Defective Laws Lead To Child Labour Recycling

Ashok Agarwal

ON June 1, 2005, close to 400 child labourers were rescued from Madanpura area in Central Mumbai. Again on June 6, 2005, about 30 child labourers were rescued from Najafgarh area in Delhi. All these children were engaged in the zari work and belong to Sitamarhi district of Bihar. Some of these children have already been sent back to their parents.

On June 10, 2005, the labour department of Maharashtra raided the gold-plating workshops at Bhuleshwar and rescued 82 child labourers; they were also repatriated to their hometowns or villages. In the past, several similar rescue operations were undertaken and the rescued children sent back to their parents.

But the unfortunate thing is that these children are again seen working with the same employers or with new employers at the same locations or at new locations. This is nothing but recycling, so to say, of child labour.

MORE OF A GIMMICK

On June 2, 2005, with the help of my friend Junned, a social activist, I got an opportunity to personally visit 14 to 15 zari factories situated in the narrow streets of Zafarabad in East Delhi. There I found an average of about 25-30 children in the age group 4 to 14 years working in each such factory in most inhuman conditions. I was told with some definitiveness that in that very area, there are around five hundred zari factories in which no less than 5,000 children are working. Most of these children belong to Sitamarhi district of Bihar and have been brought here through middlemen on the pretext that they would become karigar (artisans). Some of these children were rescued earlier but came back again to the area to work.

Thus the rescue operations, if any at long intervals, are a welcome step but they lose their importance and purpose the moment the rescued child is recycled as child labour. It is not surprising if the society at large does not take these rescue operations seriously, knowing well that these are very often simple gimmicks.

It is estimated that there are about 10 crore child labourers in our country. In Delhi alone, there are about 14-15 lakh of them, out of which more than 5 lakhs have been brought from outside Delhi. The number of child labour in the country is increasing day by day the despite government’s claim to the contrary.

Why is all this happening? These are the children who are totally denied the educational opportunities and have been forced to engage themselves in one or another work. Those employing child labour must be severely punished no doubt, but the educational opportunities are made available to these children in a real sense, punishing the employers would not be sufficient in itself.

LACUNAE IN LEGISLATION

In this article, however, our concern is to examine the various laws dealing with child labour and juvenile justice, in order to pinpoint the lacunae in these laws. The fact is that these very lacunae are responsible for the unabated continuance and growth of child labour in our country. At the outset, it appears that the existing laws are more of an eyewash as they work for the perpetuation of the child labour system rather than its complete abolition.

The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986 prohibits the engagement of children in certain employments and regulates the conditions of children in certain other jobs. The significant thing is that this act does not completely prohibit child labour in all its forms, nor does it lay down any provision for educational opportunities to the rescued child labourers. It is thus that this act needs to be amended in the light of article 21 A of the constitution of India which guarantees every child compulsory schooling up to the age of fourteen years.

The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000, of course, talks in its preamble of providing care and protection to the children in need of care and protection. But an examination of various provisions of this act would reveal that so far as child labour is concerned, it only provides for repatriation of such children to their parents and nothing more. It is silent on ensuring educational opportunities to such children. What will happen after repatriation and whether or not would the rescued child be recycled as child labour, is none of its concern. In other words, the Juvenile Justice Act provides a smooth way for recycling of the rescued child labourers.

The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1976 provides for the abolition of bonded labour system with a view to preventing the economic and physical exploitation of the weaker sections of our people. But it does not at all deal with the rehabilitation of bonded child labour.

Similarly, the Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act 1966, the Factories Act 1948 and the Motor Transport Workers Act 1961 prohibit employment of children in the establishments covered under these acts. Yet, they do not deal with the rehabilitation of the rescued child labourers.

On the other hand, what is shocking is that certain laws even permit the employment of children. The Apprentices Act 1961, for instance, permits children to enter into any occupation as apprentices while the Plantation Labour Act 1951 expressly permits children to work in plantations.

THE PICTURE THAT EMERGES

The picture that emerges from an examination of the various aforementioned laws is this. First, there is no complete prohibition of child labour in all its forms. Secondly, no law provides for rehabilitation of child labour in such a manner that the child labour cannot be recycled. Thirdly, none of the existing laws provides for any educational opportunities for the rescued children. Various studies have shown that the only way to eradicate child labour is to provide the opportunities of good quality education to every child. These may include well equipped full time schools, residential schools, day boarding schools, mobile schools, transport facilities, mid-day meals, adequate number of teachers and other demand side as well as supply side measures, depending upon the requirements of various groups of children. Children’s homes or NGO-run welfare homes are, clearly, no substitutes for such steps. These opportunities are required in every nook and corner of the country.

The state is constitutionally obliged to provide the required educational opportunities to each and every child, but such very opportunities are nowhere visible. The result is the rampant child labour. In only the state had taken such steps, there would not have been any child labour, what to talk of any recycling of child labour. In sum, the existing laws dealing with child labour are totally defective. It may not be therefore too much to conclude that the phenomena of recycling of child labour and the continued prevalence and growth of child labour are but the end result of these very “welfare legislations” that have been enacted for and in the name of the child. It is high time the government must take steps to suitably recast the existing laws so as to end all forms of child labour as well as the recycling of child labour.

(Ashok Agarwal is a Delhi based advocate and civil rights activist.)