IT is not new for economies to use the productive labour of children. The history of
capitalism is replete with such instances, especially in phases of rapid
industrialisation. Dickensian stories of cheap child labour being exploited by
rapacious early capitalists were some of the cultural staples of the Industrial
Revolution in England. More recently, child labour has been widely associated with
poverty and seen as a sign of backwardness.

Yet it is remarkably persistent and remains widespread in much of the developing

world, including in the booming parts of the world economy. A 2003 survey by the
International Labour Organisation suggested that there are 246 million child
labourers (aged 14 years or less) in the world, and that as many as 180 million of
them are engaged in hazardous activities that put them at direct physical risk.
While this may be an overestimate, it should not be completely dismissed either.

Allahabad, October 12.

Within this, it is generally
accepted that India has the largest
number of child labourers in the
world. The United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF)
estimates that there are more than
35 million such children,
accounting for 14 per cent of the
children in the 5-14 age group.
Other unofficial estimates are much higher, ranging between 60 and 125 million
child labourers.

Meanwhile, the Census data for 2001 suggest a much lower incidence, with 12.5
million child labourers identified, which would be less than 5 per cent of the
relevant age group. This represents a declining incidence compared with the 1991
figure of 6.4 per cent of the children between 5 and14 years.

There is of course a lot of debate about these figures. Because so much of child
labour is in informal activities, and is anyway a shadowy thing that very few
parents or employers want to admit to allowing, there is no way of being sure of the
accuracy of any calculations. The larger estimates (which are typically derived by
looking at the number of children who are out of school and who are therefore
assumed to be working) give a picture of an enormous national sweatshop, with
production growth based on the exploitation of children. But there are reasons to
be sceptical about the much larger estimates, even though it is certainly the case
that those children who have never attended school or have dropped out of school
are far more likely to be drawn into the work force.
Bangalore, October 6.
For obvious reasons, this is a highly emotive issue. It can and should generate
strong responses, but the high social tolerance of inequity and exclusion in India
has unfortunately meant that some of the
strongest responses have come from outside
the country. The international community
has become increasingly aware of some of
the more egregious practices of child labour
exploitation in certain export industries
such as carpet weaving, which have led to
calls for boycotts and sanctions on exports.
Domestically, the response has been to cry
foul and decry the protectionism inherent in
this approach, which somehow implies that
only the child labour in export industries
should be dealt with.
In actual fact, export industries account for
a very small proportion of the child labour
in India, and the worst conditions are not to
be found there but in other activities. In any
case, urban child labour is by all accounts a
very small proportion of the total, well below 10 per cent. According to both official
data and most studies, nearly half the child labour in India is involved in
agriculture. Most of the rest is involved in informal and service sector activities or
in small home-based or cottage enterprises.
Ukhrul, Manipur, October 10.
This does not mean, of course, that such children are not
exploited or deprived of both their childhood and their future
prospects. But the preponderance of informal activities does
create real problems for dealing with this through policy and for
eliminating child labour. However, there are other areas where the
prevalence of child labour should be much easier to control and
yet where it continues to persist.
The most appalling form of this is in the continuing prevalence of
bonded child labour, which is completely illegal and yetpersists in
many regions and activities. There are certain industries that are
known to be heavily reliant on bonded child labour and certain
geographical locations that have become infamous for it as well.
The fireworks producers of Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu, the carpet
industry in Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, the glass bangle makers of
been Jaipur in Rajasthan, the brassware industry of Uttar Pradesh
and the gems industry of Mumbai have all been associated with
substantial use of child labour. Other activities thathave known to
use bonded child labour include knitwear- and matchstick-making
units, beedi-making, tea plantations and some cultivation
operations in cotton and sugarcane. Bonded and other child labour
is also frequently found in services, especially in tea shops and
truck shops, domestic service and commercial sex work.

