OBJECTIVE

The objectives of child labor are

typically driven by economic factors,
including cheap labor costs, increased
production, and maintaining
competitiveness in industries where adult
labor may be more costly. However, it’s
important to note that child labor is
widely condemned due to its detrimental
effects on children’s physical and mental
well-being, education, and overall
development.

In addition to economic objectives,

child labor may also be driven by social
factors such as poverty, lack of access to
education, cultural norms, and
 exploitation by employers. Some
employers may also exploit children due
to their vulnerability, as they may be less
likely to demand fair wages or safe
working conditions. However, it’s crucial
to prioritize the well-being and rights of
children over any perceived economic or
social benefits of child labor.

Child labor can also serve as a means

for families to supplement their income,
especially in regions where poverty is
prevalent and resources are scarce.
Additionally, in some cases, children may
be forced into labor due to circumstances
such as trafficking or coercion by criminal
organizations. Despite these factors, it’s
important to recognize that child labor
perpetuates a cycle of poverty and
deprivation, depriving children of their
rights to education, health, and a safe
 environment. Governments,
organizations, and communities must
work together to address the root causes
of child labor and ensure that all children
have access to education, protection, and
opportunities for a brighter future.
 ACTION PLAN

“Child labour” is a project initiated by

our group in order to give a brief
introduction about Child labour and to
analyze how Child labour are affecting
children’s lives. For this, we reffered
internet for ideas and reports that
helped us. The aim of our project is to
create awareness among people
about child labour. In order to achieve
this, Each member in our team worked
on the following steps of plan:
★Data collection:Child labour: types,
effects and ways to overcome
★Collection of articles, surveys and
data.
★analysis and report
★conclusion

WHAT IS CHILD
LABOUR

Child labour typically means the

employment of children in any manual
work with or without payment. Child
labour is not only limited to India, it
happens to be a global phenomenon.

As far as India is concerned, the

issue is a vicious one as children in
India have historically been helping
parents at their farms and other
primitive activities. Another concept
that needs explanation is the concept
of bonded labour which is one of the
most common forms of exploitation.
Bonded labour means the children are
forced to work as employees in lieu of
payment of debt by the parents due to
exorbitant rate” of repayment of
interest.

Also associated with the concept of

bonded labour is the concept of urban
child labour in India wherein the
labouers are the street children who
spend most of their childhood on the
streets.
 UNICEF has categorized child work
into three categories:

1. Within the family- Children are

engaged in domestic household
tasks without pay.

2. Within the family but outside the

home-Example-agricultural
labourers, domestic maids,
migrant labourers etc.
3. Outside the family- Example-
commercial shops in restaurants
and jobs, prostitution etc.
TYPES OF CHILD LABOUR
IN INDIA
 Child labors in India could be mainly
classified into two categories of industrial,
domestic and bonded child labors. Below
we will go through the details of the
mentioned Indian sectors employing
children as labors along with the
demographics.

 Industrial Child Labor

Industrial sector in India is the

largest employer of children below the
legal age of 18. Approximately, over 10
Million children between the age group of
5 to 14 years are working in informal or
small industries, including around 4.5
Million girls. Small enterprises like
garment industry, brick kiln, agriculture,
fireworks industries, diamond industries
etc, constitute some of the largest
employer of children. Sometimes such
industries operate from homes, making it
difficult for the authorities to take
appropriate actions.

Unorganized sector in India is one of the

largest employers of children and the
most visible too. Children could be easily
spotted, working in road side dhabas and
eateries, tea shops or grocery stores. The
owners of such small businesses prefer
children as they are easy to handle and
easy to fire.

 Domestic Child Labor

Domestic child labors constitute 10% of

the total child labors in India. They
include both boys and girls domestically
 employed by wealthy families to look
after their everyday chorus. Such children
have no option but to serve the needs of
other families in an age when they should
be attending school and playing with
friends. Poverty is the main factor behind
children being. Employed as domestic
help. Usually the parents give their
consent in hope of money and a stable
shelter for their children.

The statics reveal a grim picture – nearly

20% of all the do
Domestic workers employed are below
the age of 14 years and the figures
include mainly girls. These children are
employed as live in servants, doing daily
chorus of the family like -washing,
cooking, looking after pets or younger
children and other works.
  Bonded Child Labour

Bonded child labour means as a child who

is employed forcibly to pay off a debt of
his parents or a guardian. Though the
numbers of bonded child labors have
considerably declined in recent past due
strict government supervision and laws
banning it, it is silently followed in
isolated and remote places.

