Present Coverage Under National Child Labor Project:

So far 76 child labor projects have been sanctioned under the National Child Labor Project Scheme for covering 150,000 children. Around 105,000 children are already enrolled in the special schools. The next table gives the figures of the state-wise coverage of children under the National Child Labor Project.

Coverage under National Child Labor Project

State	Districts	Sanctioned Schools	Coverage Children	Actual Schools	Coverage Children
Andhra Pradesh	20	807	43550	610	36249
Bihar	08	174	12200	173	10094
Gujarat	02	040	2000	023	1254
Karnataka	03	100	5000	024	1200
Madhya Pradesh	05	138	9800	087	6524
Maharashta	02	074	3700	024	1200
Orissa	16	430	33000	239	14972
Rajasthan	02	060	3000	054	2700
Tamil Nadu	08	379	19500	307	14684
Uttar Pradesh	04	150	11500	105	7488
West Bengal	04	219	12000	164	8250
Total	76	2571	155250	1810	104615

SUPREME COURT DIRECTIONS ON CHILD LABOR

The Supreme Court of India, in its judgement dated 10^th December, 1996 in Writ Petition (Civil) Number 465/1986, has given certain directions regarding the manner in which children working in the hazardous occupations are to be withdrawn from work and rehabilitated, and the manner in which the working conditions of children working in non-hazardous occupations are to be regulated and improved. The judgement of the Supreme Court envisages:

(a) Simultaneous action in all districts of the country;

(b) Survey for identification of working children (to be completed by June 10, 1997)

(c) Withdrawal of children working in hazardous industries and ensuring their education in appropriate institutions;

(d) Contribution of Rs.20,000 per child to be paid by the offending employers of children to a welfare fund to be established for this purpose;

(e) Employment to one adult member of the family of the child so withdrawn from work, and if that is not possible a contribution of Rs.5000 to the welfare fund to be made by the State Government;

(f) Financial assistance to the families of the children so withdrawn to be paid out of the interest earnings on the corpus of Rs.20,,000/25,000.00 deposited in the welfare fund as long as the child is actually sent to the schools;

(g) Regulating hours of work for children working in non-hazardous occupations so that their working hours do not exceed six hours per day and education for at least two hours is ensured. The entire expenditure on education is to be borne by the concerned employer;

(h) Planning and preparedness on the part of Central and State Governments in terms of strengthening of the existing administrative/regulatory/enforcement frame-work (covering cost of additional manpower, training, mobility, computerization etc.) implying additional requirement of funds.

The Central Advisory Board on Child Labor

The Central Advisory Board on Child Labor was constituted on March 4, 1981. The following are the terms of reference of the Board:

• Review the implementation of the existing legislation administered by the Central Government.
• Suggest legislative measures as well as welfare measures for the welfare of working children.
• Review the progress of welfare measures for working children.
• Recommend the industries and areas where there must be a progressive elimination of child labor.

The Board was reconstituted last on November 2, 1994. The Union Labor Minister is the Chairman of the Board. The other Members of the Board include representatives from the various sister ministries, Members of Parliament, non-governmental organizations, representatives of major trade unions and employers' organizations. A copy of the Resolution constituting the Board is at Annexure-III. The last meeting of the Board was held on December 27, 1995.

The National Child Labor Policy

ncreasing attention is now being paid to strengthening the enforcement machinery related to child labor. Soon after the enactment of the comprehensive Child Labor (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986, the Government of India adopted a National Child Labor policy in 1987, in accordance with the constitutional provisions and various legislation on child labor. The idea of adopting a separate policy on child labor was not only to place the issue on the nation's agenda, but also to formulate a specific program of action to initiate the process of progressive elimination of child labor. The policy consists of three complementary measures:

• Legal action plan: This policy envisages strict enforcement of the provisions of the Child Labor (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 and other child-related legislation.

• Focus on general development programs benefiting children wherever possible: The policy envisages the development of an extensive system of non-formal education for working children withdrawn from work and increasing the provision for employment and income generating schemes meant for their parents. A special cell - Child Labor Cell - was constituted to encourage voluntary organizations to take up activities like non-formal education,- vocational training, provisions of health care, nutrition and education for working children.

• Area specific projects: To focus on areas known to have high concentration of child labor and to adopt a project approach for identification, withdrawal and rehabilitation of working children.

