Childhood is the most beautiful of all life's seasons. It is the most innocent stage in a human life.

It is that phase of life where a child is free from all the tensions, fun-loving, plays and learns new
things, and is the sweetheart of all the family members. But this is only one side of the story. The
other side is full of tensions and burdens. Here, the innocent child is not the sweetheart of the
family members, instead he is an earning machine working the entire day in order to satisfy the
needs and wants of his/her family. Generally termed as child labour, it ruins the chances of all
round development of a child. The term ―child labour‖ is often defined as work that deprives
children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and
mental development. It refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous
and harmful to children and interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity
to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to
combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work. Child labour not only causes
damage to a child’s physical and mental health but also deprives him of his basic rights to
education, development, and freedom. In its most extreme forms, child labour involves children
being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious hazards and illnesses and/or left
to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities – often at a very early age. 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. There are many cases of
child labor where a child has to work against the repayment of a loan which was taken by his
father who was unable to pay it off. This is called as 'bonded child labour'. Bonded child labour
normally happens in villages. Such children work like slaves in order to pay the loan taken. Not
only poor families, but some well established business families also put their children into
business at a quite young age instead of making them complete their education.

An estimated 158 million children aged between 5-14 years are engaged in child labour - one in
six children in the world according to statistics provided by unicef in the year 2006. 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 our 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.
Whether or not, particular forms of ―work‖ can be called ―child labour‖ depends on the child’s
age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the
objectives pursued by individual countries. The answer varies from country to country, as well as
among sectors within countries. Not all work done by children should be classified as child
labour that is to be targeted for elimination. Child labour refers only to economic activities or
"those activities which are socially useful and remunerable, requiring manual and/or intellectual
effort, which result in the production of goods or performance of services." Children’s or
adolescents’ participation in work that does not affect their health and personal development or
interfere with their schooling, is generally regarded as being something positive. This includes
activities such as helping their parents around the home, assisting in a family business or earning
pocket money outside school hours and during school holidays. It also excludes mendicancy
because such is not a socially useful means of livelihood and does not entail the production of
goods or services. These kinds of activities contribute to children’s development and to the
welfare of their families; they provide them with skills and experience, and help to prepare them
to be productive members of society during their adult life. As such there is no universally
accepted definition of child labour. Varying definitions of the term are used by international
organizations, non-governmental organizations, trade unions and other interest groups.

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 a bit of money. But what if the child is not paid? Then
he or she is being exploited. "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." 1Other social scientists have slightly different ways of drawing the line between
acceptable and unacceptable work.

1
Unicef’s 1997 State of the World’s Children Report
International conventions also define "child labor" as activities such as soldiering and
prostitution. The International Labour Organization - International Programme on the
Elimination of Child Labour (ILO-IPEC) defines child labour as "work situations where children
are compelled to work on a regular basis to earn a living for themselves and their families, and as
a result are disadvantaged educationally and socially; where children work in conditions that are
exploitative and damaging to their health and to their physical and mental development; where
children are separated from their families, often deprived of educational and training
opportunities; where children are forced to lead prematurely adult lives." This stricter definition
throws caution to those child advocates who tend to equate all forms of child labour with
exploitation, thereby hiding the real issues, through playing more on emotions rather than on
reason. The types of child labour which are really exploitative should first be identified instead
of lumping all forms of child labour and in the process, lose sight of the forms of child labour
that should be fought. What is economically exploitative, however, is essentially a cultural
decision depicted in the community's daily practices. The State formalizes this decision through
the formulation of national standards which become part of its laws.

The history of child labour is quite extensive. During the Industrial Revolution, children as
young as four were employed in production factories with dangerous, and often fatal, working
conditions. Based on this understanding of the use of children as labourers, it is now considered
by wealthy countries to be a human rights violation, and is outlawed, while some poorer
countries may allow or tolerate child labour. Child labour can also be defined as the full-time
employment of children who are under a minimum legal age.

