Child labour ban in India "good in spirit" but NGOs want more

The decision to ban employment of children under tha age of 14 as domestic servants in the hospitality sector, roadside eateries, hotels and resorts, taken on the recommendation of the Technical Advisory Committee on Child Labour by the Central Government, is in "good spirit" but "a mere cosmetic exercise" and the government needed to enforce a mechanism for rehabilitation of such children who are forced to work for their survival, NGOs have warned.

Earlier, the government banned the employment of children under 14 in factories, mines as well as other hazardous jobs. Spas, motels and other recreational centres have also been barred from employing children.

The extended ban, which also applies to children under 14, was implemented from October 10, 2006. "With this notification, the government has extended these restrictions to everyone," a statement issued by the Labour Ministry said of the latest restrictions.

"The Technical Advisory Committee on Child Labour had said the children employed in roadside eateries and highway food stalls were the most vulnerable lot and were easy prey to sex and drug abuse as they came in contact with all kinds of people," the Ministry added.

The Labour Ministry said it was adding these occupations to the lengthy list of "hazardous" lines of work in which child labour is prohibited under the terms of India's Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986, and the ban is aimed at "ameliorating the condition of hapless working children" from "psychological traumas and at times, even sexual abuse."

In the existing law, children are prohibited — under the Child Labour (Prohibition and regulation) Act, 1986 — from working in hazardous industrial units like bidi–making, matchstick–making, carpet–weaving, soap manufacture, wool–cleaning and in factories where chemical and toxic substances are manufactured. Government servants have already been prohibited from employing children as servants.

The penalty for flouting the law under the new order is a jail term ranging from three months to two years with or without a fine of up to Rs. 20,000 (about US$ 445).

According to the World Bank, India has about 44 million child labourers aged between 5 and 14, the largest child workforce in the world. This figure is much higher than the government figure that puts it at 12.6 million. Voluntary groups put the number at five times higher or more.

Volunteer groups have contended that the child–labour problem in the country is rooted in poverty and scores of children continue to work in these factories because of weak enforcement of child–labour laws.

Impoverished families send children to work in factories or homes for their sustenance and survival. Though not well–paid, the child labourers are major contributors to the family income.

While a number of NGOs have welcomed the "much–delayed" move, several others are sceptical about the effectiveness of the ban, especially in light of the government's failure to monitor, much less rehabilitate, children who are working in sectors where the ban is already in force.

According to NGOs such as Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement or BBA) and Haq for Child Right estimate, the figure of child labour is as high as 10 million in households, and an equal number in restaurants and dhabas.

Kailash Satyarthi of the BBA said India was under international pressure to enact the law but doubted its implementation.

Inakshi Ganguly of Haq for Child Rights welcomed the initiative but said untrained enforcement staff and corruption might hinder its implementation. "Since there is no proper rehabilitation for rescued children, they land up again in the same places," Ganguly said.

"Unless there is a mechanism for rehabilitation of such children who are forced to work for their survival, such laws will be ineffective," Raj Mangal Prasad, from NGO Pratidhi, said.

For its part, the Labour Ministry is planning to expand its rehabilitation scheme under the National Child Labour Project, which already covers 250 districts.

"On first glance, it looks like a drop in the ocean but at least it is a beginning," said Bhuwan Ribhu of BBA, on the government's efforts to catch offenders.

"The number of prosecutions must sharply increase in relation to the number of inspections carried out to create a deterrent," Ribhu said, adding that many government inspectors did not prosecute violators as they did not take child labour seriously.

Despite the new ban, children working in open–air restaurants and homes is still a common sight in towns and on highways, he noted, adding, the Labour Ministry figures did not include the states of Jharkhand and Bihar where child labour is rampant.

Both states are yet to report their actions under the new ban to the Union government.

"I find it impossible sometimes in these two states to get a meal throughout the day at street–side restaurants as all use child labour," Ribhu said.

"It's difficult to say how many children do domestic work as it's such a secretive thing and you simply can't go around poking into people's houses," said Manab Ray, manager of Save the Children's Child Domestic Workers Project.

"Most are subjected to various forms of abuse, from unsafe working conditions and lack of food to being beaten, burnt or sexually abused," said Ray, who recently conducted a study on child workers in West Bengal.