Children residing in villages and

employed in agriculture industry are more
prone to this type of labor, Poor farmers
owing large debts to money lenders, often
get into an agreement to engage their
siblings as labors to wealthy money
lenders. There were thousands of bonded
labors engaged in various industries, till
the past decade, but today the numbers
have reduced drastically, and the
government claims that there are no
more bonded child labors in India.

This is made possible due to laws banning

child labor and a compulsory child
education and by the joint efforts of
UNICEF (United Nations Children
Emergency Fund), NGOs and other
relevant agencies.
 CAUSES OF RISING INSTANCES
OF CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA

Over population, illiteracy, poverty,

debt trap are some of the common
causes which are instrumental in this
issue.

Overburdened, debt-trapped parents

fail to understand the importance of a
normal childhood under the pressures
of their own troubles and thus it leads
to the poor emotional and mental
balance of a child’s brain which is not
prepared to undertake rigorous field or
domestic tasks.
National and Multinational companies
also recruit children in garment
ind.ustries for more work and less pay
which is absolutely unethical.

According to UNICEF children are

employed because they can be easily
exploited. By considering various
causes of child labour, we can make a
strategy to curb or eliminate child
labour in India.
 CAUSES OF CHILD
LABOUR IN INDIA

• The curse of poverty

The main reason for child labour in

India is poverty. Most of the country’s
population suffers from poverty. Due
to poverty, parents cannot afford the
studies of their children and make
them earn their wages from a tender
age. In fact, they are well aware of the
grief of losing their loved ones to
poverty many times. They send their
small children to work in factories,
homes and shops. They are made to
work to increase the income of their
poor families at the earliest. These
decisions are taken only for the
purpose of eking out a living for their
family But such decisions shatter
children’s physical and mental state
as they lose their childhood at an
early age.

• Lack of educational resources

Even after so many years of our

country’s independence, there are
instances where children are deprived
of their fundamental right to
education. There are thousands of
villages in our country where there are
no proper facilities of education. And if
there is any, it is miles away. Such
administrative laxity is also
responsible for child labour in India.
The worst sufferers are the poor
families for whom getting their
children educated is a dream,

Sometimes the lack of affordable

school for the education of poor
children leaves them illiterate and
helpless. Children are forced to live
without studying And sometimes such
compulsions push them into the trap
of child labour in India.

• Social and economic backwardness

Social and economic backwardness is

also the main reason for child labour
in India. Socially backward parents do
not send their children to receive
 education. Consequently, their
children are trapped in child labour.
Due to illiteracy, many times parents
are not aware of various information
and schemes for child education. Lack
of education, illiteracy and
consequently the lack of awareness of
their rights among them have
encouraged child labour.

Also, uneducated parents do not know

about the impact of child labour on
their children. The conditions of
poverty and unemployment give rural
families a compulsive basis for
engaging children in various tasks. In
fact, feudal, zamindari system and its
existing remnants continue to
perpetuate the problem of child labour
in India.

• Addiction, disease or disability

In many families, due to addiction,

disease or disability, there is no
earning, and the child’s wages are the
sole means of family’s sustenance.
Population growth is also increasing
unemployment, which has adverse
impact on child labour prevention. So,
parents, instead of sending their
children to school, are willing to send
them to work to increase family
income.

• Poor compliance of laws

In modern society, laws stipulate that
citizens have the right to receive good
education, avail good health services
and take care of their health. Every
citizen has the right to play the game
he enjoys, and enjoy all the means of
entertainment, and when he grows, to
obtain employment where he can earn
well and contribute to society and
nation. But in the absence of proper
compliance of the laws, child labour in
India is continuing. It can be
prohibited only by strict adherence to
the related laws.
• Lure of cheap labour

In the greed of cheap labour, some

shopkeepers, companies and factory
owners employ children so that they
have to pay less to them and it
amounts to employing cheap labour.
Shopkeepers and small businessmen
make children work as much as they
do to the elder ones, but pay half the
wages. In the case of child labour,
there is less chance for theft, greed or
misappropriation of money too.
With the development of globalization,
privatization, and consumerist culture,
the need for cheap labour and its
linkage with economic needs of poor
families have encouraged child labour
in India.

Family tradition

It is a shocking but a bitter truth that

in our society it is very easy to give
child labour the name of tradition or
custom in many families. The cultural
and traditional family values play their
role in increasing the problem of child
labour in India at the voluntary level.
Many families believe that a good life
is not their destiny, and the age-old
tradition of labour is the only source of
their earning and livelihood.

