Need to strengthen monitoring, rehabilitation

rise in child labour

Ten-year-old Ankit (name changed) collects garbage from houses in east Delhi’s Laxmi Nagar for Rs 50 per month. Many times, he is accompanied by a couple of his younger friends and sometimes his younger sister. He has never been to a school and is not interested either as he never knew the joy of school. His parents, who, too, collect garbage from households for a fee, believe that their children help them in earning money for their livelihood.

Ankit was not counted among the 10.1 million child labourers, including 8.1 million in rural areas, in the Census 2011 as he was just over a year old when the numbers were collected. Of the 10.1 million child labourers between five and 14 years, 4.3 million work throughout the year.\

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Less than 10 km away from Laxmi Nagar is Gandhi Nagar and Seelampur, the two localities near the recent riot-hit areas of Jafrabad in north-east Delhi, where another chunk of child labourers work in small-scale garment industries day and night. Most of them belong to the poorer and remote areas of Bihar. Occasionally, raids happen and children are saved, but activists believe many of them return to work soon after as the rehabilitation mechanism is not robust enough.

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The Census 2011 showed that there was a decrease in the number of child labourers compared to the Census 2001 figure of 12.6 million, which was 5% of the total children counted in that year. In 2011, there were 259.6 million children counted and the child labourers accounted for 4%. The Census 2011 figure showed that 2.5 million children were in the age group of 5-9 years and the rest 7.5 million in 10-14 years age bracket. The figure includes both main workers and marginal workers.

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One of the positive notes was that the number of child labourers decreased from 11.3 million in 2001 to 8.1 million 10 years later, while the urban areas showed a worrying trend. In urban areas, the numbers rose from 1.3 million to 2 million during this period. Uttar Pradesh topped the list of ignominy with around 2.1 million child labourers in Census 2011 followed by Bihar (1 million), Rajasthan (0.8 million) and Maharashtra (0.7 million).

However, there is more cause to worry if one goes by a report tabled by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour and Employment in Parliament two years ago. It noted in dismay that additions have been witnessed in the number of child labour during the six years after the Census 2011. They expressed fear about the possibility of children going back to work after being rehabilitated.

They were worried that children were “getting lost to the vicious circle of being a labourer again” and called for strengthening rehabilitation process along with appropriate monitoring mechanism to ensure that there is no scope for children going back to work again. The actual number of child labourers could be much more, the panel indicated, as it felt the need to identify child labour in domestic households and also in the motion pictures and documentaries industry.

Social security

Elimination of child labour is an area of great concern to the government, a government document has said citing Article 24 and 39 of the Constitution that provides for the protection of children from involvement in economic activities and of vocations unsuited to their age. The authorities identify child labour as an outcome of various socio-economic problems such as poverty, economic backwardness and illiteracy.

On its part, the Government has enacted the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016, which provides for complete prohibition of work or employment of children below 14 years in any occupation and process and adolescents in the age group of 14 to 18 years in hazardous occupations and processes.

However, activists demand the government needs to do more to ensure that child labour is completely eradicated by ensuring social security for the underprivileged class.