The Victorian era became notorious for employing young children in factories and mines and as
chimney sweeps. Child labour played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its
outset, often brought about by economic hardship, Charles Dickens for example worked at the
age of 12 in a blacking factory, with his family in debtor's prison. The children of the poor were
expected to help towards the family budget, often working long hours in dangerous jobs and low
wages.2 In England and Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered cotton
mills were described as children. 3

2
Barbara Daniels, Poverty and Families in the Victorian Era
3
Child Labor and the Division of Labor in the Early English Cotton Mills". Douglas A. Galbi. Centre for History and
Economics, King's College, Cambridge CB2 1ST.
Agile boys were employed by the chimney sweeps, small children to scramble under machinery
to retrieve cotton bobbins and others to work in coal mines to crawl through tunnels too narrow
and low for adults. Children also worked as errand boys, crossing sweepers, shoe blacks, or
selling matches, flowers and other cheap goods.4 Some children undertook work as apprentices
to respectable trades, such as building or as domestic servants (there were over 120,000 domestic
servants in London in the mid 18th Century). Working hours were long: builders worked 64
hours a week in summer and 52 in winter, while domestic servants worked 80 hour weeks. Such
was the first effect of machinery in England. Children as young as three were put to work. A
high number of children also worked as prostitutes.5 In coal mines children began work at the
age of five and generally died before the age of 25. Many children (and adults) worked 16 hour
days. As early as 1802 and 1819 Factory Acts were passed to regulate the working hours of
workhouse children in factories and cotton mills to 12 hours per day. These acts were largely
ineffective and after radical agitation, by for example the "Short Time Committees" in 1831, a
Royal Commission recommended in 1833 that children aged 11–18 should work a maximum of
12 hours per day, children aged 9–11 a maximum of eight hours, and children under the age of
nine were no longer permitted to work. This act however only applied to the textile industry, and
further agitation led to another act in 1847 limiting both adults and children to 10 hour working
days.6

By 1900, there were 1.7 million child labourers reported in American industry under the age of
fifteen.7 The number of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs for wages
climbed to 2 million in 1910. 8 Child labour is still common in some parts of the world, it can be
factory work, mining9, prostitution, quarrying, agriculture, helping in the parents' business,
having one's own small business (for example selling food), or doing odd jobs. Some children
work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and
restaurants (where they may also work as waiters). Other children are forced to do tedious and

4
Infra Note 2
5
Child Labor by Professor David Cody, Hartwick College". The Victorian Web.
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/hist8.html. Retrieved 2010-03-21.
6
Ibid
7
The Industrial Revolution". The Web Institute for Teachers.
8
Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor". The U.S. National Archives and Records
Administration.
9
Child labour in Kyrgyz coal mines". BBC News. 2007-08-24. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6955202.stm.
Retrieved 2007-08-25.
repetitive jobs such as: assembling boxes, polishing shoes, stocking a store's products, or
cleaning. However, rather than in factories and sweatshops, most child labour occurs in the
informal sector, "selling many things on the streets, at work in agriculture or hidden away in
houses—far from the reach of official labour inspectors and from media scrutiny." And all the
work that they did was done in all types of weather; and was also done for minimal pay. As long
as there is family poverty there will be child labour.10 As stated earlier according to UNICEF,
there is an estimated 158 million children aged 5 to 14 in child labour worldwide, excluding
child domestic labour.

Child labour includes 61% in Asia, 32% in Africa, and 7% in Latin America, 1% in US, Canada,
Europe and other wealthy nations In Asia, 22% of the workforce is children. In Latin America,
17% of the workforce is children. The proportion of child laborers varies a lot among countries
and even regions inside those countries.11 "In Africa, one child in three is at work, and in Latin
America, one child in five works. In both these continents, only a tiny proportion of child
workers are involved in the formal sector and the vast majority of work is for their families, in
homes, in the fields or on the streets."12

Causes-

Child labour is a socio-economic problem. It is generally considered that illiteracy, ignorance,

low wages, unemployment, low standard of living are all roots of child labour. It has been
officially stated that child labour is no longer a medium of economic exploitation only, but is
necessitated by economic necessity of the parents and in many cases that of the child himself.
Child labour is rooted in poverty and the lack of economic opportunities. It is often a response by
10
"The State of the World's Children 1997". UNICEF. http://www.unicef.org/sowc97/report/. Retrieved 2007-04-
15.
11
Child Labour: Targeting the Intolerable, Geneva, 1998, p. 7
12
Unicef’s 1997 State of the World’s Children Report
the household to the need to satisfy basic requirements. Children with unemployed parents or
whose parents do not have social security must work to help in their family's struggle for
survival. The satisfaction of these children's basic needs in life takes precedence over their other
needs such as education and recreation. Children are also impelled to work from an early age
because of the centuries-old tradition that the child must work through solidarity with the family
group, so as to compensate as much as possible for the economic burden that he/she represents
and to share in the maintenance of his/her family, which is usually a very large one. Another
reason why children work is the failures in the education system. Many parents prefer to send
their children out to work rather than to school, either because there is no school within a
reasonable distance of the family home, or because they cannot do without the income the
working child brings in, or because they cannot meet the costs of sending the child to school, or
again because they cannot see what use schooling would be to him. Poor schooling has little
credibility for many families since it does not promote economic improvement. For so long as
developing countries cannot successfully maintain their commitment to a decent quality
universal education, increased child participation in the labour market is to be expected. Another
major factor in the increase in the number of working children is the demand for child workers.
Employers know all too well the advantages of employing children. They represent a docile
work force, which could be hired and replaced at a fraction of adult wages. They do not join
labour unions and very seldom complain. Above all, employers who hire children gain a
competitive advantage in both national and international markets due to the low wages they pay
children. Thus there are many causes of child labour but it is necessary to study some of the
principal causes in detail.