CHILD LABOR STUDY

According to the Indian census of 1991, there are 11.28 million working children under the age of fourteen years in India. Over 85% of this child labor is in the country's rural areas, working in agricultural activities such as fanning, livestock rearing, forestry and fisheries. This labor is outside the formal sector, and outside industry. Moreover, nine out of ten working children work within a family setting. Working in family-based occupations, these children also develop skills in certain traditional crafts, thus augmenting the human capital formation of India's developing economy.

India has all along followed a proactive policy in the matter of tackling the problem of child labor. India has always stood for constitutional, statutory and development measures required to eliminate child labor. The Indian Constitution has consciously incorporated provisions to secure compulsory universal elementary education as well as labor protection for children. Labor Commissions in India have gone into the problems of child labor and have made extensive recommendations.

In India, the post-independence era has seen an unequivocal commitment of the government to the cause of children through constitutional provisions, legislation, policies and programs. The Constitution of India in Article 39 of the Directive Principles of State Policy pledges that "the State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing ... that the health and strength of workers, men and women, and the tender age of children are not abused, and that citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their age or strength, that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner, and in conditions of freedom and dignity, and that childhood and youth are protected against exploitation, and against moral and material abandonment."

As a follow-up of this commitment, and being a party to the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child 1959, India adopted the National Policy on Children in 1974. The policy reaffirmed the constitutional provisions and stated that "it shall be the policy of the State to provide adequate services to children, both before and after birth and through the period of growth to ensure their full physical, mental and social development. The State shall progressively increase the scope of such services so that within a reasonable time all children in the country enjoy optimum conditions for their balanced growth."

India has also ratified on December 2, 1992, the Convention on the Rights of the Child which came into force in 1990. This ratification implies that India will ensure wide awareness about issues relating to children among government agencies, implementing agencies, the media, the judiciary, the public and children themselves. The Government's endeavor is to meet the goals of the Convention and to amend all legislation, policies and schemes to meet the standards set in the Convention.

India is also a signatory to the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children. In pursuance of the commitment made at the World Summit, the Department of Women and Child Development under the Ministry of Human Resource Development has formulated a National Plan of Action for Children. Most of the recommendations of the World Summit Action Plan are reflected in India's National Plan of Action.

India's policy on child labor has evolved over the years against this backdrop and its present regime of laws relating to child labor has a pragmatic foundation, consistent with the International Labor Conference resolution of 1979. This ILO resolution calls for a combination of prohibitory measures and measures for humanizing child labor, wherever such labor cannot be eliminated altogether in the short turn. It should also be mentioned that India is second to none in its commitment to and in the upholding of the core international labor standards such as freedom of association, collective bargaining, non-discrimination, etc. India is signatory to a record 36 ILO labor conventions.

The Child Labor (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 of India prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 in factories, mines and in other forms of hazardous employment, and regulates the working conditions of children in other employment. India has announced a National Policy of Child Labor as early as 1987, and was probably the first among the developing countries to have such a progressive policy. Through a notification dated May 26, 1993, the working conditions of children have been regulated in all employment not prohibited under the Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act. Further, following up on a preliminary notification issued on October 5, 1993, the government has also prohibited employment of children in occupations such as abattoirs/slaughter houses, printing, cashew de-scaling and processing, and soldering.

The announcement by the Prime Minister on India's Independence Day in 1994 that child labor would be abolished in hazardous occupations by the year 2000, reflects a national consensus and commitment. After this declaration, several far-reaching initiatives have been taken by the Government to effectively tackle the problem.

With the setting up of the National Authority for the Elimination of Child Labor (NAECL) under the Chairmanship of the Labor Minister, Government of India, a convergence of services and schemes for eliminating child labor is being achieved. The NAECL, comprising representatives from the Central Ministries, meets the need for an umbrella organization to coordinate the efforts of the different arms of the Government for the progressive elimination of child labor.

The child labor program in India is national in character and involves the Government of India,, the governments of the States and the Union Territories of India, as well as such tripartite fora as the Indian Labour Conference and the Standing Labour Committee. A massive national and regional media campaign has been launched to sensitize society against child labor. Funds have been allocated to districts identified as child-labor endemic for surveys to identify child labor, and for awareness generation programs among employers, parents and the working children themselves.

