A STUDY OF CHILD LABOUR in

India
--MAGNITUDE AND
CHALLANGES

SUBMITTED TO: NAZISH MA’AM

SUBMITTED BY: SAMI SAHIL

ABSTRACT
Children in Indian society has always been a topic less spoken or discussed. The reasons of
the same can be traced back to the socio-cultural background of the country. In the world
children are taken as the greatest gift to humanity. Childhood is an important stage of human
development as it holds the potential to the future of any society. Children who are brought
up in an environment which is helpful to their intellectual, physical and social development
will go on to be responsible and productive part of the society. Thus every society links its
future to the present status of its children.

Today child has been defined differently by different agencies as per their view and there is a
very large gap and contradiction in these definitions.

This paper attempts to summaries the different meaning to the word child and also give a
brief overview of the magnitude of the issue from an Indian perspective.An attempt has been made to
study the government policy documents and list down the actions as proposed and implemented by
Indian government in the 11th 5 year plan which has just ended in 2012.

INTRODUCTION

Child labour refers to the employment of children in any work that deprives children of their childhood,
interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and that is mentally, physically, socially or morally
dangerous and harmful. This practice is considered exploitative by many international. Legislations across
the world prohibit child labour. These laws do not consider all work by children as child labour; exceptions
include work by child artists, supervised training, certain categories of work such as those by Amish
children, some forms of child work common among indigenous American children, and others. Child labour
in India is addressed by the Child Labour Act 1986 and National Child Labour project.

Today in India, there are more than after 10.12 million children who are spending their childhood learning
carpet-weaving, beedi-rolling, domestic labour, agriculture, firework and apparel manufacture and countless
other occupations instead of going to school and receiving quality education. Child labor is work that harms
children or keeps them from attending school. Around the world and in the U. S., growing gaps between rich
and poor in recent decades have forced millions of young children out of school and into work.

The International Labor Organization estimates that 215 million children between the ages of 5 and 17
currently work under conditions that are considered illegal, hazardous, or extremely exploitative. Underage
children work at all sorts of jobs around the world, usually because they and their families are extremely
poor. Large numbers of children work in commercial agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, mining, and
domestic service. Some children work in illicit activities like the drug trade and prostitution or other
traumatic activities such as serving as soldiers.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF CHILD LABOUR

Child labour involves at least one of the following:

 Violates a nation’s minimum wage laws

 Threatens children’s physical, mental, or emotional well-being

 Involves intolerable abuse, such as child slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced
labor, or illicit activities

 Prevents children from going to school

 Uses children to undermine labor standards

CAUSES FOR CHILD LABOUR

PRIMARY CAUSES

International Labour Organisation (ILO) suggests poverty is the greatest single cause behind child labour.
For impoverished households, income from a child's work is usually crucial for his or her own survival or for
that of the household. Income from working children, even if small, may be between 25 to 40% of the
household income. Other scholars such as Harsch on African child labour, and Edmonds and Pavcnik on
global child labour have reached the same conclusion. Lack of meaningful alternatives, such as affordable
schools and quality education, according to ILO, is another major factor driving children to harmful labour.
Children work because they have nothing better to do. Many communities, particularly rural areas where
between 60–70% of child labour is prevalent, do not possess adequate school facilities. Even when schools
are sometimes available, they are too far away, difficult to reach, unaffordable or the quality of education is
so poor that parents wonder if going to school is really worth it.

CULTURAL CAUSES

In European history when child labour was common, as well as in contemporary child labour of modern

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world, certain cultural beliefs have rationalized child labour and thereby encouraged it. Some view that work
is good for the character-building and skill development of children. In many cultures, particular where
informal economy and small household businesses thrive, the cultural tradition is that children follow in their
parents' footsteps; child labour then is a means to learn and practice that trade from a very early age.
Similarly, in many cultures the education of girls is less valued or girls are simply not expected to need
formal schooling, and these girls pushed into child labour such as providing domestic services. Child labour
in Brazil, leaving after collecting recyclables from a landfill. Agriculture deploys 70% of the world's child
labour.

MACROECONOMIC CAUSES

Biggeri and Mehrotra have studied the macroeconomic factors that encourage child labour. They focus their
study on five Asian nations including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. They suggest that
child labour is a serious problem in all five, but it is not a new problem. Macroeconomic causes encouraged
widespread child labour across the world, over most of human history. They suggest that the causes for child
labour include both the demand and the supply side. While poverty and unavailability of good schools
explain the child labour supply side, they suggest that the growth of low paying informal economy rather
than higher paying formal economy is amongst the causes of the demand side. Other scholars too suggest
that inflexible labour market, size of informal economy, inability of industries to scale up and lack of modern
manufacturing technologies are major macroeconomic factors affecting demand and acceptability of child
labour. Other causes are; d). have or increase the income of a poor family e).To reduce the labor cost in a
production organization f). reasons for engaging as domestic aid as the children are less doubtful about
dishonesty or less liable to misbehave or be violent.