Poverty:

Poor children and their families may rely upon child labor in order to improve their chances of
attaining basic necessities. About one-fifth of the world’s 6 billion people live in absolute
poverty. The intensified poverty in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America causes many
children there to become child laborers. The most important cause of child labour in india is
widespread poverty. India being a developing country, suffers from poverty at a large scale and
thus parents are forced to send their children to seek employment. Families don’t even have
enough money to satisfy the basic necessities of its members. In situations like these each
member has to seek employment to contribute to the family income. must have observed that
poor families have more number of children, so it becomes very difficult for them to survive on
the income of only one family member which is also quite less. Parents are forced to send little
children into hazardous jobs for reasons of survival, even when they know it is wrong. Monetary
constraints and the need for food, shelter and clothing forces them to make their small children
their source of income. So it drives their children in the trap of premature labor. They make their
children work in factories, shops, even selling items on streets. Some parents even carry infants
on the streets to earn money from begging. Also some unwanted circumstances like diseases and
contingencies may require extra money and the employment of children is resorted to as an
easily accessible method to bring in that money. Families need these additional sources of
income. And unfortunately their poverty-stricken way of life makes them so ruthless that they
sell their children as commodities to exploitive employers. Most such employers pay a lump sum
for the child and then keep him or her It has been observed through surveys that most of the
children indulged in labour belong to families falling below the poverty line. The employment of
the children belonging to such families is a firm proof of their economic helplessness and
poverty.

Over population and Unemployment:

Most of the Asian and African countries are overpopulated. Due to limited resourses and more
mouths to feed, Children are employed in various forms of work. India is a country with the
second largest populations of the world amounting to 1.2 billion according to the 2008 census.
Out of this more than 60% of the population is below the poverty line. This leads to widespread
unemployment. There aren’t enough employment oppurtunities available to cater to such a huge
ever growing population. Over population in some regions creates paucity of resources. When
there are limited means and more mouths to feed children are driven to commercial activities and
not provided for their development needs. This is the case in most Asian and African countries.
Adult unemployment and urbanization is an important cause of child labour. Adults often find it
difficult to find jobs because factory owners find it more beneficial to employ children at cheap
rates. 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.

This exploitation is particularly visible in garment factories of urban areas. Adult

exploitation of children is also seen in many places. Elders relax at home and live on the
labor of poor helpless children. Lumpkin and Douglas in ― Child Workers in America‖ have
rightly pointed out the fact by saying that two-fifth of the children seek their work because of
their adult wage earners were unemployed and nearly two-third of children were at work because
of their adult worker had no employment or had some part time jobs and one third children went
to work due to the serious cuts in the pay of their adult. The economic recession of the year 2009
also had great impact in this scenario.

Inadequate income of adult earners in the society: The adult workers in the family are not able to
earn enough money to support the standard of living of the family. This inadequate income of the
adult earners in the society forces the children of these respective families to seek employment.
Thus the problem of child labour is inter-related to the problem of living wage of adult worker.
As this very inadequacy in the income of the adult workers compels the children to seek
employment. A draw back of this situation is that employers take undue advantage by taking
benefit of this weakness by providing work to their children on low wages inspite of various
protective laws.

Large family: A notion prevailing in the Indian society that bearing more children means more
hands for employment is one of the important reasons for child labour. For them extra children
means extra income. What they fail to see is that more children also increases the number of
mouths to feed. Thus instead of improving their economic conditions it has an adverse effect on
it. Large families with comparatively less income cannot have the happy notions in their mind.
As a result, they cannot give sheltered-childhood to their children. On the other hand if a family
is well planned there will be no question of sending their children to the labour market, and the
children can be carefully educated. But impoverished and illiterate parents think just contrary to
this. They think its better to have three or four children instead of one. But they forget that one
intelligent son is better than hundred foolish illiterates. Thus if one has one or two children then
he can provide all facilities to their children which are necessary for their mental, physical and
social growth. If he has more children he cannot provide all facilities which a person having one
or two children can provide.