This paper covers the significant aspects of India's constitutional and legislative provisions relating to child labor, the enforcement of these provisions, and programs being undertaken nation-wide to eliminate child labor.

India's first act on the subject was the enactment of the Children (Pledging of Labor) Act of February 1933. This was followed by the Employment of Children Act in 1938. Subsequently, twelve additional legislations were passed that progressively extended legal protection to children. Provisions relating to child labor under various enactment such as the Factories Act, the Mines Act, the Plantation Labor Act etc. have concentrated on aspects such as reducing working hours, increasing minimum wage and prohibiting employment of children in occupations and processes detrimental to their health and development.

The Child Labor (Prohibition & Regulation) Act 1986 of India was the culmination of efforts and ideas that emerged from the deliberations and recommendations of various committees on child labor. Significant among them are the National Commission on Labour (1966-69), Gurupadaswamy Committee on Child Labour (1979), and the Sanat Mehta Committee (1984).

The Act aims to prohibit the entry of children into hazardous occupations and to regulate the services of children in non-hazardous occupations. The Act,, in particular,

• bans the employment of children, i.e. those who have not completed their 14^th year, in specified occupations and processes (listed in the Schedule to the Act, attached at Annexure I);
• lays down a procedure to make additions to the schedule of banned occupations or processes;
• regulates the working conditions of children in occupations where they are not prohibited from working;
• lays down penalties for employment of children in violation of the provisions of this Act,, and other Acts which forbid the employment of children;
• brings uniformity in the definition of the "Child" in related laws.

What is child labour?

Child labour is not child work. Child work can be beneficial and can enhance a child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development without interfering with schooling, recreation and rest. Helping parents in their household activities and business after school in their free time also contributes positively to the development of the child. When such work is truly part of the socialisation process and a means of transmitting skills from parents to child, it is not child labour. Through such work children can increase their status as family members and citizens and gain confidence and self-esteem.

Child labour, however, is the opposite of child work. Child labour hampers the normal physical, intellectual, emotional and moral development of a child. Children who are in the growing process can permanently distort or disable their bodies when they carry heavy loads or are forced to adopt unnatural positions at work for long hours. Children are less resistant to diseases and suffer more readily from chemical hazards and radiation than adults. UNICEF classifies the hazards of child labour into three categories, namely (i) physical; (ii) cognitive; (iii) emotional, social and moral:

Hazards

I.Physical hazards

There are jobs that are hazardous in themselves and affect child labourers immediately. They affect the overall health, coordination, strength, vision and hearing of children. One study indicates that hard physical labour over a period of years stunts a child's physical stature by up to 30 percent of their biological potential³ . Working in mines, quarries, construction sites, and carrying heavy loads are some of the activities that put children directly at risk physically. Jobs in the glass and brassware industry in India, where children are exposed to high temperatures while rotating the wheel furnace and use heavy and sharp tools, are clearly physically hazardous to them.

II. Cognitive hazards

Education helps a child to develop cognitively, emotionally and socially, and needless to say, education is often gravely reduced by child labour. Cognitive development includes literacy, numeracy and the acquisition of knowledge necessary to normal life. Work may take so much of a child’s time that it becomes impossible for them to attend school; even if they do attend, they may be too tired to be attentive and follow the lessons.

Emotional, social and moral hazards

There are jobs that may jeopardise a child’s psychological and social growth more than physical growth. For example, a domestic job can involve relatively ‘light’ work. However, long hours of work, and the physical, psychological and sexual abuse to which the child domestic labourers are exposed make the work hazardous. Studies show that several domestic servants in India on average work for twenty hours a day with small intervals^4. According to a UNICEF survey, about 90 percent of employers of domestic workers in India preferred children of 12 to 15 years of age. This is mostly because they can be easily dominated and obliged to work for long hours and can be paid less than what would have to be paid to an adult worker. Moral hazards generally refer dangers arising for children in activities in which they are used for illegal activities, such as trafficking of drugs, the sex trade, and for the production of pornographic materials.