For example, the argument is frequently heard that much of child

labour is simply an extension of the family unit, which allows a
child to learn the traditional trade in comfortable circumstances
and at the "right age", usually below 12 years. This notion is not
only empirically questionable but also fundamentally casteist,
effectively assuming that such children only deserve training
according to their social and class background, rather than equal
opportunities for education and advancement as all other children.
It is taken as axiomatic in most discussions on child labour that it
is a direct result of poverty and that little good will come of
enforcing bans unless something is first done about the income-
earning opportunities of the parents. But this is far too simple an
interpretation. Obviously, it is mainly the poor who are forced to
make their children go to work, but it does not follow that there is
a necessary causal relation in one direction. R.V. MOORTHY
Children from the Bachapao Bachao Andolan performing a
street play as part of its month-long nation-wide campaign
'From Work to School' outside the Labour Ministry office in
New Delhi on October 10. In fact, it has been plausibly argued
that child labour can actually lead to more poverty, by depressing
wages in general and by forcing all family members to work at
below subsistence wages to meet household survival needs. It can
be shown that if the banning of child labour is effective and forces
wages to go up in that area or activity, both parents and children
will be better off even in income terms, not to mention overall
well-being. It is interesting to note that the four States that
account for more than 40 per cent of all the officially recorded
child labour in India - Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra
and Tamil Nadu - are among the richer States in India. This
suggests that low per capita income is not necessarily associated
with higher incidence of child labour across the States. Especially
in societies like those in India, child labour is not only (or always
even dominantly) about poverty: it is essentially about social
exclusion, inequality and discrimination, which allow the relative
poverty of some to be exploited in this manner. Factors such as
inadequate employment opportunities for adult members of the
household and lack of access to credit markets and social welfare
schemes to guard against hunger or illness, all clearly play a role.
But segmented labour markets result from more than these
features, and are deeply embedded in social processes. Indeed,
the reality of discriminatory perceptions in India is directly
reflected in official inaction and implicit toleration of the
widespread legal violations as well as in the indifference and even
complacency of society at large. This is not to say that there are
no voices of protest or effective actions against child labour within
India. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and social
movements, ranging from MV Foundation in Andhra Pradesh to
those fighting child bondage in particular areas across India, have
shown how strategies to move children from paid or unpaid labour
to school can work and how these strategies can be scaled up.
Nationally, there is no question that the most basic public
intervention to eliminate child labour has got to be the provision
of
free, compulsory and good-quality schooling for all children. This
is the most essential plank of any effective strategy. This is just
one of the reasons why it is so important to ensure the adoption
of a `right to education' law that ensures universal schooling
without exceptions or caveats. It is also necessary to make such
legislation effective in terms of allocating sufficient public
resources for this and making sure that community control and
adequate teacher training allow for good quality schooling for all.
Banning child labour outright certainly appears to be a laudatory
goal, but in the context of the ineffective existing laws and the
less-than-half-hearted implementation described above, it is not
in itself likely to have much impact. This is not an argument to
accept poor legal enforcement - obviously, we have to fight for
more comprehensive monitoring, regulation and enforcement of
laws with respect to child labour. But it is clearly the case that the
elimination of child labour requires a more comprehensive and
multi-pronged strategy, with universal schooling as a key
element. The experience of some other developing countries that
have had some success in reducing or eliminating child labour,
such as South Korea and Brazil, can be instructive. In Brazil, in
addition to a law on universal schooling, there has been a special
programme - the Bolsa Escola - which provides "education grants"
or school stipends based on household monthly wages, which
enable poor families to send their children to school. This was
accompanied by laws banning child labour and a greatly
strengthened programme of labour inspections to discover and
punish cases of using child labour. Along with this, there have
been strategies of using NGOs and federations of industrialists and
employers to implement codes of conduct in activities that have a
high incidence of child labour, such as automobile manufacturing,
steel, shoes and citrus and sugar plantations. As a result of this,
UNICEF has estimated that the incidence of child labour in Brazil
fell by half over the decade up to 2003, even though it still
accounted for 7 per cent of children in the 7-14 age group. The
recent experience of China is also interesting. China experienced a
rise in child labour from the mid-1990s, to the point where the
estimates of child labour ranged from 10 to 20 million for 2005.
Most analysts agree that the partial dismantling of the once free
and universal socialist school education system has been critical.
Thus, the decline in public educational spending and the increase
in school tuition fees have been important proximate causes of the
increase in child labour. There have been many cited instances of
parents who cannot any more afford to send their children to
school without some additional income from their paid labour. It
has also been noted that the system of examinations and
progression through school also creates
disincentives against continuation for children from poor families
who perform poorly in any one year.
Hyderabad, October 09.

Obviously, the children working in so-

called debt servitude are particularly
vulnerable and heavily exploited. They
are of ten exposed to severe occupational
hazards - which can lead to stunting,
deformities, other health hazards and
future debilities - quite apart from
working long hours in dreadful conditions
for appallingly low wages. There are
many recorded instances of maltreatment
and corporal punishment by employers. In
general, the hazards that such children
and other child workers in vulnerable situations face are not only physical, but also
cognitive, social and emotional; and in most cases they are damaged for life as a
result. There is next to no protection for such children, despite many government
laws and policies.
Another important concern relates to the children of migrant workers, who are
disproportionately prone to become child labourers, often in very oppressive and
personally damaging circumstances. These are in addition to those bonded or
"pledged" child workers who are forced to migrate without their parents, in groups
organised by contractors.