Child labour is a cheap commodity: Child labour as compared to adult labour is cheaper. Most
employers think that a lot of work can be done by the children in their establishment and this
labour of children is very cheap as compared to that of men. Infact it ensures them more margin
of profit over fewer investments. Adults often find it difficult to find jobs as factory owners find
it more beneficial to employ children at cheaper rates. This exploitation is particularly visible in
garment factories of urban areas. Adult exploitation of children is also seen in many places.
Elders stay at home and live on the labor of poor helpless children. The industrial revolution has
also had a negative effect by giving rise to circumstances which encourages child labor.
Sometimes multinationals prefer to employ child workers in the developing countries. This is so
because they can be recruited for less pay, more work can be extracted from them and there is no
union problem with them. This attitude also makes it difficult for adults to find jobs in factories,
forcing them to drive their little ones to work to keep the fire burning their homes.But sometimes
enhanced demand of labour also increases the demand of children. Eg- in agricultural harvesting
season when adult workers are not available to cope with the demand.

In India children of very young age do domestic work because these children are very cheap. The
middle class families which have lower income especially keep little boys and girls as domestic
help. From eight to fourteen age group which is the age of eating and playing. They get little
pocket money and food from their Masters.

Mostly children finding non-availability of school going facilities at initial stage sek some job as
an alternative. This fact is indirectly admitted by National commission on Labour 1969, when it
states in its report-The gradual reduction in the employment of child labour since independence
is due partly to the expansion of educational facilities by the state and also to relatively better
enforcement of statutory provisions relating to child labour. The main obstacle in this is that an
artisan cannot afford to educate his wads though education is free. For him an uneducated child
is an asset. Desire to be educated becomes a double liability because of (a) loss of earnings if the
child doesn’t work (b) expenditure on education, howsoever small. Books and stationary is
expensive. Now the question that arises here is that will the parents want to spend money on
food, clothing and other necessities or purchase books. Millions remain unemployed in our
country after getting proper education supplemented by various degrees. So why would the
parents want to postpone the prospect of using their children as sources of income to an uncertain
date.

Illiteracy and ignorance of parents- A major portion of our population is illiterate. They just think
about the present rather than picturing the future. They fail to recognize the fact that if the
children are not educated then in the future they will grow up without any formal schooling,
knowledge of trade and sooner or later their youthful energies will get exhausted leaving them to
be dull, shiftless and driftless. It is ignored by them that there children may participate in many
educational oppurtunities, but child labour deprives the children of all educational oppurtunities
and minimizes their chances of vocational training. It also effects their health and they are
converted into labourers of low wages for all their lives. Thus Illiterate parents do not realize the
need for a proper physical, emotional and cognitive development of a child. As they are
uneducated and unexposed they do not realize the importance of education for their children. It is
also very difficult for immature minds and undeveloped bodies to understand and organize them
selves against exploitation in the absence of adult guidance. Thus it is necessary for the parents
to properly guide their children instead of forcing them into employment.

The process of protective labour legislation is slow which could not even cover the agriculture
and small scale industries. Secondly inspecting the machinery which is provided by the state
government is inadequate to check up the child labour. Existing laws or codes of conduct are
often violated. Even when laws or codes of conduct exist, they are often violated. Laws and
enforcement are often inadequate. Child labor laws around the world are often not enforced or
include exemptions that allow for child labor to persist in certain sectors, such as agriculture or
domestic work. Even in countries where strong child labor laws exist, labor departments and
labor inspection offices are often under-funded and under-staffed, or courts may fail to enforce
the laws. Similarly, many state governments allocate few resources to enforcing child labor laws.

The global economy intensifies the effects of some factors.

As multinational corporations expand across borders, countries often compete for jobs,
investment, and industry. This competition sometimes slows child labor reform by encouraging
corporations and governments to seek low labor costs by resisting international standards. Some
U.S. legislation has begun to include labor standards and child labor as criteria for preferential
trade and federal contracts. However, international free trade rules may prohibit consideration of
child labor or workers’ rights. The effects of poverty in developing countries are often worsened
by the large interest payments on development loans. The structural adjustments associated with
these loans often require governments to cut education, health, and other public programs,
further harming children and increasing pressure on them to become child laborers.

Children born out of wedlock, children with no parents and relatives, often do not find anyone to
support them. Thus they are forced to work for their own living. WILLINGNESS TO EXPLOIT
CHILDREN: This is at the root of the problem Even if a family is very poor, the incidence of
child labour will be very low unless there are people willing to exploit these children.