The Extent and General Pattern of Child Labour and its Hazards in India

Researchers give a range of incidence of child labour in India from about 14 million to about 100 million. Some studies show every fourth child in the age group of 5-15 is employed. It is estimated that over 20% of the country’s GNP is contributed by child labour. The figures released by the non-governmental agencies are much higher than those of the State. UNICEF cites figures from various resources that put child labour in India at between seventy-five to ninety million⁷. For some observers, the exact number of child labourers in India could be as high as 150 million. In brief, India is the largest producer of child labour and illiteracy on this earth. According to at least one study, a quarter of the world’s total number of child labourers are in India and every third household in that country has a child at work.

Children in India are employed in almost all the activities of the non-formal sector. However, most of them are employed in the agricultural sector or in jobs closely related to agriculture, as is the pattern in many developing countries. A unique factor in India is that a significant number of these children are bonded labourers.

Bonded child labour

Slave labour or bonded labour is one of the worst forms of labour not only for children but also for adults. In India, bonded labour has been illegal since 1976 when Parliament enacted the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act. However, the practice is still widespread. Even conservative estimates suggest that there are at least 10 million adult bonded labourers in India. 89 percent of adults in debt bondage belong to scheduled castes and tribes and 89 percent of those who control them are agricultural landlords. Most of the work carried out by bonded labourers is hard manual labour in the fields or brick kilns. Children or adults are bonded in order to pay off debts that they or members of their families have incurred. They toil all their lives and endure physical attacks that often amount to torture.

There are thousands of bonded child labourers in India. They are also mostly the children of parents who belong to scheduled castes and tribes. Young children are sold to employers by their parents to pay back small loans that they have borrowed. Such children are made to work for many hours a day over several years. According to one study, there are about 10 million bonded child labourers working as house servants in Indian families. Varandani recently estimated that there were nearly 55 million children in India working as bonded labourers in agriculture, mining, brick-kilns, construction work, fishing activities, carpet weaving, fireworks, matches, glass moulding, bidi-making (cigarettes), gem-cutting and polishing work, electroplating, dyeing, washing and domestic work. About 20 percent of these bonded child labourers were sold to cover some small debts obtained by their parents, usually for some social celebration like a wedding in the .

One of the most notorious forms of bonded-labour is found in the carpet industry of India. A study undertaken in Kashmir shows that over 80 percent of child labourers in carpet making work as bonded labourers. These young labourers, many of them 8 or 9 years old, are made to work for 20 hours a day without a break. They have to crouch on their toes from dawn to dusk which stunts their physical growth. Some of the children start to work when they are only 5-6 years of age, and by the time they are 20 they are burnt out.. They are physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted so that they are no longer able to work and are doomed to unemployment even in cases when employment is available. The vicious cycle restarts when they want their children to work for them.

Street work

There are thousands of children who live and work in the city streets of India. According to a study conducted among the street children in the city of Chennai (Madras), about 90% of them live with their parents in the streets. The same study also revealed that the largest group of street children in Chennai work as coolies (22%). About 10.4% of them work in hotels (small restaurants and snack bars), 9.6% do rag picking, 8% pull rickshaws, and 7.1% sell flowers. A smaller percentage of children are employed in other areas of work, including prostitution (0.3%). They work for 10-12 hours a day and at the end of the day what they earn is barely enough for their survival. About 32% of them receive less than 100 rupees (about 2.5 U.S. dollars) per month as wages.

Contrary to the general conception that many street children are delinquents, the study revealed that only 6.6% of the total sample had served time in juvenile homes or correctional institutions. Studies in a few other Indian cities showed that the majority of the street children were doing rag picking for their living. Usually, these children are unable to submit references or pay deposits to their employers to obtain any work. They choose rag picking as it is the most convenient way of earning something for their living that does not require much experience and investment.

Scavenging is the work that faces children with the most extreme risk. As many of them work with bare feet, they get cuts; they are also exposed to extreme weather conditions, sunstroke, pneumonia, influenza and malaria. They have to carry heavy loads, which stunts their physical growth. They face digestive disorders and food poisoning as they eat thrown away or left over food. A recent study conducted in Delhi found they were at risk of catching Aids, as they may accidentally come into contact with infected needles deposited in the refuse. Since animals scavenge in the same heaps of refuse, dog bites are quite common among these children.

