INTRODUCTION

Child labour is undoubtedly a human rights issue. It is not only exploitative but also endangers
childrens physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and moral development. It perpetuates
poverty because a child labour, deprived of education or healthy physical development, is likely
to become an adult with low earning prospects. This is a vicious cycle which apart from ruining
the lives of many results in an overall backwardness in the masses.

Millions of children around the world are trapped in child labour, depriving them of their
childhood, their health and education, and condemning them to a life of poverty and want. Of
course, there is work that children do to help their families in ways that are neither harmful nor
exploitative. But many children are stuck in unacceptable work for children a serious
violation of their rights.

Recent global estimates based on data of UNICEF, the ILO and the World Bank indicate that
168 million children aged 5 to 17 are engaged in child labour. Millions of them suffer in the
other worst forms of child labour, including slavery and slavery-like practices such as forced
and bonded labour and child soldiering, sexual exploitation, or are used by adults in illicit
activities, including drug trafficking.

Despite a steady decline in child labour, progress is far too slow. At current rates, more than
100 million children will still be trapped in child labour by 2020. The continuing persistence
of child labour poses a threat to national economies and has severe negative short and long
term consequences for the fulfilment of childrens rights guaranteed by the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) including denial of education and frequent
exposure to violence.

Child labour spans various sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing, quarrying and
mining, and domestic service. Often, it is hidden from the public eye. For example, the
estimated 15.5 million child domestic workers worldwide mostly girls are often hardly
visible and face many hazards. Child labour is the combined product of many factors, such as
poverty, social norms condoning it, lack of decent work opportunities for adults and
adolescents, migration, and emergencies.

Child labour reinforces intergenerational cycles of poverty, undermines national economies

and impedes achieving progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is not
only a cause, but also a consequence of social inequities reinforced by discrimination. Children
from indigenous groups or lower castes are more likely to drop out of school to work. Migrant
children are also vulnerable to hidden and illicit labour.

Moreover, conceptualising child labour as a human rights issue gives the victim with the
authority to hold violators liable. Human rights generate legal grounds for political activity and
expression, because they entail greater moral force than ordinary legal obligations. Children
are right holders with the potential to make valuable contributions to their own present and
future wellbeing as well as to the social and economic development of the society and thus they
should under no circumstances be perceived as passive and vulnerable.

In this paper we shall firstly trace the slow orientation of child labour laws to include human
rights perspective internationally, and then evaluate current Indian laws and policies from a
human rights perspective.

RESEARCH METHADOLOGY

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

According to the UNICEF report on the "Roots of child labour" published in 1997 child labour
is in increasing rate in poor countries poverty is the main reason behind child labour system.
The combination of poverty and the lack of social security network are also responsible for
bonded child labour. For the poor, there are few credit sources and even if there are sources
like co-operative loan bank loan etc available any poor families manage to satisfy the essential
criteria related to access those. Here enters the local money lenders with exorbitant high interest
rates. Most of the times it is not possible for the poor to return back those loans and the parents
exchange their child's labour to local money lenders. Since the earnings of bonded child labours
are less than the interest on the loan, these bonded children are forced to work. Again, lower
caste children lend to be pushed in to child labour because of their family's poverty furthermore
the attitude of parents also contribute the child labour. Some parents feel that children should
work in order to develop skills useful in the job market instead of taking advantage of formal
education.
OBJECTIVES

What censes the massive growth of child labour despite Constitutional protections
provided for it?

How child labour is a clear violation of human rights; and

How it is adversely effecting the health of childrens across the world

What are the efforts of the Governments in this regard and

How the judiciary has attempted to fight against child labour

RESEARCH METHADOLOGY

The method of research will be mainly doctrinal research. The research paper is based on the
method of drawing inference from various sources adopted and thus reaching to a final
conclusion. The data is collected from various government organization and secondary source
of information like published reports, journals, books and other literature available on the
internet.

SOURCES

Both primary and secondary sources of data have been relied upon. Primary sources includes
acts, rules, regulations and judgments. Secondary sources used include journal articles,
commentaries and theoretical works.

PROPOSED CHAPTERISATION

The content in this paper has been organized in 7 chapters:

Chapter 1 includes introduction which deals with History of child labour, Concept of child
labour, Problems to define child labour, Children are the sources of wealth creation, Domestic
child labour and Industrial child labour. Second chapter deals with Review of Literature while
Chapter 3 deals with Area under Study and Research Methodology. Chapter 4 looks upon the
Incidence of Child Labour in India Based upon Secondary Data and Chapter 5 states Various
Enactments and Their Implementation. Chapter 6 mentions the Effects of Child Labour on
Health and Future and lastly Chapter 7 gives the Conclusions and Suggestions.