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Description
Child abuse campaigners have raised serious concerns over the government’s decision to amend laws regarding children working in family enterprises The new law will allow children less than 14-year-old to work in family enterprises and the entertainment industry as long as it does not interfere with their school. Data compiled by NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) — that rescues children with the help of government officials — over a period of five years presents a dismal picture. Of the 5,254 children rescued, nearly 60 per cent were under 14- year-old and nearly one-fourth of them were working in family-run enterprises. While almost one fifth of the rescued children were working with their families, almost 83 per cent of them were rescued from establishments operating in residential areas, according to the data. “This suggests that a change in law that permits employment of children in family enterprises may continue to support trafficking of children for forced labour since most manufacturing units operating out of residential areas could claim to be family enterprises,” Rakesh Sengar from BBA told Mail Today. The proposed amendments to the child labour law include making child labour a cognizable offence, making the age of ban on child labour in sync with the Right to Education Act. There would also be a penalty for parents who force their children to work in cases of repeat offences, stringent penalties for employers who employ children and a seamless framework for rehabilitation of children rescued from child labour. However, the amendments also propose that a child may work in family enterprises after school hours, the child may be allowed to do home-based work with the the proposed list of hazardous occupations excluding schedule A and B of hazardous processes in the present child labour law. “From the above it is clear that significant efforts need to be made to ensure protection of children from forced labour and exploitation. This is especially true for children below 14 years for whom the Indian Constitution provides education as a right,” Sengar said. Official estimates suggest that there are 4.3 million child labourers at present. A comparison between school enrolled children as per District Information System for Education (DISE) 2011 and children between 6-14 years as per Census 2011 shows 33.9 million children are out of school and hence vulnerable to labour. The term ‘hazardous’ is being redefined to exclude industries like zari (garment industry), bangle, carpet-making, brick kilns and footwear which were earlier in this category. That’s a reduction of prohibited occupations from over 80 to just three broad categories of mines, inflammable substances and explosives (limited to what’s listed under the Factories Act of 1948). “The 22.2 million (the difference between child labourers and out of school children) who are not full time child labourers, may be safely assumed to be ‘helping’ their families. These children will not be protected under the proposed amendment Bill,” Sengar informed. The report prepared by BBA on ‘employment of children in hazardous and family-run business’ divides children in two broad age groups of ‘below 14years’ and ‘14-17 years’ in conformity with the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) (CLPRA) Act . The data used in this report was collected by BBA for 5,254 children rescued between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2014. Experts suggest that amendments to the child labour law have further implications as these provisions may hamper efforts to curb trafficking of children for forced labour. “Exploitation of children relates with their ability to get education. Abuse of the legal provisions in the proposed law will further deteriorate the situation for a large number of children,” Sengar said.
Keywords
child labour, child abuse, campaign, government, amendment, law, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, family run enterprises
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