The local police and even the municipal cleaners create great difficulties for the street children in India. For any petty thefts, they are the first ones to be accused by the police. The local municipal cleaners, in turn, demand money and labour from them. If the children refuse to comply, they are threatened with the police, who will compel them to pay even more. A memorandum presented at a 'street children’s rally' in Bangalore alleged that the police extorted about half the earnings of the rag pickers as commission. The children also had to pay some staff members of the municipality to ease the way for rag picking

Glass factories

Firozabad, an administrative unit in Agra district of Uttar Pradesh is the home of glass bangle and glassware industry in India. It is estimated that about 50,000 children below the age of 14 work in this industry. This is one of the highest concentrations of child labour in the world. According to forecasts, if the child labour were eliminated, production in the glass and bangle industry would go down by 25 percent.

Children are used in all the various phases of bangle making and glass blowing. About 85 percent of them are employed in carrying molten glass on a seven-foot iron rod called labya from the furnace to the adult worker and back to the furnace. They sit in front of furnaces where the temperature is said to be 700 degrees centigrade. Children, as they are small in stature have, to go close to the fire when they collect molten glass from the furnace. In her field research in the glass industry in India, Dr. Burra Neera notes that the children’s faces were only about six to eight inches away from furnaces that were burning at 1500-1800 centigrade.

As they work with fire in these factories, accidents are also common. When children carry moulded glasses up and down, pieces fall on the floor and unless the children are very careful they can get burn injuries quite easily. In the long-term, the continuous exposure to high temperature harms their health permanently.

Match factories

For more than seven decades, thousands of children have been working in the match factories at Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu. The total labour force in this industry is estimated to be 200,000, with about 35 percent being children. Some of these children are bonded child labourers. Factory owners send their vehicles to collect these children from villages. Many of them start their day as early as 4 a.m. and some even work until 10 p.m. At times they are made to work for 14 hours a day for a few more rupees on their wages; observers state that they work even during national holidays. Children are generally paid on a piece-rate basis. Payment for a piece is very low and thus they are indirectly forced to work faster and longer.

Respiratory diseases, eye infection, and exposure to chemical agents are the major health hazards in the match and fireworks industries. Researchers accuse the employers of not taking any precaution for fire safety in such workshops where even a small crack could start a fire. They found several children with burn scars on their hands, thighs and legs and 80 percent of the children interviewed in such workshops reported cases of accidents.

The Indian government has recognised that Sivakasi is an area with a high concentration of child labour and tries to implement some rehabilitative programmes there. However, child labour is still very much alive in this sector. Any attempt to remove child labour is met with stiff resistance by the interested parties. One study suggests that it would cost the employers Rs.32.8 million per annum if the children were to be replaced by adult workers. Unless and until the government acts with firmness, there is little possibility of ‘redeeming’ these children.

Carpet industry

An ILO study estimates that there could be 420,000 child labourers in India employed in the carpet industry. According to some NGOs, between 1979 and 1993 the value of export earnings in the hand-knotted carpet industry in India grew tenfold. They also claim that the number of children working at the looms has increased from 100,000 in 1975 to 300,000 in 1990. The Indian ‘carpet belt’ is found mostly in Uttar Pradesh stretching over a vast area. There are usually about 20 or so loom sheds in each village. Some children work as bonded labourers; others are kidnapped from their poverty-stricken home villages, including villages in Bihar, the neighbouring state.

Since the carpet industry is labour-intensive, entrepreneurs try to reduce labour costs by employing child labour. Under the pretext of getting practice, children are introduced into the sector as early as the age of five. Though initially the children find it difficult to sit in the particular posture required for weaving, they gradually adapt to it.

There is a new awareness at present in the international media about child labour exploitation in the South Asian carpet industry. This is partly due to 12 year-old Iqbal Masi, a bonded carpet weaver in Pakistan who was later killed for his anti-child labour campaign. At present, genuine efforts are made by some humanitarian agencies in the carpet importing nations to reduce or eliminate child labour in the sector.

THE EXPLOITATION OF CHILD LABOR IN INDIA

Mr. BURTON of Indiana: Mr. Speaker, much attention was appropriately focussed on human rights abuses by the Indian Government against minorities in Kashmir and Punjab during recent consideration of H.R. 1868, the foreign aid appropriations bill for 1996. However, there exists another little-known human rights problem in India, which is every bit as grave. This problem, which received little discussion, is the exploitation of child labor. The United States Government and the international community have paid little attention to the prolific employment of young children. It is time to attend to this neglect.