Child labour in India-

India accounts for the second highest number where child labour in the world is concerned.
Africa accounts for the highest number of children employed and exploited. The fact is that
across the length and breadth of the nation, children are in a pathetic condition. Child labor in
India is a human right issue for the whole world. It is a serious and extensive problem, with
many children under the age of fourteen working in carpet making factories, glass blowing units
and making fireworks with bare little hands. 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.
According to the statistics given by Indian government there are 20 million child laborers in the
country, while other agencies cites figures of between 60 and 115 million working children in
India which is the highest in the world13. The 1981 Census of India divided child labour into nine
industrial divisions: I. Cultivation, II. Agricultural Labour, III. Livestock, Forestry, Fishing,
Plantation, IV. Mining and Quarrying, V. Manufacturing, Processing, Servicing and Repairs, VI.
Construction, VII. Trade and Commerce, VIII. Transport, Storage and Communication, and IX.
14
Other Services. The most exploitative form of child labour includes child prostitution and
forced and bonded labour, which is found in some parts of the country. The situation of girl child
labourers in the country would call for particular attention.

Especially in Northern India the exploitation of little children for labor is an accepted practice.
On the other hand it is perceived by the local population as a necessity to alleviate poverty.
Carpet weaving industries pay very low wages to child laborers and make them work for long
hours in unhygienic conditions. Children working in such units are mainly migrant workers from
Northern India, who are shunted here by their families to earn some money and send it to them.
Their families dependence on their income, forces them to endure the onerous work conditions in
the carpet factories. The situation of child laborers in India is desperate. Children work for eight
hours at a stretch with only a small break for meals. The meals are also frugal and the children
are ill nourished. Most of the migrant children, who cannot go home, sleep at their work place,
which is very bad for their health and development. Seventy five percent of Indian population
still resides in rural areas and are very poor. Children in rural families who are ailing with
poverty perceive their children as an income generating resource to supplement the family

13
Human Rights Watch. 1996. The Small Hands of Slavery - Bonded Child Labor in India. New York:
Human Rights Watch.

14
Percentage distribution of child workers (in India) by industrial divisions in 1981 (Census of India 1981 cited in
Nangia 1987, 72).
income. Parents sacrifice their children’s education to the growing needs of their younger
siblings in such families and view them as wage earners for the entire clan.

Child labor being a conspicuous problem in India, its prevalence is evident in the child work
participation rate, which is more than that of other developing countries. Bonded labor traps the
growing child in a hostage like condition for years. Bonded labour "refers to the phenomenon of
children working in conditions of servitude in order to pay off a debt".15 The Estimated number
of bonded child labourers in India is placed at close to one million.16 The importance of formal
education is also not realized, as the parents find it more beneficial that a child gets absorbed in
economically beneficial activities at a young age. Moreover there is no access to proper
education in the remote areas of rural India for most people. The lack of proper education system
in the country leaves the children no choice but to get employment. The most inhuman and
merciless form of child exploitation is the age old practice of bonded labor in India. In this, the
child is sold to the loaner like a commodity for a certain period of time. His labor is treated like
security or collateral security and cunning rich men procure them for small sums at exorbitant
interest rates. The children who are sold as bonded labor only get a handful of coarse grain to
keep them alive in return for their labor. Sometimes their period of thrall extends for a life time,
and they have to simply toil hard and depend on the mercy of their owners, without any hope of
release or redemption. They get very little relaxation period leaving them fatigued and
bedraggled. The impecunious parents of the bonded child are usually poor, uneducated landless
laborers and the mortgagee is some big landlord, money lender or a big business man who
thrives on their vulnerability to such exploitation. Thus putting the landlord at an advantageous
position for exploitation of the poverty-stricken and uneducated. This practice of bonded child
labor is prevalent in many parts of rural India. It is very evident in the Vellore district of Tamil
Nadu. Here the bonded child is allowed to reside with his parents, if he presents himself for work
at 8 a.m. every day. The practice of child bonded labor persists like a scourge to humanity in
spite of many laws against it.17

Indian sweet shops are known for profiting from child labor which is equal to slavery. These
shop also profit from illegal retail activities and use small and vulnerable children in the

15
Infra Note 13
16
International Labour Organisation. 1992. World Labour Report. Geneva: International Labour Organisation.
17
www.childlabor.in/bonded-child-labour-in-india.htm
manufacturing process. Children as young as eleven and thirteen toil in these shops for hours on
end and suffer from exertion and fatigue. They have no fixed working hours and are constantly
threatened with the fear of being fired, are depressed and deprived of education and
entertainment. They have to work in unhygienic conditions and with very less food.