Mumbai, October 10.

The Indian government actually

has a plethora of laws and
specific policies to address child
labour. While child labour per se
is not banned in India, the Child
Labour (Prohibition and
Regulation) Act of 1986
regulates the hours and
conditions (but not the wages) of
some child workers and bans the
use of child workers in specified
hazardous occupations,
including fireworks and chemical
industries. There are separate
laws governing child labour in factories, in commercial establishments, on
plantations, and in apprenticeships. There are laws governing the use of migrant
labour and contract labour, which would also apply to
children. For children in servitude, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act,
1976, strictly outlaws all forms of debt bondage and forced labour and is an
extension of a law enacted in 1933 by the British colonial government relating
specifically to child bondage.

But these laws have been singularly ineffective. They have rarely been even
monitored, much less enforced. A study by Human Rights Watch conducted over
1995 and 1996 in several States of India found that all of these laws were routinely
flouted, with absolutely no risk of any punishment to the offender ("The small hands
of slavery: Bonded child labour in India"; Human Rights Watch Asia, 1996). Many
other instances of blatant violation of the laws have been documented by Neera
Burra and Lakshmidhar Mishra.

New Delhi, October 1.

Corruption is often cited as the

primary cause of such brazen
flouting of the law by those who
exploit child labour, but
generalised social apathy is also
an important contributory factor.
Indian society, with its still
widespread concepts of birth
determined hierarchies and the
guarding of privileges by the elite,
has proved to be only too willing
to accept certain myths that allow
for the perpetuation of child
labour, both bonded and
"voluntary".

Situational Analysis of Young Children in Delhi

More than 66% of children under the six years in Delhi slums are malnourished. It
is more than the children in the sub-Saharan Africa where the figure stands at 38%.
India’s malnourishment stand at 40%.This has been revealed by the survey report
of situational analysis of young children in Delhi.
This study was done in 22 slum clusters in Delhi. The study says that
malnourishment is higher at the construction sites and among deprived including
Muslims and scheduled castes. The main reason is being the poor health status of
the mothers.
Only 10% of the poor women are accessing the basic health care services including
nutrition services under integrated child development scheme. The report says
adding that the scheme covers just 10% of the poor women.
Most of the women in the unorganized sector do not get maternity leave resulting in
poor health of the woman and the new born child. The birth registration rate in
slums in less than 20% and large number of child-births take place at home.
According to the study vulnerable sections like street children, beggers, children of
migrant labor and sex workers are not covered in any government schemes. The
report also says that there is tremendous increase almost double in the number of
people living below poverty line.
Rural Schools

This project supported by Royal Dutch

Embassy New Delhi is providing
formal education to 500 children in the
age group 6-14 in 5 villages who do not
go to any school or are school dropouts
through nonformal means. The children
are enrolled from the villages.
Our target is to encourage girls to join
the schools as their education is
generally neglected and look down
upon.More than 50% of the students
are girls who attend the schools regularly.Nonformal education is being provided
under National Open School board. The curriculum and books for the course have
been prepared on the basis of blueprints provided by NOS and Bihar Government
syllabus at par with any formal school. The certificates are given by the NOS
which are valid in India. Initially we have introduced classes from one to class
three. The books and study materials are provided at nominal cost. The teachers
are selected from educated youth of the community to provide employment to local
youth especially women. These schools are managed by the local village
committees comprising of panchayat members, educated and respected members
of the society.
The Target Group:
The beneficiaries would be approx
500 children between 6-14 years. The
Intervention Area:
Damalbari,Chattargach,Powakhali,Thakurganj and Pothia

The Objectives to be achieved:

1.The project would help in providing quality education to rural children.
2. The mothers and guardians would be encouraged to join literacy centers run by
Azad India Foundation to get functional literacy. This would instill the value of
education among people.

3. This project would help in increasing the literacy level of the district.

4. This project would give employment to the rural educated youth especially girls
who would work as teachers at the centers.
Donations: You can adopt a child for as small an amount as Rs.500/- and see
him/her through a certificate from the National Institute of Open Schooling
(NIOS).

