A total ban on child labour is a must

When the Constitution of India was adopted in 1950, it promised to safeguard the rights of children, and protect them from economic exploitation. 

However, 65 years later, it is still perfectly legal to employ a six-year-old child as a helper in an agricultural field.

As per the Census 2011, India has over four million working children in the age group of 5-14

Nobel Peace Prize Kailash Satyarthi, spoke about the urgency of passing the Child Labour (Amendment) Bill, 2012

Nobel Peace Prize Kailash Satyarthi said: “Between 2010 and 2012, my team and I undertook a study to understand the quality of convictions in crimes against children. Of the 45,269 cases of child labour reported between 2008 and 2012, only 3,394 cases, i.e., seven per cent, reached conviction. What that shows is laws to protect the rights of children, which are already weak, are not enforced at all.”

Keeping this in mind, Nobel Peace Prize Kailash Satyarthi has made the following demands to be incorporated in the amended law:

First, all forms of child labour should be prohibited up to the age of 14.

As of today, child labour is prohibited only in select industries identified as hazardous.

Second, up to the age of 18, no child should be employed in the worst forms of child labour, such as begging.

Third, the law should be made more deterrent by increasing the fine amount and period of imprisonment.

Fourth, the law must address the accountability of those employed in enforcement agencies, such as factory inspectors and labour inspectors, and if children are found working within their jurisdiction, they must be held responsible. It is not the employer alone who is culpable.

Fifth, child labour must be made a cognisable and non-bailable offence, so that even the common man can report such cases and action can be taken immediately.

Sixth, rehabilitation should be made an integral part of law on child labour. Rehabilitation measures should be included in government schemes, and must address economic rehabilitation of parents where necessary.

Note

Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986  is in contradiction with Article 21-A of the Constitution and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 that makes schooling compulsory for all in the age group of six to 14 years

Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 does not regulate adolescent labour as mandated by ILO Conventions 138 and 182. 

Moreover, instead of just tinkering with the 1986 Act, the government needs to comprehensively overhaul it, focussing on the rehabilitation of children rescued from traumatic working conditions. This requires an interlinking of ‘rescue, rehabilitation and schooling’ through greater coordination among Ministries and organisations, and the inter-locking of the provisions of existing laws such as the RTE Act, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976; the Factories Act, 1948; the Beedi and Cigar Workers Act, 1996 and so on