Child rag pickers earn up to five dollars daily recycling rubbish and scrap, contributing to household income at the expense of going to school. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Neeta Lal
NEW DELHI, Jun 9 2015 (IPS)

In a bid to overhaul the country’s child labour laws, the Indian government has banned the employment of children below 14 years of age in various commercial ventures, while permitting them to work in family enterprises and on farmlands after school hours and during vacations.

“In a large number of families, children help their parents in occupations like agriculture and artisanship. And while helping the parents, children also learn the basics of occupations,” stated a note by the Union Cabinet, which approved an amendment to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986.

"The new amendment will push millions of innocent children into forced labour and deprive them of education and a normal childhood." -- Rakesh Slenger of Bachpan Bachao Andolan
The Act defines 64 industries as hazardous, deeming it a criminal offence for children to employed in any of them. While parents or guardians will not face any punishment for the first offence, a maximum fine of about 150 dollars will be levied for the second and subsequent offences.

The new amendment will, however, permit kids to work in “non-hazardous” businesses, the entertainment industry (including films, advertisements and TV serials) and sporting events from the 18 occupations and 65 processes specified under the 1986 law.

The government’s directive has triggered a raucous debate on the subject in India at a time when public opinion is overwhelmingly in favour of a complete ban on all types of employment for children.

Indian Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, who helms the child rights non-profit organisation Bachpan Bachao Andolan, has been calling for a ban on every form of child labour in India for kids up to 14 years of age.

Activists fear that the provision allowing children to help out in domestic or family-based occupations will enable families to flout or skirt the new law.

“The new amendment will push millions of innocent children into forced labour and deprive them of education and a normal childhood,” Rakesh Slenger of Bachpan Bachao Andolan told IPS. “The girl child will be particularly disadvantaged as she will be denied education while being stuck with all the household work.”

Experts also fear this loophole violates the spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which India signed and ratified in 1992.

The worst off will be kids from marginalized backgrounds who need to equip themselves with an education and job skills in Asia’s third largest economy to brighten their employment prospects.

The government’s contention that once the law is changed it will help impoverished families earn a living while equipping children with job skills is also myopic, say child rights crusaders. They emphasize that India’s poor law enforcement system and weak policing standards will hinder efforts to keep tabs on exploitative families.

Others say this gap in the law will reverse India’s gains in moving children from workplaces into classrooms in line with the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of achieving universal primary education by the end of 2015.

It will also contravene the Right to Education Act (RTE) 2009, which guarantees a child the right to complete his or her elementary education even after the age of 14.

Experts also allege the government is overlooking the fact that even in household enterprises, children still remain vulnerable to exploitation and health hazards, which impacts their education.

Others have raised a red flag about the possibility of children being pushed into work in the entertainment or sporting industry by ambitious parents.

Activists in India are up in arms over the government’s amendment to the country’s child labour law, which allows children under the age of 14 to work in certain designated ‘family businesses’. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says child labour is “a violation of fundamental human rights”, which impairs a child’s development, potentially leading to lifelong physical or psychological damage.

The organisation’s comprehensive research on the subject demonstrates that eliminating child labour can help developing economies generate economic benefits nearly seven times greater than the costs incurred in better schooling and social services.

India would do well to heed this warning. The country has the dubious distinction of hosting the largest number of child labourers in the world.

The 2011 census puts the number at 4.35 million working children in the 5-14 age bracket. One in every 100 full-time workers in India is under the age of 14, and a third of those child workers are under the age of nine.

This augurs ill for a country of 1.25 billion people, 42 percent of whom are children. Already, many kids are at risk of languishing in an endless cycle of poverty – an estimated 23 percent of the population survives on less than 1.25 dollars a day – particularly since the government slashed the budget allocation for the ministry of women and child development by 1.5 billion dollars this year.

Activists say this move could deprive millions of marginalised Indian kids the chance to turn their lives around.

According to a report by the Ministry of Labour, Indian child workers are engaged in a wide range of hazardous and stressful occupations.

Kids in the agriculture sector are made to carry heavy loads and sprinkle harmful pesticides on crops. Last October, a blast at a cramped firecracker-manufacturing unit in the East Godavari district of the southeast state of Andhra Pradesh left almost a dozen people dead, including many children.