Rural Schools Final Report

AREA/LOCATION OF THE PROJECT:

The project was implemented in villages Damalbari, Chhattergach, Powakhali,
Thakurganj and Pothia in Kishanganj district
METHODOLOGIES:
The main aim of the project was to provide education to rural children in the age
group 6-14 in 5 villages who are out of any formal school system or are school
dropouts through nonformal means. AIF began with the identification of the
children residing in these villages and also nearby areas. Our main target was to
encourage more girls to join the NFE schools as their education is generally
neglected and look down upon. We followed formal as well as nonformal system of
education in all the schools. Children were enrolled in classes one to three. They
were given choice to join the formal setup or study according to their convenience
in the afternoon. The schools have fixed timings for the formal students and
flexible timings for the nonformal students. The teachers ensure at least six hours
of study six days a week. Since we have accreditation from National Open
Schooling Ministry of HRD, Government of India to conduct examination for class
three, class five and class eight levels it helped us in convincing parents to send
children to our schools. We followed the curriculum and books prepared on the
basis of blueprints provided by NOS and Bihar Govt syllabus. We tried to keep the
course at par with any formal school. Our main concern was to develop the
capacity of children preparing them for formal schooling in the future. The course
was divided into 4 modules. The first three months were devoted to teaching
basics in language and mathematics. In the next three months we introduced
writing skills and subsequently other subjects like EVS and art of healthy and
productive living were introduced. We also tried to identify talent among the
children like music, dance and drawing/painting. The books were provided free of
cost. The teachers were selected from educated youth of the community to provide
employment to local youth especially women. We charged nominal fees from the
students to make it self-sustaining in the long run.
ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN:
CAPACITY BUILDING INITIATIVES:
Azad India Foundation organized regular trainings and orientations for the
teachers by the resource person by Mr.Shamim Akhtar who is TLC trainer.
NONFORMAL CENTRES:
Kishanganj district has a dubious record of having lowest literacy level in whole
of Bihar. The worst sufferers are the women who due to illiteracy and ignorance
face exploitation at all levels.Azad India Foundation has set up nonformal centres
in target villages where women and girls come for functional literacy classes. The
main purpose of setting these centres was to promote education among the
guardians of the children. The method of teaching was non-formal involving local
dialect Surjapuri and in some centers in Bengali/Hindi to help the women learn
effectively .In these centers women were taught to read and write at their own
pace. Some centers functioned in the afternoon after women finish their household
work and some in the evening when they return from their fields. The involvement
of the community ensured smooth functioning of these centers and made the
teachers accountable to the task they have undertaken.
RURAL SCHOOLS:
Azad India Foundation believes that education is true means of socio-economic
and intellectual advancement of the society. Every child at least deserves primary
education irrespective of caste, religion or socio-economic background. We
enrolled 449 children for OBE Level -A examination. These children were in the
age-group 6-14 years. Out of these 236 were boys and 213 were girls. Our
sustained efforts have led to about 47% of girls' and 52 % boys' enrollment in the
schools. Many young children also attend the school. We conducted the
examination in the month of July/August and the result is submitted to National
Open School for certificates. The girls did better in the examination as 50.7%
passed in first attempt where as 49% boys passed the examination in the first
attempt. The students who have failed or partly cleared papers will be motivated
to give exam again after six months. Their registration is valid is five years where
they can clear papers according to their convenience.
A detailed result of the students as follows:
• Total number of students enrolled : 449
• Total number of male students: 236
• Total number of female students: 213
• Total number of students passed : 201
• Total number of female students passed: 102
• Total number of male students passed : 99
• Total number of part pass students: 21
• Total number of failed students :149
• Total number of absent students: 78
SPECIAL DAY CELEBRATIONS:
Azad India Foundation celebrated special days like Republic Day (26th January)
and Independence Day (15th August) at all the schools instilling a sense of
national pride and teaching children importance of these days. We also organized
drawing and sports competitions for the children regularly. The winners were
given prizes and certificates. Parents and other important people including PRIs
of the villages were included in all the programmes.
COMMUNITY MEETINGS:

The project coordinator and field workers of AIF carried out regular meetings
with the parents, guardians and important persons of the community from time to
time. These meetings are very important for building enabling environment for
generating interest in education. It also helped us in the centers where there was
high dropout of the girls and reluctance and apathy of the parents towards our
project. AIF also organized film shows 'Meena ki Kahani' which deals with issues
concerning education for girls and gender issues in the target villages.
VISITORS TO THE RURAL SCHOOLS

Ms Tinku Khanna,Ms Janki and Mr Kalam from Aapne Aap Women International
an NGO working in Calcutta and Forbesganj visited Thakurganj and Chattargach
rural schools on 23rd December. The children welcomed them with a song and
displayed their learning skills. They were impressed with the progress of the
children especially the girls. The main objective of their visit was to replicate the
same programme in their intervention area. Azad India Foundation hosted Mr
Alvise Fabretto a volunteer from Italy. He visited all the rural schools. Sports Day
was celebrated at rural school at Pothia on 26th Janaury where 60 children
participated from the two villages. They presented a small cultural
programme.The winners were given prizes by Mrs Yuman Hussain and Mr Alvise
Fabretto. UNESCO and National Open School (Ministry of HRD) conducted
survey for the relevance and efficacy of Open Basic Education in 5 NGOs in India.
Rural Schools of Azad India Foundation were chosen from Bihar where an
independent agency carried out survey and interaction with 100 students in the
month of July. The final report is awaited.
Child Labour Prohibition

