Govt slow in enforcing child labour law, reveals RTI

As the government moves to ban employment of child below 18 years in hazardous industries, new data puts the government in a poor light over enforcement of existing provisions. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jun 11, 2012, 23:18:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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As the government moves to ban employment of child below 18 years in hazardous industries, new data puts the government in a poor light over enforcement of existing provisions.

As per the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, employment of children below the age of 14 in hazardous industries is banned. It includes employing them in roadside eateries and as domestic helps.

The ministry of labour in a reply to a Right To Information application of NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan showed that the state governments provided rehabilitation benefits to just 28 child labourers between 2006 and 2008 even though over 10,000 children were rescued from eateries and homes.

This is latest information available with the Labour ministry on state governments’ enforcement of the ban on employment of children in eateries and as domestic helps, indicating the ministry’s reluctance to push for strict enforcement of the law. “Information on enforcement of Child Labour Prohibition Act can be sought directly from the state governments…information upto 2008 is being provided,” the RTI reply said

Proper rehabilitation of the children rescued from work was considered a key to end child labour in India but the data provided by the government shows it has been the least priority. An apparent reason, according to an official, is reluctance of part of the child to undergo the lengthy and tedious rehabilitation process. “We cannot force the children to join rehabilitation centers,” the official said.

The ministry also found that the detection rate of employment of child labour in these two areas was meager. The state governments claimed that they had conducted over 2,27,612 inspections during the period but there were only 797 cases of employment of child labour.

The reply comes at the time Labour ministry has sought the law ministry’s approval on amending the present law to ban employment of child up to 18 years of age in all hazardous industries.

The government is bringing in the change to meet the provisions of International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention that says that no children below the age of 18 should be employed. And, it cannot happen without amending the Act.

But, the ministry’s own data shows the poor record of the state governments in enforcing the earlier provision. “The change will bring lakhs of working children in 14-18 age group under scrutiny,” said Rakesh Senger of Bachpan Bachao Andolan.

A government official said: “Once the changes are enacted employing any children below the age of 14 will be a criminal offence,” a senior government functionary said, adding that it will help in ensuring that the children in 6-14 age group reach schools.

As per 2001 census, there were 1.29 crore child labourers in India. The data on child labour for 2011 is yet to be released. Employing a child labour can result in jail term of three months and a fine of up to Rs. 20,000 or both.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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