Hundreds and thousands of children are also toiling as bonded labor in India’s silk industry and
the government is not able to do anything to protect their rights. Those children who are working
in India’s silk industry are virtually slaves. Human rights organizations are calling on India to
free these children from bonded labor and rehabilitate them. The children are bound to work for
their employers in exchange of the loan taken by their parents or families, and are unable to leave
because of the debt. They are also paid very paltry sum for their labor. Most of these children are
Dalits. Dalits are called untouchables and belong to the lowest level in the hierarchy of the
Indian caste system.

The environmental degradation and lack of employment opportunities in the rural areas is one of
the major reasons resulting in the migration of people to big cities. On arrival in these big cities
the disintegration of these families takes place through alcoholism, unemployment, beggary, rag
picking or disillusionment of better life etc. Which 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. These children are also forced to indulge into beggary and
rag picking. A large number of girls and boys end up working as domestic workers on low wages
and unhealthy living conditions. Small boys can be seen working at road side tea stalls and shops
in deplorable conditions.

LAWS REGARDING CHILD LABOUR-

Since the time of independence the Government of India has made many laws to end child
18
labour. Article 24 of the Constitution provides for prohibition of employment of children in
factories, etc. No child below the age fourteen years shall be employed in work in any factory or
mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment. `Article 39 (e)19 of the Constitution

18
Infra Note 1
19
Infra Note 2
provides that the State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing:- that the health and
strength of workers, men and women, and the tender age of children are not abused and that
citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their age or
strength. Article 21 (A)20 of the constitution states the Right to Education :-The State shall
provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of 6 to 14 years in such manner
as the State, by law, may determine. Thus steps are being taken by the government from the time
of independence. Laws prohibiting child labour are stated in the Constitution of India itself. The
policies of the government regarding child labour have been in accordance with these
constitutional provisions. The Bonded Labour System Act of 1976 fulfills the Indian
Constitution’s directive of ending forced labour. The Act "frees all bonded laborers, cancels any
outstanding debts against them, prohibits the creation of new bondage agreements, and orders the
economic rehabilitation of freed bonded laborers by the state".21

Way back in 1979, Government formed the first committee called Gurupadswamy Committee
to study the issue of child labour and to suggest solutions to the existing problems. The
Committee examined the problem in detail and made some far-reaching recommendations. The
committee observed that as long as poverty continued, it would be very difficult to totally
eliminate child labour and hence, any attempt to abolish it through legal recourse would not be a
practical solution. The Committee felt that in the circumstances, the only alternative left was to
ban child labour in hazardous areas and to regulate and ameliorate the conditions of work in
other areas. It recommended that a multiple policy approach was required in dealing with the
problems of working children.22

Based on the recommendations of Gurupadaswamy Committee, The Child Labour

(Prohibition & Regulation) Act was enacted in 1986.The Act prohibits employment of children
in certain specified hazardous occupations and processes as provided in section 3 of this Act and
regulates the working conditions in others including sections 6, 7, 8, 9 etc. The list of hazardous
occupations and processes is progressively being expanded on the recommendation of Child
Labour Technical Advisory Committee constituted under the Section 5 of this Act. These

20
Constitution of India
21
Human Rights Watch. 1996. The Small Hands of Slavery - Bonded Child Labor in India. New York: Human Rights
Watch.
22
http://labour.nic.in/cwl/childlabour.htm
occupations as given in the section 3 include transport of passengers, goods or mails by railways;
work relating to selling of crackers and fireworks; automobile workshops and garages; slaughter
house etc. The list of hazardous processes include beedi making; carpet weaving; cement
manufacture; gem cutting and polishing; wool cleaning; tanning; rag pickind and scavenging etc.
Regulation of conditions of work of children has been provided in Part III of the Act which
includes, the period of work that is working hours.23 Accordingly no child is allowed to work
between 7p.m. and 8 a.m., also an interval of minimum one hour has to be there between every
three hours of work. A child is not allowed to work for more than six hours. Every child labour
has to be provided with a weekly holiday24. A register has to be maintained by the employer
containing details of the child labour employed in his/her establishment25. This register will be
checked by the inspector as appointed by this Act. The section 13 of this Act looks into the
health and conditions of the child labour. It has given certain perimeters according to which the
establishments have to maintain the health conditions suited for child labour. Persons violating
section 3 of this Act will get imprisonment for 3 months which may be extended upto one year.
Whoever has already been convicted under section 3 again commits the same violation will be
imprisoned upto 6 months which may be extended upto 2 years. Person violating section 9, 11,
12, 13 will face imprisonment of month or fine of rs.10,000. No court inferior to that of a
Metropolitan Magistrate or a Magistrate of the first class shall try any offence under this Act. 26
Also Ammendments to the Certain Acts was done through the Child Labour (Prohibition and
Regulation) Act,1986. These Acts are The Rules the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, The
Plantations Labour Act, 1951, The Merchant Shipping Act 1958, The Motor Transport Workers
Act, 1961.