Child is said to be the father of man and a citizen of tomorrow. Child in some strata
of today’s society is being deprived of the opportunity to evolve into a fuller human
being of the future.
The employment of children under age 14 is inhuman as well as illegal. The
problem of child labour is inter-linked with various socio-economic conditions.
Poverty is considered its main cause, which leads to illiteracy, low productivity,
poor health and low life expectancy. Some of the industries that depend on child
labour are match and fireworks, bangle-making, beedi-making, power looms and
manufacturing processes using toxic metals and substances, such as lead, mercury,
manganese, chromium, cadmium, benzene, pesticides and asbestos. A certain
number of child labour is also found at brick kilns, handicrafts-making, silk and silk
products, soldering processes in electronics industries and on floriculture and
vegetable farms. Child labour is an evil that must be eliminated.
The Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act(External website that opens in a
new window), 1986 of India prohibits the employment of children below the age of
14 in factories, mines and in other forms of hazardous employment, and regulates
the working conditions of children in other employment. The Act also regulates the
working conditions of children in all other employment, which are not prohibited
under the child labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986.
Increasing attention is being paid to strengthening the enforcement machinery
related to child labour. Soon after the enactment of the comprehensive Child
Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986, the Government of India recognized
the need to protect child labour from exploitation and from being subjected to work
in hazardous conditions that endanger such children’s physical and mental
development, and the need to ensure the health and safety of children at the
workplace. It recognized that they should be protected from excessively long
working hours and from night work. Even work in non-hazardous occupations
should be regulated, and all working children should be provided with sufficient
weekly rest periods and holidays and then Government adopted a National Child
Labour Policy in 1987. The Policy focusses on areas known to have high
concentration of child labour and to adopt a project approach for identification,
withdrawal and rehabilitation of working children.
A toll-free helpline (1098) has been made operational from 10th October 2006 to
receive distress calls about employing children in the banned sectors, presently
working in the following 72 cities:
Agartala, Aurangabad, Chennai, Guwahati, Kanchipuram, Kozhikode, Nadia,
Pune, South 24 Paraganas, Varanasi, Shimla, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Coimbatore,
Hyderabad, Kanyakumari, Kutch, Nagapattinam, Puri, Thiruvananthapuram,
Vijayawada, Ludhiana, Ahmednagar, Baroda, Cuddalore, Imphal, Karaikal,
Lucknow, Nagpur, Rourkela, Thirunelveli, Vishakhapatnam, Akola, Bhopal, Delhi,
Indore, Kochi, Mangalore, Nasik, Ranchi, Thrissur, Waynad, Allahabad,
Bhubaneshwar, East Midanapore Jammu, Kolkata, Madurai, New Jalpaiguri,
Salem, Tiruchirapalli, West Midnapore, Alwar, Chandigarh, Goa, Jaipur, Kollam,
Mumbai, Patna, Shillong, Udaipur, Agra, Amarawati, Cuddalore, Gorakhpur,
Kalyan, Kota, Murshidabad Port Blair, Sholapur, Ujjain and Gurgaon.
ELEMENTRY EDUCATION AND CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA
Elementary education and child labour are intimately linked. The mission of the
recent Global March Against Child Labour in which thousands of organizations in
almost 100countries participated acknowledges this clearly: 'to mobilise world-
wide efforts to protectand promote the rights of all children, especially the right to
receive a free, meaningfuleducation and to be free from economic exploitation and
from performing any work thatis likely to be damaging to the child's physical,
mental, spiritual, moral or social development'. The National Human Rights
Commission of India recently stated that child labourcan never be eradicated
unless compulsory primary education up to the age of 14 isimplemented.

A comparison between the states of Kerala and Uttar Pradesh in India for example
defiesthe claim that it is predominantly poverty that prevents the poor from sending
their children to school. In both states the proportion of people living below the
poverty line isaround 45%. Nevertheless Kerala has an average literacy rate of
90% whereas in Uttar Pradesh this figure is around 40%. In terms of average
income per capita Kerala is in themiddle range of Indian states, but it spends much
more on primary education.It is a well-established fact that children in India are
working on a large scale in the household, in family enterprises or in income-
earning activities outside the home. It ishowever not so well-established how many
children are working, how much time they
spend on that work and how much is the income thus earned or saved (by
allowingparents to earn income). Estimations of the number of working children
vary from 11 million to at least 90 million children. The former figure is from the
Census of 1991 while the latter is based on the official number of non-school
attending children. Unofficial estimates of the number of non-school going children
go up to 114 million.