PROBLEM OF CHILD LABOR IN INDIA:

Child Labor has become a big problem in India. It is no doubt, a socio-economic problem. A national survey
had shown that more than 16 million children between eight to fourteen are largely appointed in hotels and
boarding houses, in tea-shops, restaurants, in commercial firms, in factories and fisheries. They are engaged
into all sorts of work for the sake of earning something for the family. As a result, they are also deprived of
primary education, without which chance of success in life is remote. Children are employed in agricultural
labor; they drive carts and take care of cattle. Girl children have to act as maid servants and baby sitters.
They cook and clean, they wash clothes and collect fuel. It is true that a number of laws have been imposed
to prevent child labor. But they are more flouted than obeyed.

The ban has been imposed to save the children from hazardous works and to restore their care-free
childhood. But some opines that if the ban is imposed without the arrangements of proper rehabilitation of
the child workers, it would be of no effect. There is no state which is free from the evil of the curse of child

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labor is not continued to India alone. It has widely spread to such developing countries as Nepal, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Burma and Sri Lanka.Poverty is not the only factor responsible for children being engaged as
labor. They came cheaper and their parents don’t have employment opportunities.

BONDED CHILD LABOUR

Bonded child labour is hidden phenomenon’s as majority of them are found in informal sector .Bonded
labour means the employment of a person against a loan or debt or social obligation by the family of the
child or family as a whole. It is a form of slavery.Chilren who are bonded with their family or inherit debt
from their parents are often found in agriculture sector or assisting their families in brick kilns, and stone
quarries.Indivudual pledging of children is a growing occurrence that usually leads to trafficking of children
to urban areas for employment and have children working in small production houses versus factories.

Bonded labourers in India are mostly migrants’ workers, which open them up to more exploitation. So they
mostly come from low caste groups’ .Boded labourers are at very high risk for physical and sexual abuse and
neglect sometimes leading to death .The often is psychologically and mentally disturbed and have not learnt
many social skills or survival skills.

CONSEQUENCES OF CHILD LABOUR

The negative impact on the physiological and psychological levels of children includes specific concerns of
child labor and its consequences on mental health. It is worth noting that one-third of children of the
developing world are failing to complete even 4 years of education. The analysis of factors leading to
engagement of children in hazardous factors elucidated socioeconomic factors as one of the important
determinants. Poverty is considered as one of the contributory factors in child labor.

Mental well being is less frequently researched in child labor. A retrospective cohort study in Morocco
randomly examined 200 children working in the handicraft sector and found a high prevalence of respiratory,
digestive and skin conditions, as well as mental health presentations such as migraines, insomnia, irritability,
enuresis and asthenia.

In a cross-sectional survey, urban Lebanese children aged 10–17, working full-time in small industrial shops,
were compared with non-working matched school children. Majority of them had poor physical health,
predominantly marked with skin lesions or ear complaints and social care needs. Similarly, authors aimed to
find out consequences in children in Lebanon exposed to solvents, and found significantly higher rates of
lightheadedness, fatigue, impaired memory and depression compared with a non-exposed group. A cross-
sectional study in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, used diagnostic interviews to assess prevalence of mental disorders

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in 528 child laborers and street workers, child domestics and private enterprise workers aged between 5 and
15 years. The prevalence of mental disorders was noted to be as high as 20.1% compared with 12.5% in the
general population. Further study to establish the association between labor-related variables and mental
health problems was carried out among 780 children engaged in labor (aged 9–18 years) in the Gaza Strip.
Mental health problems of children in labor were likely to be associated with socioeconomic determinants as
well as factors related to their underage employment.

The physical and social consequences are deliberated by researchers; however, mental health area has not
been explored so much. Studies are lacking even in Indian scenario regarding impact of child labor on mental
health.

CHILD LABOUR AND EXPLOITATION

Nearly a quarter of a million children, or 16 out of every 100 children worldwide, are engaged in exploitative
child labour—in violation of Convention on the Rights of the Child and international labour standards.
Almost three-quarters of them work in hazardous environments, such as mines or factories, or with
dangerous substances, such as chemicals. The majority of child labourers are ―invisible‖ – hidden from sight
and behind the reach of the law. Many of these children are not only being exploited, they are often being
denied education, basic health care, adequate nutrition, leisure time and the safety and security of their
families and communities. In general, girls' domestic work is the most invisible of all and there is some
evidence that girls may constitute the majority of child workers.UNICEF regards education as a powerful
means of preventing child labour. Children who are in school are at less risk of exploitation. Conversely,
children who are working and have an opportunity to learn are in a better position to improve their situation.
Since 1986 UNICEF has sponsored an inter-regional programme called "Education as a Preventive Strategy,
which seeks to respond to three main challenges:

 Access. Getting working children into the classroom. Strategies to achieve this include early childhood
programmes, distance learning, bilingual education and flexible scheduling of classes, so that children who
are working can also attend school.

