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Explore the historical development of child labour legislation in India, from the early prohibition conventions to the establishment of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act in 1986. Discover key milestones, policy shifts, and challenges faced in addressing child labour practices.
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India, a founder member of the ILO, was a signatory to the First Convention on the Prohibition of Child Employment in 1919 • Since then large number of Acts, including the Employment of Labour Act, 1938 and Apprenticeship Act, 1961 (Amended in 2014) followed • Historically, the approach was to address child labour in specific sectors – not viewing the child as a whole • This approach did not change, even with the adoption of the Constitution of India
1979: The first ever Parliamentary Committee in Independent India on child labour was set up under the chairpersonship of Sri. M.S. Gurupadaswamy as a result of the question raised by Nandana Reddy, a founder member of CWC in Parliament through Mr. George Fernandes.
The Committee observed that as long as poverty continued, it would be difficult to totally eliminate child labour and hence, any attempt to abolish it through only legal measures would not be a practical proposition.
The Committee suggested the ban of child labour in hazardous areas and regulation and amelioration of conditions of work in other areas. • It recommended that a multi-pronged policy approach was required in dealing with the problems of working children.
1984: Minister Jeevaraj Alva and Michael Fernandes, MLA took part in a working children’s meeting at Town Hall organised by the Bangalore Labour Union. • Following discussions with working children about the existing law and how it fails to address the real requirements of working children, the child workers said “Then, change the Law”
In discussions with working children the ‘Child Labour (Employment, Regulation, Training and Development) Bill, 1985’ as drafted by Nandana Reddy, B.R Patil, Harikrishna Holla and S. Sreevatsa (CWC got registered as an organisation in 1985) • The Bill was presented to the Chief Minister Mr.Ramakrishna Hegde, who recommended that it be presented at the national government.
Following the presentation of the Child Labour Bill to the Chief Minister, the State government assisted working children and CWC to attend the National Meeting of State Labour Ministers in Delhi. • Shashidhar Adappa developed a Street Play with Working Children to present their Bill. A slide show illustrating the salient points of the Bill was created by Nandana Reddy and Deepa Dhanaraj with photographs by Navroze Contractor • Working children, facilitated by CWC made their presentation at the State Labour Ministers’s conference. T. Anjayya was the Central Labour Minister in 1985
Children’s presentation was a huge success and resulted in the setting up of a drafting committee to prepare the Government Bill on Child labour. • National Working Group on Child Labour was set up by CWC which provided inputs to Ministry of Labour, HRD, Law and Parliamentary affairs and Senior Constitutional Lawyers to draft the Government Bill on Child Labour. • This GOI Bill was tabled in the parliament during the tenure of P.A Sangama as the Central Labour Minister.
Inception of the child labour law • The Bill, with drastic amendments, was legislated as the ‘Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act’, 1986 • Cabinet removed the ‘development’ and ‘unionisation’ component, making it a conventional piece of legislation that lacks the teeth to effectively address the problem.
Statement of objects and reasons: • Prohibits 18 occupations and 65 processes for undr 14s. • Regulate working environment where required. • Lay down penalties for violation of Act. • Bring uniformity in definition of ‘child’. • The list of hazardous occupations and processes was progressively expanded on the recommendation of Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee constituted under the Act.
A Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee was constituted to identify hazardous processes and industries • A National Policy on Child Labour was formulated in 1987. The Policy seeks to adopt a gradual and sequential approach with a focus on rehabilitation of children working in hazardous occupations & processes in the first instance. • This approach was totally missing in action.
Inception of the child labour law, 1986 • In 1987, the Government set up two Task Forces. One to recommend the institutions and the mechanisms necessary for implementing the Act and the Legal Action Plan contained in the National Child Labour Policy • The other to recommend measures to proper conceptualisation of the projects, their planning, implementation and monitoring
A Central Advisory Board on child labour was constituted. Nandana was a member of the committee (1985-1994) • In 1988, the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme was launched in 9 districts of high child labour endemicity in the country. The Scheme envisaged running of special schools for child labour withdrawn from work. The NCLP programmes were reviewed and found ineffective.
1990: A National Working Group was initiated by CWC to review UN CRC and to discuss India’s. A strong case made regarding the ‘indivisibility of rights of children’ and for the ‘voices of children to be heard’ • ILO-IPEC programme started in India, 1992 • India ratified the CRC in December 1992 • Globally, ILO gained momentum as the international agency to address Child Labour, and its Conventions gained precedence over the UNCRC’s Children’s Rights Frame Work • Child Labour also became deeply linked to ‘Trade’ and boycott of products made by children became the SOP of the ‘Northern Countries’ , supported by several Civil society groups in the ‘South’
The International Working Group on Child Labour was set up (1990-1997) by the Defence of Children International and the International Society for Child Abuse and Neglect for designing strategies to address the issue of Child Labour Globally with Nandana as its Chairperson. • It monitored research in 36 countries, developed Strategies, enabled the First International Meeting of Working Children’s Movements and enabled their participation in the International Arena.
Quote: National Movement of Working Children, 2003 We want, first of all, to be recognised as working children. This is the first step towards solving our problems. If our identity as working children is denied, then nothing will be done to solve the real problems that force us to work. We want to participate actively in solving these problems so that we no longer need to work. We want to build a new world where children are not exploited and there is justice for all.