It is usually assumed that (almost) all non-school going children are working a
major part of the day. But if one looks at the number of working children mentioned
by anti-childlabour organizations such as the South Asian Coalition on Child
Servitude (SACCS) - 55to 60 million - it shows that there is a large group of
children who are neither in schoolnor at work most of their time. This is
corroborated by a recent survey (the Public Reporton Basic Education -PROBE-
survey) in four of the poorest and most child-labour endemic states: Bihar, Uttar
Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The surveyindicated that one third of the
children had not done any work during school hours on theday preceding the
survey. The same study showed that 18% of the out-of-school children worked more
than eight hours, while about half worked less than three hours.
The surprising figures about the relatively short time spend on either household
work or income-earning activities of most out-of-school children are supported by a
large number of other field-level investigations in different states of India (Kiran
Bhatty, Economic andPolitical Weekly, July 4, 1997). The author states that all
available studies indicate that domestic work is the most common and regular kind
of work. Especially girls spent onaverage twice to sometimes even three times as
much time working as boys, mostly on domestic duties. The studies he quotes
nevertheless indicate that especially young children up to 10 devote about 1 to 4
hours (the latter only in the agricultural peak season) on average to both domestic
and (other) productive work. For the older age group of 10 to14 years this
increases while 'it is only after the age of 15 that children begin to make substantial
contributions (Bhatty)'. If non-school participation would be largely driven by the
time devoted by children to household and income-earning activities one would
expect that drop-outs from primary school would increase with age as the time
devoted to these
activities is increasing. The opposite is the case. Most studies show that drop-outs
tends to be heavily concentrated in grades 1 and 2, which suggests other reasons
for dropping out than poverty and work.
He also points at the 'apathy of the people' but relates this to a 'fundamental lacuna
in our democracy: the failure to provide an organized means of putting pressure
and demanding change' as well as to the 'continued social and political
marginalization of large sections of the population, particularly of the poor'. Also
recent Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen writes in his book 'Economic Opportunity
Development and Social Opportunity' (1995)', co-authored by PROBE coordinator
Jean Dreze: 'The fact that the government was able to get away with so much
neglect in the field of primary education relates to the lack of political clout of the
illiterate masses'. There are however a number of cases where 'putting pressure and
demanding change' did have important effects on the provision of good primary
education, also for presently working children. We will come to them later.

Summing up: the fact that children work rather than go to school does not
necessarily mean that poverty or parental disinterest is to blame for their failure to
attend school. Looking at the evidence it is the other way around: children work or
remain idle becauseschool-going is not possible or very unattractive. Parents often
use the labour of their children after they have dropped out of school, for reasons
unconnected to poverty.

Bhatty calls it 'child labour as a default activity' and concludes that 'parents are
keen to educate their children provided they are assured of basic quality'.

Even in cases where poverty is a real constraint, it has been shown regularly - also
in the example of an NGO whose work will be described later - that parents are
willing to make sacrifices for the education of their children if a decent form of
primary education is offered. Incentive programmes like free midday-meals can
also be of help but are not a substitute for good primary education.
IT is not new for economies to use the productive labour of
children. The history of capitalism is replete with such instances,
especially in phases of rapid industrialisation. Dickensian stories of
cheap child labour being exploited by rapacious early
capitalists were some of the cultural staples of the Industrial
Revolution in England. More recently, child labour has been widely
associated with poverty and seen as a sign of backwardness.
Yet it is remarkably persistent and remains widespread in much of
the developing world, including in the booming parts of the
world economy. A 2003 survey by the International Labour
Organisation suggested that there are 246 million child labourers
(aged 14 years or less) in the world, and that as many as 180
million of them are engaged in hazardous activities that put them
at direct physical risk. While this may be an overestimate, it
should not be completely dismissed either.
Allahabad, October 12.
Within this, it is generally accepted that India has the largest
number of child labourers in the world. The United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that there are more than 35
million such children, accounting for 14 per cent of the
children in the 5-14 age group. Other unofficial estimates are
much higher, ranging between 60 and 125 million child labourers.
Meanwhile, the Census data for 2001 suggest a much lower
incidence, with 12.5 million child labourers identified.

