Issues of Child Labour

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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 childs 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

Issues of Child Labour

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 childs 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." Childrens 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 childrens 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. "Childrens work needs to be seen as happening along a continuum, with destructive or exploitative work at one end and beneficial work - promoting or enhancing childrens 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 childs

Issues of Child Labour

development." Other social scientists have slightly different ways of drawing the line between acceptable and unacceptable work.

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

Issues of Child Labour

the poor were expected to help towards the family budget, often working long hours in dangerous jobs and low wages. In England and Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered cotton mills were described as children.

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. 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. 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 1118 should work a maximum of 12 hours per day, children aged 911 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.

By 1900, there were 1.7 million child labourers reported in American industry under the age of fifteen. The number of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs for wages climbed to 2 million in 1910. Child labour is still common in some parts of the world, it can be factory work, mining, 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

Issues of Child Labour

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 housesfar 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. 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. "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."

CausesChild 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 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

Issues of Child Labour

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 worlds 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 dont 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

Issues of Child Labour

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 arent 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

Issues of Child Labour

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.

Issues of Child Labour

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 doesnt 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

Issues of Child Labour

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 their 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 themselves 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

Issues of Child Labour

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 IndiaIndia 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 world. 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. Other Services. The most exploitative form of child labour includes child prostitution

Issues of Child Labour

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 income. Parents sacrifice their childrens 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". The Estimated number of bonded child labourers in India is placed at close to one million. 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

Issues of Child Labour

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. 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 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 Indias silk industry and the government is not able to do anything to protect their rights. Those children who are working in Indias 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

Issues of Child Labour

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 LABOURSince the time of independence the Government of India has made many laws to end child 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) of the Constitution 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) 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 Constitutions 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". 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

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in other areas. It recommended that a multiple policy approach was required in dealing with the problems of working children. 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 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. 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 holiday. A register has to be maintained by the employer containing details of the child labour employed in his/her establishment. 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. 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

Issues of Child Labour

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: 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 employments, and that the working conditions of children working in non-hazardous areas are regulated in accordance with the provisions of the Child Labour Act. 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 checkups 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. 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

Issues of Child Labour

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. 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. For the Districts not covered under these two Schemes, Government is also providing funds directly to the NGOs under the Ministrys 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

Issues of Child Labour

of Rs. 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. ConclusionToday 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. 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 nonhazardous 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 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.

Issues of Child Labour

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 1920s and 1930s (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". 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. It 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". No correlation exists between expenditure on education and literacy when comparing different countries because some countries, such as India, spend more funds on higher education than primary education (Weiner 1991, 160). Keralas 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

Issues of Child Labour

1971. 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.

Issues of Child Labour