Small businessmen also waste the

lives of their children in the
greediness of perpetuating their
family trade with lower production
costs. Some families also believe that
working from childhood onwards will
make their children more diligent and
worldly-wise in terms of future life.
They believe that early employment
will give rise to their children’s
personal development, which will
make it easier for them to plan their
life ahead.
• Discrimination between boys and
girls

We have been conditioned into

believing that girls are weaker and
there is no equal comparison between
boys and girls. Even today, in our
society, we will find many examples
where girls are deprived of studies.
Considering girls weaker than boys
deprives them of school and
education. In labourer families, girls
are found to be engaged in labour
along with their parents.
 IMPACT OF CHILD LABOUR ON
SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT IN INDIA
 Child labour is a serious hindrance to
social and economical development of
the nation. Children employed in
various sectors fail to get necessary
education, virtually forced to leading a
life of hardship and poverty. It also
affects the overall health of a child, as
children get exhausted easily and are
not physically fit to work for longer
durations under difficult conditions.

Children employed in glass and fire

cracker industries work not only for
longer hours but also under hazardous
conditions, seriously compromising
their health. They are continuously
exposed to toxic gases and
substances leading to various skin and
respiratory ailments.
 Children who are forced into the
labour industry are unable to fend for
themselves and grow up as an
individual who cannot productively
contribute to the society. Moreover,
for a nation’s economy to be
progressive, it is imperative that its
workforce is educated and skilled, to
cater to different sectors; which is a
distant reality as long as child labor
exists.

As long as the children are employed

as labors, India cannot successfully
eradicate poverty and illiteracy.
Sending children to schools instead of
work could have large economical and
social benefits in long run. Educated
children acquire necessary skills and
higher paying jobs, lifting them and
the nation out of the clutches of
poverty.
 CHILD LABOUR LAWS IN
INDIA

The problem of child labour in India

had become an issue of concern for
one and all post Independence. The
drafting committee of the India
constitution wanted to formulate laws
on their own without seeking
recommendations from other
countries with this regard. Since, India
had been under the exploitative
regime of the British, it only made
sense that the provisions were
devised keeping in mind the forms of
 exploitative labour that India had
witnessed under the atrocious regime.

The primitive laws that were formed

to prohibit child labour in India were
when the Employment of Children Act,
1938 was passed. But this act failed
miserably because it failed to address
the cause of poverty as it is poverty
that drives children into forced labour.

The Indian Parliament time and again

has passed Laws and Acts to ensure
the protection of children from child
labour in India. The Fundamental
Rights enshrined in our Constitution
prohibit child labour below the age of
14 years in any factor or mine or
 engaged in any hazardous
employment under Article 24. Apart
from this, it is also provided under
Article 21-A that State shall provide
infrastructure and resources for free
and compulsory education for children
of the age six upto 14 years.There
exists a set of laws which under the
Constitution govern the protection of
children from child labour. The
Factories Act of 1948 prevents the
employment of children below 14
years in any factory. The Mines Act of
1952 prohibits the employment of
children below the age of 18 years.
The Child Labor (Prohibition and
Regulation) Act of 1986 prevents the
employment of children below the age
of 14 years in life-threatening
occupations identified in a list by the
law. Further, the Juvenile Justice (Care
and Protection) of children Act of 2000
made the employment of children a
punishable offence.

Ironically, despite this huge array of

laws, there seems to be no
improvement in the working
conditions of the child labourers and
employers also freely flout the
provisions of the Act covering the
prohibition of child labour in India.

It needs to be highlighted that the

violation of these provisions means a
deprivation of the basic human rights
and demeaning the childhood of the
children. The law also isn’t very clear
 as to how where can the children
work. The Acts covers only 10 percent
of the total working children and thus
not applicable to the unorganized
sector.

The Act also exempts the family of the

child labourer from its purview if they
all are working with the same
employee as that of the child.
Although the Act prohibits the
employment of children in certain
hazardous industries and processes, it
does not define what constitutes
hazardous work. It only provides a list
of hazardous occupations.
 ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL
ORGANISATIONS IN FIGHTING
CHILD LABOUR

The International Programme on the

Elimination of Child Labour (IPECL)
was launched under the programme
of International Labour Organization in
1991 to work towards the elimination
of child labour by creating awareness
about child labour as a global issue
using national platforms. India was
among the first nations to sign the
MOU with IPECL to help in combating
child labour.
National Labour Project (NCLP) is one
of the major programmes
implemented throughout the country
under which seven child labour
projects were set up in the year 1988.
Rehabilitation is also one of the major
policies that have been adopted by
the government of India to reduce the
incidence of child labour in India.