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 ORPHANS: C hildren born out of wedlock, children with no
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 WILLINGNESS TO EXPLOIT CHILDREN : This is at
the root of the problem E ven if a family is very poor, the
incidence of child labour will be very low unless there are
people willing to exploitthese children.
 UNEMPLOYMENT OF ELDERS
: E lders often find it
difficult to get jobs. The industrialists and factory owners find it
profitable to employ children. This is so because they can pay
less and extract more work. They will also not create union
problem.

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Children..
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 UNICEF in India
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UNICEF has been working in India since 1949. The largest UN organisation in
the country,UNICEF is fully committed to working with the
Government of India to ensure that each child born in this vast
and complex country gets the best start in life, thrives and
develops to his or her full potential.
The challenge is enormous but UNICEF is well placed to meet it.
The organisation uses quality research and data to understand
issues, implements new and innovative interventions that address
the situation of children, and works with partners to bring those
innovations to fruitition.
What makes UNICEF unique in India is its network of 13
state offices. These enable the organisation to focus
attention on the poorest and most disadvantaged
communities, alongside its work at the national level.
UNICEF uses its community-level knowledge to develop innovative
interventions to ensure that women and children are able to
access basic services such as clean water, health visitors and
educational facilities, and that these services are of high quality.
At the same time, UNICEF reaches out directly to families to help
them to understand what they must do to ensure their children
thrive.
UNICEF also wants them to feel a sense of ownership of these
services. That same knowledge and interface with communities
enables the organisation to tackle issues that would otherwise be
difficult to address: the complex factors that result in children
working, or the growing threat that HIV/AIDS poses to children.
UNICEF knows that key to addressing these challenges are its
partnerships with sister UN agencies, voluntary organisations
active at the community level, women’s groups and donors.
The organisation also works with an array of celebrities, including
members of the Indian cricket team and leading actors from the
Indian film industry, as well as hundreds of thousands of unnamed
volunteers who tirelessly give their time and influence to ensure
that, together, they are able to help every child realise his or her
full potential.
Celebrities Supporting UNICEF’s Work in India
The overall goal of the 2008-2012 Country Programme is to
advance the fulfilment of the rights of all women and children in
India to survival, development, participation and protection...
The Country Programme, 2008-2012
The overall goal of the 2008-2012 Country Programme is to
advance the fulfilment of the rights of all women and children in
India to survival, development, participation and protection...

WORK OF UNICEF IN INDIA

Health
Despite improvements over last 30 years health challenges for
children in India remain. An increased effort is needed to ensure
the necessary reduction in maternal, infant and young child
mortality.
Nutrition
UNICEF supports the Government in its objectives to reduce and
prevent malnutrition and to improve the development of children
under three years old, especially those in marginalised groups.
Water, environment and sanitation
UNICEF supports the national and state governments in
developing and implementing a range of replicable models for
sanitation, hygiene and water supply.
HIV/AIDS
As a part of the joint UN response and within the context of
NACP-III, UNICEF collaborates with the Government of India
and other partners in four key programme areas we call the four
Ps.
Education
The number of children who are not in school remains high and
gender disparities in education persist despite a major
improvement in literacy rates during the 1990s.
 Child protection
UNICEF India’s programmatic approach to child protection aims
to build a protective environment in which children can live and
develop in the full respect of their fundamental rights.

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other partners, has worked in India to ensure that each child gets
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 I urge you to join me and thousands of caring,
enlightened Indians in contributing to UNICEF's
programmes to support every child's health, nutrition,
sanitation and education needsUNICEF in Emergencies

UNICEF in Emergencies

Since its inception, UNICEF’s mandate has involved a rapid

response to humanitarian crises.

Originally called the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund,

the organisation was created to provide humanitarian assistance
to children living in a world shattered by the Second World War.

Though emergencies have grown increasingly complex and their

impacts ever more devastating, UNICEF remains dedicated to
providing life-saving assistance to children affected by disasters,
and to protecting their rights.

UNICEF is guided in its emergency response by its Core

Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action (CCCs), which
build on our experiences in recent crises and outline the core
responses at all levels of the organisation.

These include our initial response when an emergency breaks out

as well as the timeframe for a sustained response in communities
affected by an emergency.
The first guiding principle of UNICEF’s humanitarian emergency
response is that children in the midst of conflict or natural disaster
have the same needs and rights as children in stable areas.

