The Child Labor Situation in India
Bidhan Chandra

Article 24 of the Indian Constitution provides that “ No child labour below the age of 14 years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment .” Similarly, Article 39(e) and (f) of the Directive Principles of State policy enshrined in the constitution of India requires the state to direct its policy towards securing –“that the health and strength of workers, men and women, and the tender age of children are not abused....”, “ that childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment”. In India the universalization of primary education and eradication of child labour are two issues that have received serious attention from the Government since the adoption of the constitution.

The following are the enactments dealing with the employment of children.

1.The Children (Pledging of Labour) Act 1933
2.The Employment of children Act 1948
3.The Minimum Wage Act 1948
4.The Factories Act 1948
5.The Plantation Labour Act 1951
6.The Merchant Shipping Act 1958
7.The Motor Transport Workers Act 1961
8.The Apprentices Act 1961
9.The Atomic Energy Act 1962
10.The Bidi and Cigar Workers ( Condition & Employment) Act 1966
11.The Shops and Establishment Acts in various States.
12.Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act 1986

The provisions of 1986 Act make the employment of children below 14 years of age prohibited in certain hazardous occupations (currently 16 occupations and 65 processes). The act also contains provisions to regulate the working conditions in occupations permitted by it to employ children by fixing norms for working hours and weekly holidays. It also specifies rules for protecting health and safety of Children in workplaces.

A NATIONAL POLICY ON CHILD LABOUR was formulated in 1987 to tackle the problem in 3 ways :

1. LEGISLATIVE ACTION PLAN – for strict enforcement of Child Labour Act.
2. FOCUSING OF GENERAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME FOR BENEFITING CHILD LABOUR : As poverty is the root cause of child labour, the action plan emphasizes the need to cover these children and their families also under various poverty alleviation and employment generation schemes of the Government.
3. PROJECT BASED PLAN OF ACTION: Under NATIONAL CHILD LABOUR PROJECT (NCLP) scheme , children withdrawn from hazardous work go to special schools where they are given bridging education, pre-vocational scheme, stipend ,mid-day meal, healthcare facilities.

Despite all the legislations the problem of child labour is acute mainly because conviction rate is very low. It is not that only the hospitality industry that employs child labour, but many other industries shown below are employing child labour.

No wonder that the world’s highest number of working children is in India. ILO estimates that 218 million children were engaged in various sectors, of which 126 million engaged in hazardous work.

Legislation alone cannot resolve this complex issue and a humanitarian approach is required for minimizing the problem.

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