In harmony with the above approach, a National Policy on Child Labour was formulated in 1987.
This Policy focuses on rehabilitation of children working in hazardous occupations & processes
as stated in Section 3 of the Child Labour Act. The Action Plan outlined in the Policy for
tackling this problem is as follows:

23
Section 7 Child Labour (Prohibition and regulation) Act 1986, and Rules
24
Section 8 Ibid
25
Section 11 Ibid
26
Section 16(3) Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 and Rules
Legislative Action Plan for the proper enforcement of Child Labour Act 1986, and other labour
laws to ensure that children are not employed in hazardous employments27, and that the working
conditions of children working in non-hazardous areas are regulated in accordance with the
provisions of the Child Labour Act28. It also includes further identification of additional
occupations and processes, which are detrimental to the health and safety of the children and
which have not been provided in the Child Labour Act.

Inclination of the General Developmental Programmes of the Government for Benefiting Child
Labour – Poverty being the root cause of child labour, this action plan emphasizes the need to
cover these children and their families also under various poverty alleviation and employment
generation programmes of the Government of India.

Project Based Plan of Action envisages starting of projects in areas with high concentration of
child labour. Pursuant to this, in 1988, the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme was
launched in 9 districts of high child labour endemicity in the country. The Scheme includes
running of special schools for child labour withdrawn from work. In the special schools, these
children are provided formal/non-formal education along with vocational training, a stipend of
Rs.100 per month, supplementary nutrition and regular health check ups so as to prepare them to
join regular mainstream schools. Under the Scheme, funds are given to the District Collectors for
running special schools for child labour. Most of these schools are run by the NGOs in the
district.

State Governments, which are the appropriate implementing authorities, have been conducting
regular inspections and raids to detect cases of violations.29 Since poverty is the root cause of this
problem, and enforcement alone cannot help solve it, Government has been laying a lot of
emphasis on the rehabilitation of these children and on improving the economic conditions of
their families. The coverage of the NCLP Scheme has increased from 12 districts in 1988 to 100
districts in the 9th Plan to 250 districts during the 10th Plan.

27
Section 3 Ibid
28
Part III Ibid
29
http://labour.nic.in/cwl/childlabour.htm
Strategy for the elimination of child labour under the 10th Plan

This plan aimed at the mergence of elimination of child labour schemes with the other
developmental schemes and bringing qualitative changes in the Scheme. This was needed
because, if the factors leading to the emergence of child labour are eliminated then it would
result in the reduction of child labour. Some of the salient points of the 10th Plan Strategy are as
follows:

Strictly focused action to eliminate child labour in the hazardous occupations and processes by
the end of the Plan period.

Expansion of National Child Labour Projects to from 100 to 250 districts.

Linking the child labour elimination efforts with the Scheme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan of
Ministry of Human Resource Development to ensure that children in the age group of 5-8 years
get directly admitted to regular schools and that the older working children are mainstreamed to
the formal education system through special schools functioning under the NCLP Scheme.

Convergence with other Schemes of the Departments of Education, Rural Development, Health
and Women and Child Development for the ultimate attainment of the objective in a time bound
manner.

In addition, 21 districts have been covered under INDUS, a similar Scheme for rehabilitation of
child labour in cooperation with US Department of Labour. Implementation of this Project was
recently reviewed during the visit of Mr. Steven Law, Deputy Secretary of State, from the USA.
30
For the Districts not covered under these two Schemes, Government is also providing funds
directly to the NGOs under the Ministry’s Grants-in-aid Scheme for running Special Schools for
rehabilitation of child labour, thereby providing for a greater role and cooperation of the civil
society in combating this menace.

There has been a quantum jump in budgetary allocation during the 10th Plan. Government has
allocated Rs. 602 crores for the Scheme during the 10th Plan, as against an expenditure of Rs.

30
178 crores in the 9th Plan. The resources set aside for combating this evil in the Ministry is
around 50 per cent of its total annual budget.31

Conclusion-

Today 52% of the workforce of India is employed in agriculture. This shows the heavy reliance
of the Indian economy on agiculture. It is observed that the majority of rural child workers
(84.29%) are employed in cultivation and agricultural labour. Urban child labourers are
distributed differently, 39.16% of them are involved in manufacturing, processing, servicing and
repairs. Although more children are involved in agriculturally related jobs but human rights
organizations tend to focus on the manufacturing types of child labour because most children in
these situations are bonded labourers.32 On the other hand this also means that a major portion of
the child labour is neglected as laws are not being formulated for children involved in
agricultural activities. Thus laws and rules regarding child labour are actually being formulated
for a very small section of the population involved.

