Strongly refute allegations levelled in Australia panel report on child labour: Commerce Ministry

“India strongly refutes the allegations levelled in the report on child and forced labour. The existing rules and regulations in India ensure respecting and protecting labour rights and ensuring that the human efforts are recognized and rewarded appropriately. Labour rights in India are protected by the Constitution and allow both Central and State Governments to make laws to protect workers, including forming unions and preventing harassment. The law prohibits child labour and bonded labour,” the ministry said in a statement.

Any entity engaged in business activity is licensed by the local governing body and is obliged to follow the labour welfare laws prescribed by the Union and State governments, the ministry said adding that the pre-processing and processing units maintain all records related to processing, quality checks, employee training, and other requirements of the applicable rules and regulations.

“India and Australia are negotiating the CECA, building upon the foundation laid by the ECTA, wherein one of the chapters is on “Labour”, which is comprehensive in scope and coverage. It seeks to cooperate, share information and best practices to ensure elimination of forced labour, if any. It is also to align with Global Value Chains, keeping in mind the sensitivities and the areas of integration with the global market. It also provides scope for exchange of best practices and capacity building, wherever required,” the ministry said.

This comes after Australia’s Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth made eight recommendations to the Australian lawmakers after an inquiry that sought to examine Australia’s approach to the negotiation of trade and investment agreements to better understand the “effect of agreements on stakeholders and how the benefits of trade are shared”.

“The Committee recommends that the Australian Government seek to include human rights, labour and environmental chapters in its trade agreements that reflect, and where appropriate contain specific references to, relevant United 52 Nations and International Labour Organization conventions and declarations to which Australia is a signatory,” the Joint Standing Committee’s fourth recommendation said.

The committee’s recommendation on labour was based on comments made by the a union of employees connected to the public sector industry under the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) and State Public Services Federation (SPSF Group) which expressed concern over child labour in India.

Citing the ECTA agreement, CPSU-SPSF Group suggested that some trade agreements have operated in conflict with Australian Government policy priorities by enabling lower labour and manufacturing standards, greater preferential migration flows, and an increase in imported goods with reduced environmental standards.

“As an example, it referred to the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (A-IECTA) stating that India: ‘… has a well-documented presence of child and (forced) labour, making significant contributions to the population of the world in modern slavery. Meanwhile Australian jurisdictions have all been legislating to combat modern slavery”,” the report stated.