Girls in school in Nepal
By Alika Raina 13 June 2023
This 12th of June marked the 21st anniversary of the World Day Against Child Labour. This year’s theme is “Week of Action against Child Labour”. The day was first established by International Labour Organisation for the purpose of drawing attention to the tragedy of child labour and encouraging action strategies against the same by governments, civil societies and general masses in 2002. It has been over two decades since then and the problem is far from over.
The problem and its redressal are of special significance to India as it, tragically, holds the record of having the highest number of child labourers of all the countries. The National Crime Record Bureau (2020) recorded a total of 1,712 FIRs registered under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act 2016. The 2011 national census identified 10.13 million children aged 5 to 14 as engaged in child labour. As per certain estimates, the number can be as high as 33 million when those above the age of 14 are also considered (CRY, 2020).
Additionally, the World Bank estimates from 2021 identify 3,067,813 Indian children in the primary school age group alone as out-of-school (World Bank, 2022). As per the data by the Ministry of Education, collected through its online portal PRABANDH and submitted in parliament, the number of out-of-school children stands at 1.25 million in 2022-23. Presumably these out-of-school children might also be employed in some form of forced labour, either home-based or commercial, depriving them of their right to a normal childhood. These unaccounted children, apart from a lack of access to education, play, rest and leisure, are also more likely to suffer from serious child harms, such as abuse and violence.
The Right to Education Act 2009 ensures that all children below 14 years have access to free and compulsory education. The Child Labour Amendment Act 2016 prohibits the employment of children below 14 years in all forms of employment, except as artists or in a family enterprise. While well-intentioned and sound when read in isolation, the laws become inadequate when read in conjunction. To illustrate, the state sponsorship for a child’s education stops at the age of 14, and so does the stricter ban on their employment in all commercial activities, given a few conditions related to hours of work and nature of employment are satisfied. The mounting pressure to support the family and school education turning into an overhead expense from a legal right often leads to the hours of work gradually spreading into hours of studying, truancy turning into dropouts, and in no time, the child is completely absorbed into full-time labour. The restrictions on hours of work while present on paper are notoriously flouted by profit-hungry employers. A 2022 study by CRY found out that the majority of child artists worked for more than 12 hours a day; well over the 6 hours, inclusive of one hour break, cap specified by the statute (CRY, 2022). The mandatory intimation to the DM about the involvement of a child before the commencement of the shoot was also found to be unheard of by the parents of the child actors. If this is the situation in an industry which is not only regulated but also considered aspirational by many, one can only imagine the conditions in the unregulated, harsher work sectors.
Child labour is a social menace that robs children of the opportunity to grow, learn, play and, most importantly, live a life of their choosing. It deprives them of the experiences and resources necessary for a healthy and thriving childhood and severely constricts the experiences and opportunities available to their future selves. While the incidence of child labour has certainly reduced over the last decade, India is still far from accomplishing its target of eradicating child labour in all its forms in the next three years, in line with the global SDG targets. The need of the hour is intensifying the existing efforts and recalibrating interventions to improve their efficacy. The state and central governments and Civil Society Organizations need to amp up their efforts to educate people not just on the ill impact of child labour but also on the ways to identify and support children at risk of dropping out of formal school systems and who are, therefore, either at the brink of or are already engaged in child labour.
Credible data is the lifeblood of informed policy intervention with the potential for real impact. The decadal census is the most reliable and comprehensive tool in this regard. It must, therefore, be conducted at the earliest to have an estimate of the extent of the problem, identify hotspot districts and industries, and trace the national and state-wise progress on the issue or the lack thereof. Swachh Bharat-esque campaigns can be designed to manoeuvre behavioural change, instill community ownership, and make child safety and protection everyone’s responsibility.
While it will be unjust and inappropriate to penalize families for their poverty, wherein every member of the family has to pitch in for the ends to meet, what the state can do is hold employers of children across sectors and industries accountable to the statutory requirements and expand the ambit of the right to education by including all children below 18 years within the purview of free and compulsory formal education. The quality of education shall also need an overhaul to incentivize students to keep attending school. Once quality education becomes a right and not a luxury, fewer children will drop out to earn a living or spend a disproportionate amount of time on domestic chores. A smaller number of unaccounted children is the surest and most straightforward way of ensuring that a greater number of children remain out of child labour.
References
[I] Child Rights and You (CRY), September 2020, “The Reality of The Practice of Child Labour in India. Retrieved from URL
[II] Child Rights and You (CRY), 2021, “Child Artists in India: An Exploratory Study in Mumbai, India”, June 2022, New Delhi. Retrieved from URL
[III] Hindustan Times, February 8, 2023, “Over 1.2 million students out of school, most of them at elementary level: Govt”. Retrieved on May 31st, 2023, from URL
[IV] The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986. Retrieved from URL
[V] The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016. Retrieved from URL
[VI] The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. Retrieved from URL
[VII] The World Bank, 2022, Global Development Indicators: Children out of school (% of primary school age) – India. Retrieved on June 3rd, 2023, from URL