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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, Oct 23: A common position paper on the issue of child labour, adopted by 16 UN organisations in India has called for giving immediate priority to abolish the most intolerable and exploitative forms of child labour. These include child prostitution and trafficking, employment of very young children, child labour in hazardous occupations and processes and any form of child labour under abusive and exploitative conditions that severely damages the child’s mental, physical, moral and social development.
The position paper launched jointly by Brenda Gael McSweeney, UN Resident Coordinator and L P Passun, ILO representative in India recognises the complex dimensions of child labour in India, a country which accounts for the largest number of child workers in the world.
According to the 1991 census estimates of the total 200 million children in the age group 5-14 years, some 11.28 million children are child labourers. However, other estimates of child labour in India range from about 40 million toover 100 million.
Child workers, according to the paper, are engaged primarily in agriculture and allied activities in rural areas and in a variety of industries and informal sector activities in urban areas. The most exploitative forms of child labour include child prostitution and forced and bonded labour which is found in some parts of the country.
Over 80 percent of child labour in India is found in the rural sector with the remainder in the urban informal sector. About two million or so children are believed to be engaged in hazardous employment. In certain communities where social and caste factors are important, bonded child labour is also present.
The rural child labour force is mainly engaged in agriculture and allied activities and in household chores. In the urban informal sector, child labour is found in small scale cottage industries, in tea stalls, restaurants, workshops, factories, domestic servants and on streets. Commercial and sexual exploitation of children in the form of childprostitution is also present in the urban areas.
In the non-agricultural sector, child labour is found in many activities such as carpet industry in Mirzapur, UP, match and fireworks industry of Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, diamond cutting industry in Surat, glass industry in Ferozabad, pottery industry in Khurja, brassware industry in Moradabad, tea plantations in Assam and West Bengal silk weaving industry in Varanasi and sports good industry in Meerut and Jullunder.
Statewise child labour is predominant in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and is mainly found in poor areas.
Among the tools to combat child labour, the UN system in India views education, particularly elementary, as the principal means of preventing and eliminating child labour in the country. All children outside the school system are child labourers or potential child labourers and the flow of children into work can only be stemmed by realising universal and compulsory elementaryeducation.
The paper also states that legal enforcement of which training of the official machinery is an important element, ought to be an integral part of any strategy for eliminating child labour. Existing child labour laws need to be enforced more effectively.
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Awareness generation and sensitisation of the community, institutions and government about the nature and magnitude of child labour and on existing child labour laws and regulations and international instruments is also essential.
Prevention of child labour through education, legal enforcement and various social interventions must also be accompanied by activities directed at the rehabilitation of child workers. This can be done by ensuring that education, health care, nutritional, recreational and counselling facilities among others are made available to them.
