Child labour laws must be based on the right of all children to a childhood.
Ban it or regulate it, the debate over child labour seems unending.
Meantime, the numbers of children compelled to work, mostly because of
poverty, continue to grow. With all this talk about “Make in India,” we
so easily forget that a substantial portion of what is made in India is
crafted by the hands of poor children who ought to be in school rather
than working in fields, forests, mines, shops, homes or in highly
hazardous sweatshops. The fact of children working in all kinds of
occupations remains one of India’s worst-kept secrets.
Tinkering with a law will not eliminate what appears to be an
intractable social problem. In 2012, the former United Progressive
Alliance government attempted to tweak the existing Child Labour
(Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986. It introduced a bill to amend
the 1986 act that would have effectively prohibited all children below
14 years of age from any occupation that would keep them out of school.
The amendment would also have banned children between 14 and 18 years of
age from working in hazardous industries (earlier, that applied only to
children less than 14 years old). While the former was to ensure that
children between the ages of 6 and 14 years could be enrolled in schools
under the Right to Education Act, 2009, the latter was being brought in
to comply with the International Labour Organization’s Convention on
conditions of work of adolescents.
The amendment never went through although it was introduced in
Parliament. Now the National Democratic Alliance government is
reportedly planning to introduce another amendment to the law. Arguing
that banning children from engaging in any form of work leads to
“inspector raj” and places inordinate powers in the hands of labour
inspectors, the government appears to be considering allowing children
to work with their families in certain occupations. These include
working in the fields or forests, or in home-based industries. Although
there is to be a condition that such work participation is permitted
only during vacations or after school, how can this be monitored? Child
rights activists argue that if such an amendment is made, inevitably the
most affected would be girls as parents could then legitimately keep
their daughters at home to engage in family occupations. This would go
directly against the efforts to increase the enrolment of girls in
school that is substantially lower than that of boys.
In any case, irrespective of the earlier ban on children under 14
years of age working in hazardous industries, hundreds of them continue
to work in factories making firecrackers and matchboxes, and in the
carpet industry. Worse still, the ban has made little difference to
children employed in mines where entire families are virtually bonded to
contractors. These children have little chance of schooling in any case
as their parents migrate constantly to find work. In such a
poverty-ridden and transient existence, the provisions of a law that is
mostly followed in the breach make little material difference.
Apart from the known areas where children are employed, in recent
years there has been a spurt of children being used for domestic work.
With the increase in urbanisation and the growth of a middle class that
can employ domestic help, children become a ready choice. Every now and
then, the curtain of silence surrounding this is flung apart when a
child escapes with tales of horror. But mostly, the existence of child
labour in domestic work remains hidden and unreported. A forthcoming
book by Harsh Mander quotes a shocking statistic by the National
Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector that 20% of all
domestic workers are children under 14 years, that is, one out of every
five workers.
There is no pat solution to end child labour. That is evident after
years of effort by many non-governmental organisations, as well as by
government. Giving children the right to be educated is a very small
step. It has to be followed up with specific enabling tools such as
accessible and affordable schools, subsidised books and uniforms,
transport and other special assistance. Where governments have done
this, as in Bihar for instance, there has been a marked increase in
enrolment, especially of girls.
What exactly does the government hope to achieve by amending the law
as proposed? While one can argue that banning child labour does nothing
more than drive the problem underground, should legitimising the use of
children as workers in farms and in home-based industries be seen as the
solution? Surely, in principle, a way has to be found so that all
children can have a childhood—to learn how to read and write, to play,
to sing, to dance. If that is the vision, then steps have to be taken to
fulfil it. The argument that we will have to wait until poverty is
abolished before poor children can hope to escape work is plain wrong.
Getting children out of the cycle of exploitation and into schools
breaks the vicious cycle of poverty. To do this, our lawmakers must
genuinely believe that using children’s labour is unacceptable.
