Children are the greatest gift to humanity and Childhood is an important and impressionable stage of human development as it holds the potential to the future development of any society. Children who are brought up in an environment, which is conducive to their intellectual, physical and social health, grow up to be responsible and productive members of society. Under extreme economic distress, children are forced to forego educational opportunities and take up jobs which are mostly exploitative as they are usually underpaid and engaged in hazardous conditions. Parents decide to send their child for engaging in a job as a desperate measure due to poor economic conditions. Child Labour is a global phenomenon. It exists both in the developing and the developed countries though with a difference in cause and magnitude. Its prevalence is more in the developing countries as compared to the developed ones, because the families, to which the working children belong, are in an urgent need of income of child labour for their subsistence, whereas children in the developed countries are often working for pocket money.

One of the disconcerting aspects of child labour is that children are sent to work at the expense of education. Child labour restricts the right of children to access and benefit from education and denies the fundamental opportunity to attend school. Child labour, thus, prejudices children’s education and adversely affects their health and safety.

Defining Child Labour:

“Child” as defined by the child labour (prohibition and regulation) Act 1986 is a person who has not completed the age of 14 years.

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/or
• 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.

In most extreme forms, the International Labour Organization explains Child Labour as children being separated from their families and exposed to hazards and illness at a very early age. However, those children who involve in work without harming their health and affecting their education are not Child Labour. The ILO’s Convention No. 182 defines hazardous and morally damaging forms of labour and calls for their immediate and total elimination. As defined by the convention, the worst forms of child labour include:

• Slavery or similar practices
• Child trafficking
• Forced recruitment into armed conflict
• Sexual exploitation
• Drug production and trafficking or other illegal acts
• Debt bondage
• Hazardous work that can cause injury or moral corruption

Kinds of Child Labour:

Bonded Child Labour:

“Bonded child labour” refers to the phenomenon of children working in conditions of servitude in order to pay off a debt. The debt that binds them to their employer is incurred not by the children themselves, but by their relatives or guardians-usually by a parent. Depending on the industry and the age and skill of the child. The creditors-cum-employers offer these “loans” to destitute parents in an effort to secure the labour of a child, which is always cheap, but even cheaper under a situation of bondage. Thus “Bonded child labour” means the employment of a child against the debt, loan, or social obligation by the family of the child.

Migrant Children:

Migrant workers are mostly those who are driven from their homes in search of means of earning a livelihood. Lacking any skills and assets they tend to end up in the unorganised sector, both in rural and urban areas. Such labourers are often sourced by labour brokers. The problem of child labourers is more complex and is intertwined with the twin issues of poverty and lack of access to quality school education. It is also not rare to find situations when a child worker is a migrant and bonded to the employer. Thus “Migrant child labour” are those who are migrated from other locations with family are usually forced to drop out of schools and get involved in Child Labour.

Street Children:

Street children are minors who live and survive on the streets. They often grow up in public landfills, train stations, under the bridges of the world’s major cities. Because of conflicts with their family, these children don’t want to or can’t return home. They work as ragpickers, beggars, shoeshines children, etc.

Working Children:

A family business means any work or business which is performed or run by the members of the family. The business could belong to or be run by an immediate family (mother, father, brother or sister) or extended family (father’s sister and brother, or mother’s sister and brother).  Children are allowed to work in a family business, but the child’s education should not be affected.

Children for Sexual Exploitation:

Child sexual exploitation is a form of child sexual abuse in which a person(s), of any age takes advantage of a power imbalance to force or entice a child into engaging in sexual activity in return for something received by the child and/or those perpetrating or facilitating the abuse. Many young girls and boys are forced to get involved in sexual activities.

Gender-Specific:

In this kind child labour is gender-specific. For example, girls are being engaged in domestic and home-based work, and on the other hand, boys are working as wage laborers.

Causes of Child Labour:

Amongst various causes of child labour, poverty, indebtedness, migration and trafficking are the most important. Many parents secure advances from the landlords or the employers and repay the loans in terms of their child labour. In some cases, the children are compelled to migrate temporarily to the nearest cities or the urban areas of adjoining states to earn the necessary subsistence,

Poverty:

Poverty is the main reason which is pushing children into child labour. There are many families in India who are unable to meet the basic needs to run their household. They are also unable to fulfill their dreams of good food and shelter and cannot send their children to school. Due to poverty, they have no other option so they send their children to workplaces so that they can help them in running the household.

The working children themselves may not be productive but are capable of relieving the adults for productive employment by engaging themselves in domestic chores and looking after younger children in the home. This way, they allow their parents to spend more time, on income generating activities. They also free adults to enable their migration to the areas of high employment. In the urban areas, child labour exists in small manufacturing enterprises, which are spread over wide locations and can ignore legal restrictions, the children often work along with their elder relatives and friends. They are possibly not paid directly but indirectly through a supplementary wage paid to the main worker.