 Second chance opportunities. Getting working children in school often requires transitional arrangements,
including non-formal education and accelerated classes.

 Retention. Keeping children at risk of dropping out because of economic, cultural and social reasons, in
school. Interventions include financial incentives to families, and improving the quality of education by
integrating life skills and livelihood components.

Among the 35 countries where the programme is operating is India. In Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh, for
example, children are often employed in the glass bangle industry to help their families make ends meet.
Although child labour is strictly prohibited by law, enforcement rarely occurs in the homes or small informal

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enterprises where most of these children can be found. Making a bangle involves 32 steps, many of which
can be hazardous to children: heating and joining the ends of the bangle over a kerosene flame; cutting
designs in the bangles using fast moving blades; and using chemical-based silver and gold polish for
decoration.

MAGNITUDE OF CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA

The magnitude of child labour in India has been witnessing enormous decline in the last two decades, both in
terms of magnitude and workforce participation rates. Evidence drawn from the National Sample Survey data
suggest that India’s child workforce during 2004-05 was estimated at little over nine million (9.07 million) as
against twenty-one and half million (21.55 million) in 1983. During this period, the number of child
employment has declined sharply by 12.48 million. There is considerable fall in child workforce is observed
among boys than girls. The corresponding fall in boys and girls workforce during 1983 to 2004- 05 is
observed to have decreased from 12.06 to 4.76 million, and 9.49 to 4.31 million, respectively. In effect, the
gender difference that existed between boys and girls (adverse against boys) during the early 1980s has
almost dissipated in recent years, the difference being slowed down from 2.57 million to roughly 0.45
million.

However, in absolute numbers, the problem is large. As per the Census 2001, there are 1.26 crores
economically active children in the age-group of 5-14 years. It was 1.13 crores in the 1991 Census. As per
NSSO survey 2009-10, the working children are estimated at 49.84 lakh which shows a declining trend. As
per the Global Report on Child Labour published by International Labour Organization last year, the activity
rate of children in the age groupof 5-14 years is 5.1 per cent in Latin America and Caribbean Region, which
is the lowest in the world. In the Asia-Pacific Region, it is 18.8 per cent. In comparison to that, the activity
rate of children in India, as per 2001 census is 5 percent.

LEGISLATION FOR CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA

The first protective legislation for child labour in India was seen in 1881 in the form if Indian factories Act
which had the provisions prohibiting employment of children below 7 years, limiting the working hours for
children to 9 hours a day and providing 4 holidays in a month and rest hours. This was actually made by the
ruling British Government to decrease the production in Indian industries through some legal restrictions. It
may be submitted that the labour legislations in India including protective legislation for children have been
greatly influenced with the result of various Conventions and Recommendations adopted by International
Labour Organisation. Besides Constitutional provisions, there are several legislative enactments which
Provide legal protection to children in various occupations

JUDICIAL EFFORTS TOWARDS THE PROBLEM OF CHILD LABOUR

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On 10th December 1996 in Writ Petition (Civil) No.465/1986 on MC Mehta verses State of Tamil Nadu, the
Supreme Court of India, gave certain directions on the issue of elimination of child labour. The main features
of judgment are as under

 Survey for identification of working children;

 Withdrawal of children working in hazardous industry and ensuring their education in appropriate
institutions;

 Contribution @ Rs.20,000/- per child to be paid by the offending employers of children to a welfare fund to
be established for this purpose;

 Employment to one adult member of the family of the child so withdrawn from work and it that is not
possible a contribution of Rs.5,000/- to the welfare fund to be made by the State Government;

 Financial assistance to the families of the children so withdrawn to be paid -out of the interest earnings on
the corpus of Rs.20,000/25,000 deposited in the welfare fund as long as the child is actually sent to the
schools;

 Regulating hours of work for children working in non-hazardous occupations so that their working hours
do not exceed six hours per day and education for at least two hours is ensured.

The entire expenditure on education is to be borne by the concerned employer.

CONCLUSION

Government has accordingly been taking proactive steps to tackle this problem through strict enforcement of

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legislative provisions along with simultaneous rehabilitative measures. State Governments, which are the
appropriate implementing authorities, have been conducting regular inspections and raids to detect cases of
violations. 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.

REFERENCES

[1] Child Labour in India – Rights, Welfare and Protection by Dipak Das, 2011

[2] Government of India, Planning Commission, Working Group for Social inclusion of Vulnerable
Grouplike Child Labour and Bonded and Migrant Labour in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17)

[3] India, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Annual Report 2012-13, p. 91

[4] Problems of Child Labour in India by Raj Kumar Sen and Asis Das Gupta (Editors), 2003