2013: National Policy for Children • Continuation from 1974 Policy “to affirm the Government’s commitment to the rights based approach in addressing the continuing and emerging challenges in the situation of children”. • 'Preamble' and 'Guiding Principles' - more nuanced language and understanding of child rights in cognisance with the UNCRC. • Key priority areas: Survival, health, nutrition, development, education, protection and participation are the undeniable rights of every child and are the key priorities of this Policy. • Provided a more comprehensive commitment of the state to holisitic support, progressive jurisprudence and mechanisms, utilisation of technology, evidence based approaches etc.
The recent Child Labour Amendment Bill, 2012 Introduced in Rajya Sabha by Mallikarjun Kharge on 4th December 2012, referred to the Parliamentary Committee by the Speaker, Lok Sabha in consultation with the Chairman, Rajya Sabha for examination and report. Statement of objects and reasons: a. It is proposed to prohibit employment of children in all occupations and processes to facilitate their enrolment in schools in view of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009; b. to prohibit employment of adolescents (persons who have completed fourteenth year of age but have not completed eighteenth year) in hazardous occupations and processes and to regulate the conditions of service of adolescents in line with the ILO Convention 138 and Convention 182, respectively. Conventions 138 provides that the minimum age for admission to employment or work shall not be less than the age of completion of compulsory schooling. Convention 182 provides employment of all the children below 18 years should be prohibited in worst forms of Child Labour.
Basic Features The Bill seeks to prohibit employment of children below 14 years in all occupations except where the child helps his family after school hours (..family in fields, home-based work, forest gathering or attends technical institutions during vacations for the purpose of learning, but does not include any help or attending technical institutions where there is subordinate relationship of labour or work which are outsourced and carried out in home). The Bill adds a new category of persons called “adolescent”. An adolescent means a person between 14 and 18 years of age. The Bill prohibits employment of adolescents in hazardous occupations as specified (mines, inflammable substance and hazardous processes). Central govt may add/omit from this list. The Bill enhances the punishment for employing any child in an occupation. It also includes penalty for employing an adolescent in a hazardous occupation. The penalty for employing a child was increased to imprisonment between 6 months and two years (from 3 months-one year) or a fine of Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000 (from Rs 10,000-20,000) or both. The penalty for employing an adolescent in hazardous occupation is imprisonment between 6 months and two years or a fine of Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000 or both. The government may confer powers on a District Magistrate to ensure that the provisions of the law are properly carried out. The Bill empowers the government to make periodic inspection of places at which employment of children and adolescents are prohibited.
Suggestions of the Standing Committee The Standing Committee on Labour and Employment (Chairman: Mr. Dara Singh Chauhan) presented its 40th report on the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2012 on December 13, 2013. The Committee noted that while one of the objectives of the Bill is to ‘to regulate the conditions of services of adolescents’, it contains no provisions towards that purpose. The Committee suggested that regulation of working conditions of the adolescents including the criteria for their wages and settlement of disputes with regard to age of the child be included in the Bill. It recommended that the Bill be amended to take a lenient view of poor parents and those parents who were unable to benefit from such initiatives. The Committee censured the Ministry of Labour and Employment for its casual reply on the issue of trafficking and street children. It recommended that that all concerned ministries should evolve a comprehensive strategy to solve this problem. The Committee noted that the Bill contains no provision for rescue and rehabilitation of children. It recommended that instead of entrusting various ministries with this task, the government should bring a New Child Labour Policy and the machinery to implement laws, policies and projects should be specified therein. 16 June 2014: Invitation for comments on proposed Amendments by Ministry.
The recent exceptions Exceptions added and given Cabinet approval: a) where the child helps his family or family enterprises, which is other than any hazardous occupations or processes set forth in the Schedule, after his school hours or during vacations; b) where the child works as an artist in an audio-visual entertainment industry, including advertisement, films, television serials or any such other entertainment or sports activities except the circus, subject to such conditions and safety measures, as may be prescribed and provided that such work does not affect the school education of the child.
The 30 years of the law • Outcome of prohibition and regulation under the Act: • Studies show that children 'raided and rescued' have: • Experienced raids often arbitrary and not informed. • Been traumatised by the experience of the raid itself. Felt like criminals being dragged out. Often conducted unprofessionally – children held alongside owners – threatened and scared. • Feel criminalised, hurt and ashamed when parents are penalised. • Long periods of institutionalisation which include serious violations of their other basic rights. • Having received no long-term support ended up back in worse or similar work (2004 Equations and 2014 CRY study). Reducing number of inspections (2009-2013 – 66% drop) and poor conviction rates (2009-15%; 2013-under 9%) for employers. Anecdotal/ case-study accounts on how employers manage to hide using illegal child work. Unused Child Labour Corpus Funds – made post 1996 SC judgment – seems only few states had a fund and utilisation is extremely poor (Peoples Legal Forum - RTIs)
RTE: Response to marginalised children’s unique needs • Juvenile Justice system linkages Recent research on the ban: Perverse Consequences Of Well-Intentioned Regulation: Evidence From India's Child Labour Ban by Bharadwaj et al. (2013) “...the net result of this ban appears to be an increase in child labor in some families. We find that child wages decrease in response to such laws and poor families send out more children into the workforce. Due to increased employment, affected children are less likely to be in school.(...) Our results highlight the importance of taking into account weak enforcement and behavior at the margin of subsistence when formulating important policies in developing countries.” Similar arguments and research emerging from other countries like Brazil. Bolivia undertook a radically different path last year.
Questions to consider for today's group discussion: • How do we place the amendment keeping in mind the last 30 years of the child labour law? What should be our collevtive response? • Do we require a new child labour policy? If yes, what should it be like? • What should the road ahead be?