The state is a notorious transit hub for child maids as it borders three of India's most backward states – Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa – and also shares porous, poorly guarded frontiers with impoverished neighbours Nepal and Bangladesh.

"West Bengal remains a key transit point (for child labour). We have formed special teams who are coordinating with the border guards to plug holes along the border with Nepal and Bangladesh," said Raj Kanojia, the state's Police Inspector–General.

Traffickers and parents take advantage of the porous border to bring thousands of children – mostly young girls from poor rural families – into West Bengal every year before sending them to urban middle–class households across the country.

In the posh, leafy suburbs of the capital New Delhi – where one million of the city's 14 million population are child workers – young girls can be seen carrying heavy shopping bags, sweeping courtyards or hanging out clothes on balconies.

The children, many of whom are breadwinners for their families, are forced to work up to 15 hours a day to earn less than Rs. 500 (US$ 10) per month which is sent home.

Some employers pay nothing, believing that providing leftover food, old clothes and a space on the floor for the child to sleep is more than enough, activists have claimed.

"There need to be systems in place for repatriation, rehabilitation of rescued children as well as livelihood opportunities for the child's family as poverty is one of the root causes of the problem," said Carlotta Barcaro, from UNICEF India's child protection unit.

The law – punishing employers with a maximum fine of Rs. 20,000 ($440) and/or a jail term of up to two years – also needs to be accompanied by a monitoring system to ensure that rescued children do not get back into the system, campaigners added.

But the most challenging task to ensure that these children grow up under parental care, go to school and are able to play and enjoy their childhood, they said.

"The biggest problem is combating a tradition where employing children who are poor or of lower castes is considered quite normal," said Kailash Satyarthi, of the BBA.

Meanwhile, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has reported that child labour in Asia is decreasing, but not fast enough.

Despite a drop of about 5 million since 2000, working children number an estimated 122 million in Asia, or 64 percent of the worldwide total, it said.

Though the causes of child labour are complex, the U.N. agency said a key problem is that there are too many people who, despite wanting their children in school, either cannot afford fees or related costs like transportation and uniforms or would find it hard to get by without the extra income.

In such an environment, many families send their kids to work – in the fields, in factories, selling trinkets on the street or even in dangerous worksites, like mines.

"The problem is the reduction in Asia is not as rapid as it should be," Panudda Boonpala, senior child labor specialist at the ILO, said in an interview. "A large number of working poor means that we have a large number of people who are unable to support children to go to school."

Child labour is one of the topics under discussion at the U.N. body's first Asian conference in five years.

Under the theme of "Realizing Decent Work," government representatives from 40 countries and territories as well as workers' and employers' organizations met in August last year to discuss issues such as youth employment, migration, globalization, competitiveness and productivity.

In a report on labour and social trends in the region, the ILO said that the number of child workers, defined as being between the ages of 5 to 14, in Asia fell to 122.3 million in 2004 from 127.3 million four years earlier.

South Asia, which includes Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, remains a child labor hotspot, according to World Bank statistics contained in the ILO report.

Perhaps nowhere is the problem more acute than in Nepal, where as of 2004, according to the ILO, nearly 40 percent of children aged 10–14 were working, sometimes for long hours and in jobs requiring strenuous physical labour such as in mines, quarries and carpet factories.

But even there, the statistics showed improvement, with the percentage of children on the job declining from near 50 percent in 1990.

The Philippines, which has a national action plan crafted under ILO guidance, has also shown improvement, though problems remain in areas such as fireworks production, deep–sea fishing and mining.

"The laws are all there," said Undersecretary of Labour and Employment Manuel G. Imson. He added that the government is working to enforce them by cooperating with NGOs and national organizations like the police.

Perceptions have also improved, Panudda noted.

"I think 10 years ago there was lots of denial," she said. Further progress, however, depended on how much effort and resources Asian countries put into the fight, she added.

People who work as children also have less chance of securing good jobs in early adulthood because their lack of basic schooling makes it hard for them to receive skills in the form of vocational education, she said.

The ILO is committed to ending what it calls the worst forms of child labour and abuse, which include slavery, using children in armed conflicts, trafficking in sex and drugs and hazardous labour, over the next 10 years.