Child labor in India is a grave and extensive problem. Children under the age of 14 are forced to work in glass-blowing, fireworks, and most commonly, carpet-making factories. While the Government of India reports about 20 million children laborers, other non-governmental organizations estimate the number to be closer to 50 million. Most prevalent in the northern part of India, the exploitation of child labor has become an accepted practice, and is viewed by the local population as necessary to overcome the extreme poverty in the region.

Child labor is one of the main components of the carpet industry. Factories pay children extremely low wages, for which adults refuse to work, while forcing the youngsters to slave under perilous and unhygienic labor conditions. Many of these children are migrant workers, the majority coming from northern India, who are sent away by their families to earn an income sent directly home. Thus, children are forced to endure the despicable conditions of the carpet factories, as their families depend on their wages.

The situation of the children at the factories is desperate. Most work around 12 hours a day, with only small breaks for meals. Ill-nourished, the children are very often fed only minimal staples. The vast majority of migrant child workers who cannot return home at night sleep alongside of their loom, further inviting sickness and poor health.

Taking aggressive action to eliminate this problem is difficult in a nation where 75 percent of the population lives in rural areas, most often stricken by poverty. Children are viewed as a form of economic security in this desolate setting, necessary to help supplement their families' income. Parents often sacrifice their children's education, as offspring are often expected to uphold their roles as wage-earning members of their clan.

The Indian Government has taken some steps to alleviate this monumental problem. In 1989, India invoked a law that made the employment of children under age 14 illegal, except in family-owned factories. However, this law is rarely followed, and does not apply to the employment of family members. Thus, factories often circumvent the law through claims of hiring distant family. Also, in rural areas, there are few enforcement mechanisms, and punishment for factories violating the mandate is minimal, if not nonexistent.

Legal action taken against the proliferation of child labor often produces few results. Laws against such abuses have little effect in a nation where this abhorred practice is accepted as being necessary for poor families to earn an income. Thus, an extensive reform process is necessary to eliminate the proliferation of child labor abuses in India which strives to end the desperate poverty in the nation. Changing the structure of the workforce and hiring the high number of currently unemployed adults in greatly improved work conditions is only the first step in this lengthy process. New labor standards and wages must be adopted and medical examinations and minimum nutrition requirements must be established in India. Establishing schools and eliminating the rampant illiteracy that plagues the country would work to preserve structural changes. However, these changes cannot be accomplished immediately. Pressure from the international community, especially the United States Government, is absolutely necessary to bring about change in India.

I believe that it is imperative for the U.S. Congress and the Clinton administration to pay more attention to the exploitation of children in India as well as other areas in South and Southeast Asia. Currently, Germany has instigated a pilot program that places a stamp on all imported carpets that are child labor free, thus urging consumers to buy these products. Because of the high price range of these carpets, similar programs can and should be given serious consideration in the United States.

The Child Labor Deterrence Act of 1993, which is still under consideration, prohibits importing to the U.S. any product made, whole or in part, by children under 15 who are employed in industry. While this aspect of the bill may be effective, the United States needs to take action regarding child labor abuses, specifically targeted at India. Mr. Speaker, I call on every Member of Congress to pay more attention to this little-recognized problem. We must acknowledge the fact that we cannot continue to sustain the exploitation of children by purchasing carpets woven by the hands of children.

Brass industry

According to the researcher Burra Neera, about 40,000-45,000 children are employed in the brass industry in India. Children in the brass industry are employed in different sectors. Moulding is one of the activities, which is very hazardous and dangerous both to adults and children. More than 15000 children are employed in this sector. If the child is a new recruit, he is given the work of rotating the wheel that fans the underground furnace. Other children in the moulding section must heat the oblong ingot on top of the furnace, break it into small pieces with a hammer and then melt the required amount of brass. When the molten brass is ready, they have to pass the graphite crucible with the raw material to an adult worker holding it with long tongs. Sometimes they themselves have to pour the brass into the moulds and replace the crucible into the furnace. At times, children have to rotate the fan, remove the crucible and replace it in the furnace. They also may be asked to grind a hot black mixture into a fine powder with their hands and help the adult worker to remove the hot moulded metal from the moulds. These activities have to be done continuously and children in the moulding section would always be engaged in one or other of these activities. They may not receive any breaks in a ten-hour working day, even though a slight distraction or lapse of concentration may cause the child life-long injuries. The temperature in the furnace is about 1100 centigrade. If a drop of molten metal falls on the child’s foot, it will create an immediate hole.

