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In early May, a meeting of the Union cabinet chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi approved a set of amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986. The amendments permit children below age 14 to work in family-owned agriculture and other enterprises. An exception has also been made for children working as artistes in the audio-visual entertainment industry, including advertising. These amendments to the Act have disappointed civil society organisations campaigning for complete abolition of child labour and realisation of the fundamental right of all children to quality education.
The argument advanced by the cabinet for permitting child labour on farms and family-run businesses is that “it would be prudent to also keep in mind the country’s social fabric and socio-economic conditions. In a large number of families, children help their parents in their occupations like agriculture, artisanship etc, and while helping the parents, children also learn the basics of occupations. Therefore, striking a balance between the need for education for a child and the reality of the socio-economic conditions and social fabric in the country, the cabinet has approved that a child can help his family or family enterprise, which is other than any hazardous occupation or process, after his school hours or during vacations”.
This rationalisation flies in the face of the Second National Labour Commission Report (2002) which opined that “the only way to prevent child labour is to recognise that the rightful place of children is in school, not in the workplace or in the house. So, the first step is to ensure compulsory primary education for all children. Historically and worldwide, wherever child labour has been abolished, this is how it has been done.”
Even within India’s educators’ community, there’s a broad consensus that in their formative years children need special care to realise their full potential for growth and development. The resolutions of numerous international and national conventions and the text of most national constitutions affirm that children need protection from economic exploitation to attain a healthy and meaningful childhood.
It’s also pertinent to note that the Constitution of India contains several provisions to protect and promote the rights of children. For instance, Article 15 which prohibits the State from practising discrimination on grounds of race, religion, caste or place of birth, permits positive discrimination in favour of women and children (Article 15 (3)). Further, Article 23 prohibits trafficking of human beings, beggary and similar forms of forced labour, and Article 24 states that “no child under the age of 14 years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment”.
The special position of children in society is reinforced by Article 39 (f) which directs the State to formulate policies to ensure that “children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment”. And Article 21-A recognises education as a fundamental right and mandates that “the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children between the age of 6-14 years”.
Protection from forced labour and servitude accorded to children by the Constitution is reaffirmed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Article 32 defines child labour as any work likely to interfere with her right to education, or to be harmful to her physical, mental and spiritual health or social development.
Despite these protection clauses, an uncomfortably large number of educated middle class people accept child labour as a ‘necessary evil’ and they condemn only the worst forms of exploitative child labour. According to Census of India 2001, 12.26 million children in the 5-14 age group were working cf. 11.3 million in 1991 and the share of children in the 5-14 age group in the total workforce in India was 3.15 percent in 2001. More pertinently, census data indicates that children working in agriculture constitute two-thirds of all working children countrywide — more than 75 percent. This is clear proof that children are unable to cope with work as well as schooling, and have therefore sacrificed their education to help out on family farms.
The proposed amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 are not only regressive but reactionary and totally unwarranted. Instead, all forms of child labour up to the age of 18 years must be abolished without any qualifications or rationalisation and distinction between hazardous or non-hazardous occupations in accordance with the definition of ‘child’ being youth up to 18 years as laid down in UNCRC and the National Policy for Children, 2013.
“Few human rights abuses are so widely condemned, yet so widely practiced; Let us make (abolition of child labour) a priority. Because a child in danger is a child that cannot wait,” said former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan in 2009. These are words the prime minister and his cabinet colleagues should heed, and withdraw the amendments.
(Niranjanaradhya V.P. is fellow and programme head for education, Centre for Child and the Law, National Law School of India University, Bangalore)