India’s beedi (cigarette)-making industry is particularly notorious for employing kids as young as seven years old. While government figures put the total number of workers engaged in this informal industry at 4.4 million, activists claim the real number is nearly double that, totaling roughly 10 million labourers.

Worse, production of beedis involves prolonged exposure to tobacco leaves, which can cause life-threatening diseases like tuberculosis, chronic bronchitis, asthma and malnutrition among others.

So-called “family enterprises” are no better, say experts. This includes such industries as matchbox making, carpet weaving and gem polishing. In these sectors, where child labour is in high demand, police raids have highlighted inhumane conditions in which children are made to work for no pay, with scant food and no access to toilets.

“A closer scrutiny of the government’s [amendment] reveals that children of all ages may in fact be used for labour in some of the most hazardous industries in the country. The Cabinet’s idea of striking a balance between the need for education for a child and helping parents to earn better incomes makes no sense,” says Amod Kanth, founder of Prayaas, a non-profit working for children’s welfare.

According to the social activist, relaxing legislation on child labour as a means of alleviating poverty is a deeply flawed strategy. “The move will nullify whatever progress the country has made in getting children out of forced labour and into school. As it is government surveys are known to under-report child labour. If child labour is legalised, the situation will spiral out of control,” Kanth told IPS.

Even a report by the Parliamentary Standing Committee On the Child Labour Amendment Act underscores the fallacy of the government proposing to keep a check on children working in their homes.

“The Ministry is itself providing loopholes by inserting this proviso since it would be very difficult to make out whether children are merely helping their parents or are working to supplement the family income. Further, allowing children to work after school is detrimental to their health, as rest and recreation is important for fullest physical and mental development in the formative years, besides adversely affecting their studies,” states the report.

Rather than going in for piecemeal amendments to current laws, activists say the government should revamp the flagship 1986 Act itself, which has failed to curb child labour effectively.

A new beginning will also pave way for the rehabilitation of millions of children rescued from exploitative industries or households, they say.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

An estimated 4.35 million children between the ages of five and 14 are thought to be part of India’s workforce, working anywhere from brick kilns to carpet factories. Credit: Bigstock

By Neeta Lal
NEW DELHI, Feb 2 2015 (IPS)

Eleven-year-old Chottu* works 12 hours daily at a roadside tea joint near New Delhi’s bustling interstate bus terminus.

The moment fume-spewing buses halt here to disgorge groups of tired and hungry passengers, the frail boy has to push his way through the crowd to sell his wares – packets of potato crisps, biscuits and hot tea, which he pours into tiny plastic cups from a metallic tea pot.

“Child slavery is a crime against humanity. Humanity itself is at stake here." -- Indian Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi
As competition is fierce from other vendors, Chottu has to work swiftly to catch his customer’s eye. “I often burn my hands while pouring tea due to the rush. But I’ve no choice. Meagre sales mean no food for me that day,” says the boy who has been working since his mother died and his alcoholic father abandoned him two years ago.

His neighbour then took him under his wing and now employs him at his shop. Chottu’s salary? Two meals a day and an outhouse to sleep in.

From the posh homes of Delhi to Monsanto’s cotton fields in southern Andhra Pradesh, the sandstone quarries of Rajasthan to the firecracker factories in Sivakasi in southern Tamil Nadu, millions of ‘Chottus’ toil in restaurants, agricultural fields, hazardous glass and fireworks factories, brick kilns and construction and carpet-making industries across swathes of India.

The little ones can also be found vending food, repairing vehicles and tyres, scavenging, rag picking, shoe shining, car-washing and begging. Small factories and businesses are often guilty of employing these kids and depriving millions of them of their childhood, freedom and education. The children are usually poorly paid, underfed and are often beaten, say studies.

India has the dubious distinction of hosting the largest number of child labourers in the world. The 2011 census puts the number at 4.35 million working children in the five to 14 age-bracket.

With an estimated 23 percent of its 1.2 billion people living on less than 1.25 dollars a day, it is perhaps only natural that parents will send their children out to earn in a desperate bid to keep the family alive.

Still, a range of civil society actors are calling for a change in this status quo, claiming that unless India finds a way to interrupt the practice of child labour, it will face multiplied challenges in social, economic and political arenas.