Unfortunately, the concerned

authorities are unable to combat the
rising cases of child labour because of
varied reasons. They fail to establish
the correct age if the child due to the
lack of birth proofs and at times fake
proofs. Not much is being done on
creating the awareness among
people. Even if efforts are being
made, they cater to a limited
population and the endurance among
the authorities is not visible. A lot of
laxity can be observed during the
conduct of awareness programmes.
There is still a need to address the
issue on global platforms time and
again with stringent policy framework
in place.
 HOW TO ELIMINATE AND
STOP CHILD LABOUR IN
INDIA

Abolition of child trafficking,

elimination of poverty, free and
compulsory education, and basic
standards of living can reduce the
problem to a great extent. The World
Bank and International Monetary Fund
can help in eradicating poverty by
providing loan to the developing
countries.

Strict implementation of labour laws is

also essential in order to prevent
exploitation by parties or
multinational companies. Lot many
amendments are required in the
present child labour prohibition law in
order to implement strict measures to
control the situation. The minimum of
age of fourteen years needs to be
increased to at least eighteen. The list
of hazardous activities which are
present in the law needs to include
more occupations which have been
left out of the purview of the
hazardous activities.

Let’s learn how to stop and solve the

problem of child labour in India:
• To prevent child labour, incidence of
poverty needs to be reduced first, so
that poor people do not have to send
their

Children to earn their bread and

butter. Spreading literacy and
education is a potent weapon against
the practice of child labour in India,
because illiterate persons

Do not understand the implications of

child labour.

Another way to stop child labour in

India is to eliminate or rein in
unemployment. Because of
inadequate employment, many
families cannot afford to meet all their
expenses. If employment
opportunities are increased, they will
be able to let their children read and
write and become worthy citizens
• To stop child labour in India, we will
have to first change our own thinking.
We have to ensure that first of all, we
do not keep any child at work in our
own home or office. We have to
remember that we are not doing any
favour to children of tender age by
paying them money in exchange of
their labour, but we are rather playing
with their future.

We also need to spread awareness

about child labour in India,
So that people can understand that
child labour is messing

With the future of the country. They

will have to understand

That there is no future for India if its

children are weakened mentally and
physically through the practice of
child labour. • The common man
should take up a resolve that he will
not buy any items from the shops
where a child is employed as labour.
Also, if we come across such
instances, we should complain to the
police or other agencies, about it. The
common citizen should prevent child
labour from taking place in society. In
this way, the general public can help
in the prevention of child labour in
India.

There are laws prohibiting child labour

in our country. If we notice any case of
child labour, then we should
immediately go to the nearest police
station and register our complaint. We
must raise our voice against the
stonehearted who employ child labour
in India.

We can also dial 100 to register a

complaint against child labour. We can
also dial the telephone service
number 1098 started by the
government to register complaints
against child labour.
 • We will have to play the role of a
conscious customer. Many times we
go to the market and shop for our
necessities, without knowing that
there may be child labour practice
behind the texture of that stuff. Why
not form a habit from today that
whenever we purchase any goods, we
ask the shopkeeper about the
technique used in their manufacture.
Most shopkeepers may not know the
answer to this question, but we can
take one step from our side. We can
create a sensible environment in the
society by these inquiries. And say No
to the use of something made of child
labour. It may seem a little odd, but
this can bring a big change in our
society.
 Let the parents of the children know
the consequences of child labour. If
we find any child labour somewhere
near us, first we should talk to the
family of that child. Empathizing with
their conditions, we should tell them
about the bleak future of their child in
case of continuance of this practice.

• Owners of factories and shops

should take a vow that they will not
force any child to do labour and stop
other people from doing the same.

• To prevent child labour in India, we

need proper implementation of laws
that prescribe strict punishment to
vendors, shopkeepers and mill owners
in case they engage children on cheap
wages.

There should also be more robust and

stricter laws for child labour in India,
so that the people fear from
employing any child labour.

Poor parents should pay full attention

to the education of their children
because today the government is
providing free education, food, and
even medicines in certain schools.

• They should not make any

difference between boys and girls. By
this practice, the number of girl child
labour in India can be reduced to a
great extent.
BIBLOGRAPHY
 www.childlineindia.com
 https://infinitylearn.com
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
ChildlabouriIndia