UNICEF responds to Emergencies in India

Over the last two decades, India has borne the brunt of several
major natural disasters including the Latur Earthquake in 1993;
the Orissa super-cyclone in October 1999, the Bhuj earthquake in
January 2001, the Tsunami in December 2004, the earthquake in
Jammu & Kashmir in October 2005, major flooding in Bihar, Uttar
Pradesh, Assam, Orissa, West Bengal and other states in 2007
and 2008, major avian flu outbreak in West Bengal and Kosi
floods in Bihar in 2008.
In 2009, the eastern Indian State of West Bengal was hit by
cyclone Aila which affected 6.8 million people and resulted in a
loss of 138 human lives. In addition, a number of relatively
smaller-scale emergencies, primarily floods, but also droughts,
landslides, cholera and avian flu outbreaks have occurred. Tens of
millions people are affected annually in India, most of them from
the poorest strata of the population, a high proportion of whom
are children.

UNICEF in India is the UN agency with most effective field office

network in the country, high credibility with the government, and
capacity to make a significant contribution in emergencies by
complementing the Government’s efforts.

In most cases, UNICEF’s response complemented the

government's efforts in providing urgently needed supplies with
the ultimate purpose of preventing disease epidemics and saving
lives, but UNICEF at the same time put an ever increasing
emphasis on advocacy efforts with the government partners and
all other stakeholders to ensure appropriate response to the
needy affected population and fast resumption of essential social
services.

In 2009, UNICEF was a major humanitarian player in the country

that complemented the governments' action. UNICEF provided
support to the state governments to assist the victims of
communal violence and displacement, programme communication
support in tackling avian flu, and multi-sectoral support in dealing
with major floods.

UNICEF has been able to effectively respond to emergencies in

India by complementing the government’s efforts. Notably, in
recent years UNICEF has consistently been a major humanitarian
player, providing immediate response to each crisis and assuming
a great responsibility for the well-being of the affected. UNICEF’s
role has been highly appreciated by the Government of India and
other partners.

UNICEF has been able to effectively respond to

emergencies in India by complementing the government’s
efforts. Notably, in recent years UNICEF has consistently
been a major humanitarian player, providing immediate
response to each crisis and assuming a great responsibility
for the well-being of the affected. UNICEF’s role has been
highly appreciated by the Government of India and other
partners.
Most importantly, UNICEF’s interventions have contributed to the
prevention of epidemics and to alleviating the adverse impact of
disasters on the well-being of the most vulnerable among the
communities affected, particularly the children.

UNICEF and its Partners Prepare for Emergencies

UNICEF works in collaboration with local and international

partners, including governments, UN agencies, and civil society.

These partnerships are crucial to ensuring comprehensive and

effective delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Key partners for UNICEF India include the Union Government’s

National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Sphere India
Unified Response Strategy, RedR India, and the Indian Red Cross
Society.

With it’s network of 13 field offices covering 16 states in India –

UNICEF has played a critical role in times of crisis by gathering
information, conducting rapid assessments and providing a
platform for the UNDMT to coordinate the UN system’s response in
areas where it has a presence.

While UNICEF is ready to respond to a humanitarian crisis

anywhere in India, emergency preparedness efforts are primarily
focused on disaster-prone states.
The principal goal of UNICEF’s Emergency Preparedness and
Response Programme in India has been to ensure the fulfillment
of the rights of children and women in humanitarian crises.

UNICEF’s current response capacity owes a great deal to its

preparedness arrangements which include Emergency
Preparedness and Response Plans (EPRPs) in each office; pre-
positioning of essential emergency items in disaster-prone states;
institutional partnerships with key organisations which allows for
improved coordination, emergency training and capacity building,
and rapid deployment of pre-screened consultants, etc.

UNICEF Contributes to Disaster Risk Reduction

In line with the government’s strategic policy shift from response

to preparedness, UNICEF has also adopted a gradual shift in its
programme priorities.

While maintaining its readiness to ensure fulfillment of its

responsibilities as per the Core Commitments for Children, UNICEF
has initiated various disaster management interventions. The key
concept is promotion of Community-based Disaster Risk Reduction
(CBDRR) activities in selected vulnerable areas of West Bengal,
Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Assam.

Limited in scope, but successful experiences in CBDRR

interventions in several states have proven to help build the
capacities of vulnerable communities to prepare for, respond to
and recover from the impacts of disasters.UNICEF has been able
to effectively respond to emergencies in India by complementing
the government’s efforts.

Notably, in recent years UNICEF has consistently been a major

humanitarian player, providing immediate response to each crisis
and assuming a great responsibility for the well-being of the
affected. UNICEF’s role has been highly appreciated by the
Government of India and other partners.

CONCLUSION
Over all conclusion is that child labour in developing country is a very critical
position behind this lots of reason we mentioned on above report. so it’s a very
necessary that government and public both work on this issues.