Child slavery: A “crime against humanity”

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines child labour as “a violation of fundamental human rights”, a menace that impairs children’s development, potentially leading to lifelong physical or psychological damage. An ILO study has also demonstrated that eliminating child labour could help developing economies generate economic benefits nearly seven times greater than the costs incurred in better schooling and social services.

According to the annual report of the Department of Labour, Indian children are exploited in the worst possible way. Those in the agriculture sector are made to carry heavy loads and sprinkle harmful pesticides on crops.

Last October, a blast at a firecracker-manufacturing unit at East Godavari district of the southeast Andhra Pradesh state left almost a dozen people dead including many children.

Indian Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, a child rights activist who was honoured in 2014, has been demanding a complete ban on every kind of child labour in India for kids up to 14 years.

The activist says that the state and society have failed children, making them give up their childhood and education.

Children all across India can be found vending food, repairing vehicles, scavenging, rag picking, shoe shining, and cleaning the homes of rich urban families. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi /IPS

“Child slavery is a crime against humanity. Humanity itself is at stake here,” Satyarthi says. To remedy the situation, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), a non-profit which Satyarthi helms, helps parents access government funds so that they are not forced to take their children out of schools to earn extra money.

BBA has also created hundreds of child-friendly villages, where kids are freed from exploitation and enrolled in schools instead.

The Indian government banned child labour in 2012, but the ban’s implementation has been patchy, leading activists to pressure governments to strengthen legislation. Satyarthi is seeking the early passage of the pending legislation against child labour, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, which could make employment of children below 14 years in any occupation illegal.

The bill is also in sync with the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009, which guarantees free education to kids up to 14 years.

According to a recent UNESCO report, India has an estimated 1.4 million out-of-school children between the ages of six and 11 years, a staggering number that experts say could be reduced by strengthening child labour laws.

Others say the issue is not just a social problem but could have ramifications for the national economy too.

Studies suggest a strong link between household poverty and child labour with the latter perpetuating poverty across generations by keeping children of the poor out of school and limiting their prospects for upward social mobility.

This lowering of human capital has been linked to a deceleration of economic growth and retarded social development.

One report, ‘Tainted Carpets: Slavery and Child Labour in India’s Hand-made Carpet Sector’, documents over 3,200 cases across nine states in India and quotes several hundred cases each of forced labour at carpet factories run by exporters who ship these rugs to retail stores in the U.S.

According to a sample survey conducted in 16 factories across Sivakasi covering 4,181 children, 3,323 (79.48 percent) were found to be illiterate; 474 children (11.34 percent) were educated up to primary school level. Dropouts were 384 (9.2 percrent).

Asthma and tuberculosis were prevalent among 90 percent of those involved in gunpowder filling and directly in contact with the chemical ingredients of crackers and matches. These workers, says the survey, are usually not given any protective gear and work with hazardous chemicals such as sulphur, aluminium powder and gun powder

Civil society steps in

Many Indian non-profits have come up to fight against child labour but they admit that until the government takes real initiative, the situation will remain dismal.

“While the passage of the new law will give children’s rights a huge boost, child labour cannot be successfully uprooted without focussing on the socio-economic condition of the kids’ families, which force them to send their children out to work,” Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research, told IPS.

A multi-pronged approach involving multiple stakeholders, say experts, is the key to addressing the child labour problem in India.

“Elimination of poverty, free and compulsory education, proper and strict implementation of the labour laws and abolishment of child trafficking can help solve this problem to a large extent. Statistics show that education has helped in reducing child labour in western countries to a large extent,” Dr. Vinita Shroff, a visiting professor of sociology at Delhi University, told IPS.

After the 86th Amendment of the Indian Constitution in 2002, the provision for free and compulsory education for the age group of six to 14 years has been included as a fundamental right under Article 21A. Activists say this needs to be implemented stringently by the government.

Amod Kanth, founder of the non-profit organisation Prayas, which works in the area of children’s welfare, believes the relationship between government and civil society is vital to eliminate child labour.

“The Child Labour Act is an outdated law, which recognises only those under 14 as children and covers only hazardous work. We need legislation that’s more nuanced as well as more rigorous and comprehensive.”

According to the erstwhile commissioner of police, India needs a focused nationwide program to protect kids from trafficking and forced labour. “Banning child labour is the first step. Providing those children who are rescued out of illegal employment with education, rehabilitation and safety is equally imperative,” Kanth told IPS.

*Not his real name

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida