Child Labour

Syllabus: GS2/Governance

In News

• The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has rescued over 3,800 children from child labour under a sustained campaign.

Child Labour

• Child labour can be defined as any work that is unconstitutional for a child’s age by physical or mental abilities.
• It refers to work that is improper for a child’s age, or that impairs the child’s health, education, or physical, mental, social, or moral development. 
• In its worst forms, it might include slavery, trafficking, forced recruitment, drug production and trafficking, prostitution, and armed combat.

Status in India 

• India has a significant incidence of child labour. Census 2011 estimated that 43.53 lakh children in the age group of five to 14 were involved in child labour due to factors such as poverty, inaccessibility, and illiteracy.
  • Child labour is prevalent in beedi, carpet-weaving, and firework factories.
• The NCPCR’s Pan-India Rescue and Rehabilitation campaign has saved more than 3,800 children and has led to over 575 FIRs.
  • It also emphasised rehabilitation, family restoration, getting children back into school, and compensation. 

Reasons for Child Labour

• Income Insecurity and Poverty: Children’s work is usually a means of satisfying the basic subsistence needs of families at or near the poverty line.
  • Families trapped in cycles of debt or seasonal migration for survival often require children to work physically to meet output targets
• Educational Deficits: Limited access to quality schools, inadequate infrastructure, and long distances to schools, particularly in rural areas, can discourage school attendance. 
• Demand from informal sector: The unorganised sector employers like to employ youngsters as they are cheap, non-unionised, submissive and flexible labour.
• Socio-Cultural Dynamics: Caste discrimination, gender bias (girls being taken out of school for household responsibilities), and traditional expectations about inherited jobs foster kid employment.

Impacts 

• Health Hazards: Children exposed to toxic dust, chemicals, heavy machinery, and long hours of work develop chronic respiratory diseases, musculoskeletal problems, stunted growth, and physical injuries.
• Psychological Trauma: The lengthy hours spent in harsh conditions deprive the children of social interaction, playtime, and emotional security, thereby causing considerable mental discomfort, anxiety, and low self-esteem.
• Educational and skill deprivation: Dropout or underperformance of working children in school results in illiteracy and unavailability of market relevant occupational skills.
• Intergenerational Poverty: Uneducated and unskilled child workers become low-wage workers themselves, perpetuating the cycle of poverty for the next generation.
• National Economic Loss: Pervasive child labour reduces the wage rates of adults and lowers the quality of human capital in general, hence obstructing India’s long-term economic productivity and demographic dividend.

Various Steps Taken 

• Constitutional Safeguards: The Constitution extensively provides for the protection of children. Articles 23 and 24 give protection from human trafficking, begging, forced labour, and employment in hazardous industries.
  • The Right to Education now mandates that the state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children in the age group six to 14 years.
• Legislative Measures:
  • India enacted the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act (CLPRA) in 1986, while the National Policy on Child Labour, 1987 sought to adopt a gradual and sequential approach with a focus on rehabilitation.
    • Its action plan included strict enforcement of the CLPRA and implementation of the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) in areas where there is a high incidence of child labour. 
    • The CLPRA was replaced with the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016, which prohibited the employment of children below 14 and had provisions for the prohibition on employment of adolescents (14-18 years) in scheduled hazardous occupations. 
  • The BNS under Sections 98 and 99 specifically addresses the ‘selling and buying’ of minors. 
  • Prevention of trafficking for sexual exploitation is provided in the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956. 
  • Care, protection and rehabilitation for victims of child trafficking is provided under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. 
  • The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013 also intends to check such activities by providing a more comprehensive definition of trafficking by including sexual exploitation, slavery, servitude, forced labour, and organ removal.
    • It will cover trafficking irrespective of consent.

Judicial Observations 

• In Vishal Jeet versus Union of India, 1990, it was held that trafficking and child prostitution are serious socio-economic problems and hence a preventive and humanistic approach is essential to deal with them. 
• In M. C. Mehta versus State of Tamil Nadu, 1996, the Court issued guidelines with a view to prohibiting employment of children in hazardous industries. 
• In the Bachpan Bachao Andolan versus Union of India, 2011 case, the top court issued directions to address widespread exploitation and trafficking of children. 

Conclusion 

• Child work is still a big socio-economic problem in India, depriving children of school, childhood, and healthy development. 
• Eradication involves more than legislative prohibition: tackling poverty and other structural factors, enhancing enforcement with instruments extending social security, improving public education, regulating informal supply chains, and fostering community alertness.
• Protecting children is the foundation for building an equitable, resilient, and productive nation.

Source : TH