The Child Labour Act 1986 prohibits the employment of children in certain hazardous
occuptations and it has only provided regulations for conditions in working for other non-
hazardous occupations. This is in contradiction with the Governments policy of compulsory
education. As the Child Labour Act very well allows working of children in non-hazardous
occupations except from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m. Now the question that arises here is that if a child will
work during the daytime then when will he attend school? Thus the government of India has
implemented the Child Labour Act in 1986 which outlaws child labour in certain areas only and
sets the minimum age of employment at fourteen. This Act falls short of making all child labour
illegal, and fails to meet the ILO guideline concerning the minimum age of employment set at
fifteen years of age.

It is the fundamental right of a child to receive education and the policy of compulsory education
makes it mandatory for all school aged children to attend school. School aged children include

31
http://labour.nic.in/cwl/childlabour.htm
32
Percentage distribution of child workers (in India) by industrial divisions in 1981 (Census of India 1981 cited in
Nangia 1987, 72).
children uptill the age of 18 years. Accordingly the age of a child should be increased in the
definition of a child in various laws prevalent in our system.

The state of education of the education system in India needs to be improved drastically. High
illiteracy and dropout rates reflect the inadequacy of the educational system prevalent in our
counry. Poverty plays a role in the ineffectiveness of the educational system. Dropout rates are
high because children are forced to work in order to support their families. The attitudes of the
people also contribute to the lack of enrollment -- parents feel that work develops skills that can
be used to earn an income, while education does not help in this matter. Compulsory education
may help in regard to these attitudes. The concept of compulsory education, where all school
aged children are required to attend school, combats the force of poverty that pulls children out
of school. Also if the children will be attending school then they will not have the time to work
elsewhere. Compulsory education in itself will help reduce the social evil of child labour to a
great extent. An example of a country where compulsory education has worked to reduce child
labour is Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government decided to enforce compulsory education in the
1920’s and 1930’s (Weiner 1991, 173). With this compulsory education policy, school
participation rates rose from 58 percent in 1946 to 74 percent in 1963 (Weiner 1991, 173). The
literacy rate also increased from 58 percent in 1946 to 86 percent in 1984 (Weiner 1991, 172).
The corresponding result has been that the employment rate of children in the ten to fourteen age
group has shown a substantial decline from 13 percent in 1946 to 6.2 percent in 1963 (Weiner
1991, 174), and currently stands at 5.3% for males and 4.6% for females These trends lead
Weiner (1991) to the conclusion that "Sri Lanka has achieved a remarkably high enrollment rate,
high retention rate, and a corresponding decline in child labor". 33

The Indian state of Kerala distinguishes itself from the rest of India with its educational system.
The government of Kerala allocates more funds to education than any other state, with a per
capita expenditure of 11.5 rupees compared to the Indian average of 7.8 rupees.34It is not only
the expenditure of more funds, but where the funds are used that make the difference. Kerala
spends more money on "mass education than colleges and universities"35. No correlation exists
between expenditure on education and literacy when comparing different countries because some

33
International Labour Organization. 1995. World Labour Report. Geneva: International Labour Organization.
34
Weiner, M. 1991. The Child and the State in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Pg 175.
35
Ibid,Pg 173
countries, such as India, spend more funds on higher education than primary education (Weiner
1991, 160). Kerala’s emphasis on primary education has lead to a dropout rate of close to 0%, a
literacy rate of 94% for males and 86% for females (The World Bank 1995, 113), and a low child
work participation rate of 1.9% (in 1971) compared to the Indian average of 7.1% in 1971.36
Weiner (1991) points out that "The Kerala government has made no special effort to end child
labor. It is the expansion of the school system rather than the enforcement of labor legislation
that has reduced the amount of child labor".

Child labour can be eradicated not just by focusing on any one determinant like education alone.
Lot many factors lead to child labour which have been discussed in this article earlier. The most
important of these factors being poverty. Poverty pushes these children towards child labour.
They need to work in order for them and their family to survive. If child labour really has to be
removed from India then government has to make policies fighting the causes of child labour and
see that they are implemented properly. As lack of implementation of the government policies is
another important factor for the present status of child labour in the country. Child labour cannot
be diminished just by forming laws against it, but by fighting against its causes and for this a
revolution has to be brought amongst the minds of the people.

36
Ibid