Neera observes in her study that the life span of children employed in the brass industry is quite brief. During her fieldwork she visited about 600 box furnace workshops, and noticed that all moulders were less than 30 years of age. She was told that children who work in such workshops either do not survive as adults or become too ill to work. Tuberculosis seems to be an unavoidable consequence for child labourers in the brass industry.

Even though these children work sacrificing their own lives for the brass industrialists, what they get in return is very little. In her research Burra Neera noticed that no child under 14 was paid more than 200 rupees per month, irrespective of the type and duration of the work

Lock industry

The lock industry is mostly concentrated in the Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh. Studies reveal that more than 60 percent of the workers in this sector are children under 14 years of age. Children do polishing, electroplating, spray painting and working on hand presses. They cut different components of locks for nearly 12-14 hours a day with hand presses. Exhaustion causes accidents; many lose the tips of their fingers, which get caught in the machines.

The most hazardous job for children in the lock industry is polishing. The boys who do polishing stand close to the buffing machines. The buffing machines that run on electric power have emery powder coated on bobs. While polishing the locks, they inhale emery powder with metal dust and almost all polishers suffer from respiratory disorders and tuberculosis. In the small units, about 70 percent of the polishers are children.

Similarly, electroplating is another extremely hazardous process in which more than 70 percent of workers are children below the age of 14 years. Children work with naked hands in dangerous chemicals such as potassium cyanide, sodium phosphate, sodium silicate, hydroelectric acid, sulphuric acid, sodium hydroxide, chromic acid, barium hydroxide, etc. Children, besides being affected by the usual consequences of chemical substances, are also at risk of shocks as these substances also produce electricity and the floors are usually wet. The children have their hands in these solutions for the better part of the twelve-hour-day. Some cases of electrocution have been due to illegal electric connections obtained by some of these units from streetlights²⁷.

About 50 per cent of the workforce in the spray-painting sector of the lock industry is comprised of children. While at work, these children inhale large quantities of paint and paint thinners, leading to severe chest disorders. They suffer from breathlessness, fever, tuberculosis, bronchitis, asthma, and pneumoconiosis and from such symptoms and diseases. Work in the lock industry is dangerous and very hazardous for all employees, but is especially so for children.

Thus, in India children do all kinds activities, from household work to brick making, from stone breaking to selling in shops and on streets, from bike repairing to garbage collecting and rag-picking. Most children work on farms and plantations or houses, far from the media scrutiny and the reach of a labour inspector.

There is no product that has not been scented by the sweat of a child labourer. India today has earned the dubious distinction of having the highest child labour force in the world.

Child Labor India

Poor children in India begin working at a very young and tender age. Many children have to work to help their families and some families expect their children to continue the family business at a young age.

India has all along followed a proactive policy in the matter of tackling the problem of child labour. India has always stood for constitutional, statutory and developmental measures that are required to eliminate child laborr in India. Indian Constitution consciously incorporated relevant provisions in the Constitution to secure compulsory universal elementary education as well as labor protection for children.

Though most children begin working at a young age due to economic reasons, doing so allows them to break from some social constraints.

Indian Government policies on Child Labor in India

India's policy on child labour has evolved over the years against this backdrop. The present regime of laws relating to Child Labor in India have a pragmatic foundation and are consistent with the International Labour Conference resolution of 1979.

The policy of the government is to ban employment of children below the age of fourteen years in factories, mines and hazardous employment and to regulate the working conditions of children in other employment. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 seeks to achieve this basic objective.

Child labour laws in India

Through a notification dated May 26, 1993, the working conditions of children have been regulated in all employment which are not prohibited under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act. Following up on a preliminary notification issued on October 5, 1993, the government has also prohibited employment of children in occupation processes like abattoirs /slaughter houses, printing, cashewnut descaling and processing, and soldering. Children perform a variety of jobs: some work in factories, making products such as carpets and matches; others work on plantations, or in the home.

For boys the type of work is very different because they often work long hours doing hard physical labor outside of the home for very small wages.