Indebtedness:

The poor economic conditions of people force them to borrow money. The illiterate seek debt from money lenders during emergency situations. At later point of time they find themselves difficult in paying back the debts and interest, as a result the debtors were made to work for money lenders and then debtors drag their children too in assisting them so that the debts could be paid off. “Bonded child labour” refers to the phenomenon of children working in conditions of servitude in order to pay off a debt. The debt that binds them to their employer is incurred not by the children themselves, but by their relatives or guardians-usually by a parent. Depending on the industry and the age and skill of the child. The creditors-cum-employers offer these “loans” to destitute parents in an effort to secure the labour of a child, which is always cheap, but even cheaper under a situation of bondage. Thus “Bonded child labour” means the employment of a child against the debt, loan, or social obligation by the family of the child.

Social and Economic Backwardness:

Social and economic backwardness is also the main reason for child labour. Socially backward parents do not send their children to receive an education. Consequently, their children are trapped in child labour. Due to illiteracy, many times parents are not aware of various information and schemes for child education. Lack of education, illiteracy and consequently the lack of awareness of their rights among them have encouraged child labour. Also, uneducated parents do not know about the impact of child labour on their children. The conditions of poverty and unemployment give rural families a compulsive basis for engaging children in various tasks. In fact, feudal, zamindari system and its existing remnants continue to perpetuate the problem of child labour.

Migration and Trafficking:

Migrant workers are mostly those who are driven from their homes in search of means of earning a livelihood. Lacking any skills and assets they tend to end up in the unorganised sector, both in rural and urban areas. Such labourers are often sourced by labour brokers. The problem of child labourers is more complex and is intertwined with the twin issues of poverty and lack of access to quality school education. It is also not rare to find situations when a child worker is a migrant and bonded to the employer. Thus “Migrant child labour” are those who are migrated from other locations with family are usually forced to drop out of schools and get involved in Child Labour.

Addiction, Disease or Disability:

In many families, due to alcohol addiction, disease or disability, there is no earning member, then the child’s wages are the sole means of family’s sustenance. Population growth is also increasing unemployment, which has an adverse impact on child labour prevention. So, parents, instead of sending their children to school, are willing to send them to work to increase family income.

Professional Needs of Occupation:

There are some industries such as the bangle making industry, where delicate hands and little fingers are needed to do very minute work with excellence and precision. An adult’s hands are usually not so delicate and small, so they require children to work for them.

Cheap Labour:

In the greed of cheap labour, some shopkeepers, companies and factory owners employ children so that they have to pay less to them and it amounts to employing cheap labour. Shopkeepers and small businessmen make children work as much as they do to the elder ones but pay half the wages.

Traditions and Family Business:

Many families believe that a good life is not their destiny, and the age-old tradition of labour is the only source of their earning and livelihood. Small businessmen also waste the lives of their children in the greediness of perpetuating their family trade with lower production costs. Some families also believe that working from childhood onwards will make their children more diligent and worldly-wise in terms of future life. They believe that early employment will give rise to their children’s personal development, which will make it easier for them to plan their life ahead.

Effect of Child Labour:

Physical Risk:

• Children are exposed to accidental and other injuries at work.  General child injuries and abuses like cuts, burns, and lacerations, fractures, tiredness and dizziness, excessive fears and nightmares.
• Sexual abuse, particularly sexual exploitation of girls by adults, rape, prostitution, early and unwanted pregnancy, abortion, Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and HIV/AIDS, drugs and alcoholism.
• Physical abuse that involves corporal punishment, emotional maltreatment such as blaming, belittling, verbal attacks, rejection, humiliation and bad remarks.
• Physical neglect like lack of adequate provision of food, clothing, shelter and medical treatment.

Psychological Risk:

• Child Labour takes away childhood from the children. It doesn’t allow the child to get her/his right to education and leisure.
• Emotional neglect such as deprivation of family love and affection, resulting in loneliness, depression and hopelessness.

Career Risk:

• Lack of schooling results in missing educational qualifications and higher skills thus perpetuating their life in poverty.
• Competition of children with adult workers leads to depressing wages and salaries.
• Child Labour doesn’t allow the child to develop skills that are important to have good opportunities for decent work when they grow up.

Apart from the above, lack of opportunity for higher education for older children deprives the nation of developing higher skills and technological capabilities that are required for economic development/transformation to attain higher income and better standards of living,

Legal Provisions:

International Conventions:

• Universal declaration of human rights 1948 stipulates under article 25 para 2 that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance. The above principles along with other principles of universal declaration concerning child were incorporated in the declaration of the rights of the child of 1959.
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) under articles 23 and 24 and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) under article 10 made provision for the care of the child.
• International labour organisation (ILO) provides universal standards and guideline, a specialized agency of UN, aims to provide guidance and standards for labour practices around the world.
• Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 is another international instrument which protects the child.

Constitutional Provisions:

The Constitutional guarantees are reflected in the policies, plans, laws and schemes on child labour.

• As per Article 24 of the Constitution, no child below the age of 14 years is to be employed in any factory, mine or any hazardous employment.
• Article 39 requires the States to direct its policy towards ensuring that the tender age of children is not abused and that they are not forced by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their age or strength.
• With the insertion of Article 21A, the State has been entrusted with the task of providing free and compulsory education to all the children in the age group of 6-14 years.

Statutory Provisions:

Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act (1986):

The Act was the culmination of efforts and ideas that emerged from the deliberations and recommendations of various committees on child labour. Significant among them were the National Commission on Labour (1966-1969), the Gurupadaswamy Committee on Child Labour (1979) and the Sanat Mehta Committee (1984).

Under this Act, no child who is less than 14 years of age shall be employed in any hazardous occupations that are provided in a list by law. This list is explained further in the article. This list was amended not only in 2006 but also in 2008.

The Act aims to prohibit the entry of children into hazardous occupations and to regulate the services of children in non-hazardous occupations. In particular it is aimed at

• the banning of the employment of children, i.e., those who have not completed their 14th year, in specified occupations and 65 processes;
• laying down a procedure to make additions to the schedule of banned occupations or processes;
• regulating the working conditions of children in occupations where they are not prohibited from working;
• laying down penalties for employment of children in violation of the provisions of this Act and other Acts which forbid the employment of children;
• bringing uniformity in the definition of the child in related laws.

These occupations and processes are mentioned in Part III of this Act. The list of hazardous occupations is provided in the schedule in two parts.

The Plantation Labour Act, 1951:

This Act prohibits the employment of children below the age of 12 years, but a child above the age of 12 years can be employed only when the appointed doctor issues a fitness certificate to that child.

The Mines Act, 1952:

This Act provides that no child should be present where the work of mining is going on and no child should be employed for such work.

The Merchant Shipping Act, 1958:

Except for a training ship, this Act does not allow the employment of children below the age of 14 years in a ship. Also, a person under the age of 18 years cannot be appointed as trimmers under this Act. They can only be appointed under some specific conditions mentioned in this Act.

The Apprentices Act, 1961:

Unless a child attains the age of 14 years and satisfy the standard of education and physical fitness test, he cannot undergo an apprenticeship training.

The Indian Factories Act, 1948:

No child below the age of 14 years shall be employed in a factory. Also, there are rules that a factory has to follow if they employ pre-adults that are between 15-18 years of age.

The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) of Children Act, 2000:

If any person employs a child in any of the hazardous work or use the child as a bonded labour then that person will be punishable under this Act.

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009:

Free and compulsory education must be provided to each and every children below 14 years of age. In fact, to follow this Act efficiently, 25% of seats are also reserved in every private school for children who belongs to the disadvantaged group and for children who are physically challenged.

Other Acts are:

• Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, 1933.
• Employment of Child Act, 1938.
• The Bombay Shop and Establishment Act, 1948.
• The Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961.
• The Atomic Energy Act, 1962.
• Bidi and Cigar Workers (Condition and Regulation) Act, 1986.
• State Shops and Establishment Acts

Poor Compliance of Laws:

In modern society, laws stipulate that citizens have the right to receive a good education, avail good health services and take care of their health. Every citizen has the right to play the game he enjoys, and enjoy all the means of entertainment, and when he grows, to obtain employment where he can earn well and contribute to society and nation. But in the absence of proper compliance of the laws, child labour in India is continuing. It can be prohibited only by strict adherence to the related laws.

Remedy to Child Labour:

There are many steps which should be taken by the government stop child labour in India. We can stop child labour by:

• Combating extreme poverty
• Making strict laws for child labour in India
• Telling about the importance of education
• Providing quality education to the children
• Making laws to stop child trafficking
• Supporting NGOs for Child labour protection
• Providing skill building programs, so that the person can learn new skills
• Discouraging parents to employ children in houses, shops and other places.
• Providing work opportunities for people so that they can send their child to school

Conclusion:

Child labour is a serious hindrance to the social and economic development of the nation. Children employed in various sectors fail to get the necessary education, virtually forced to lead a life of hardship and poverty. It also affects the overall health of a child, as children get exhausted easily and are not physically fit to work for longer durations under difficult conditions. Combating child labour requires long term coordinated action which involves many stakeholders and the government. This includes educational institutions, mass media, NGOs and community-based organizations as well as trade unions and employers. It is important that the attitudes and mindsets of people are changed to instead employ adults and allow all children to go to school and have the chance to learn, play and socialize as they should.