The government has made efforts to prohibit child labor by enacting Child labor laws in India including the 1986 Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act that stated that children under fourteen years of age could not be employed in hazardous occupations.

This act also attempted to regulate working conditions in the jobs that it permitted, and put greater emphasis on health and safety standards.

However, due to cultural and economic factors, these goals remain difficult to meet. For instance, the act does nothing to protect children who perform domestic or unreported labor, which is very common in India. In almost all Indian industries girls are unrecognized laborers because they are seen as helpers and not workers. Therefore, girls are therefore not protected by the law. Children are often exploited and deprived of their rights in India, and until further measures are taken, many Indian children will continue to live in poverty.

Children's rights

The United Nations and the International Labor Organization consider child labor exploitative, with the UN stipulating, in article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that:

...States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.

In many developed countries, it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works, excluding household chores or schoolwork. An employer is often not allowed to hire a child below a certain age. This minimum age depends on the country; child labor laws in the United States set the minimum age to work in an establishment without parents' consent and restrictions at age 16.

A boy repairing a tire in Gambia

In the Industrial Revolution, children as young as four were employed in production factories with dangerous, and often fatal, working conditions. Based on this understanding of the use of children as laborers, it is now considered by wealthy countries to be a human rights violation, and is outlawed, while some poorer countries may allow or tolerate it.

In the 1990s every country in the world except for Somalia and the United States became a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC. The CRC provides the strongest, most consistent international legal language prohibiting illegal child labor; however it does not make child labor illegal.

Poor families often rely on the labors of their children for survival, and sometimes it is their only source of income. This type of work is often hidden away because it is not always in the industrial sector. Child labor is employed in subsistence agriculture and in the urban informal sector; child domestic work is also important. In order to benefit children, child labor prohibition has to address the dual challenge of providing them with both short-term income and long-term prospects. Some youth rights groups, however, feel that prohibiting work below a certain age violates human rights, reducing children's options and leaving them subject to the whims of those with money. The reasons a child would consent or want to work may vary greatly. A child may consent to work if, for example, the earnings are attractive or if the child hates school, but such consent may not be informed consent. The workplace may still be an undesirable situation for a child in the long run.In an influential paper on "The Economics of Child Labor" in the American Economic Review (1998), Kaushik Basu and Pham Hoang Van argue that the primary cause of child labor is parental poverty. That being so, they caution against the use of a legislative ban against child labor, and argue that should be used only when there is reason to believe that a ban on child labor will cause adult wages to rise and so compensate adequately the households of the poor children.Child labor is still widely used today in many countries,including India and Bangladesh. Even though country law states that no child under the age of 14 may work, this law is ignored. Children as young as 11 go to work for up to 20 hours a day in sweatshops making items for US companies, such as Hanes, Wal-mart, and Target. They get paid as little as 6 and a half cents per item. One of the largest companies in Bangladesh is Harvest Rich, who claim not to use child labor, although the children only got $1 per week.

Child Labor

Child labor is the employment of children at regular and sustained labor. This practice is considered exploitative by many countries and international organizations. Child labor was utilized to varying extents through most of history, but entered public dispute with the beginning of universal schooling, with changes in working conditions during industrialization, and with the emergence of the concepts of workers' and children's rights. Child labor is still common in some places where the school leaving age is lower.

Child Labor is very common, and can be factory work, mining, prostitution or quarrying, agriculture, helping in the parents' business, having one's own small business (for example selling food), or doing odd jobs. Some children work as guides for tourists, sometimes combined with bringing in business for shops and restaurants (where they may also work as waiters). Other children are forced to do tedious and repetitive jobs such as: assembling boxes, polishing shoes, stocking a store's products, or cleaning. However, rather than in factories and sweatshops, most child labor occurs in the informal sector, "selling many things on the streets, at work in agriculture or hidden away in houses — far from the reach of official labor inspectors and from media scrutiny." And all the work that they did was done in all types of weather; and was also done for minimal pay.

According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 250 million children aged 2 to 17 in child labor worldwide, excluding child domestic labor. The most widely rejected forms of child labor include the military use of children as well as child prostitution. Less controversial, and often legal with some restrictions, are work as child actors and child singers, as well as agricultural work outside of the school year (seasonal work) and owning a business while operating it out of school's hours.