Adversity-free childhood is perhaps the most desirable means of ensuring better human capital. But the presence of one billion child labourers worldwide with a disproportionate share in India is disheartening. While this alarming figure has led to a pronounced commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 8 with the target of eliminating all child labour by 2025, it remains far from getting realised in this decade. Although the practice has been trending downwards over the last three decades in India, the nation continues to have a count of 8 million child labourers.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) calls on nations to take effective measures to eliminate child labour because it is the most heinous form of child abuse and exploitation, as well as a major impediment to social justice and the right to a decent life. Despite the enactment of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act in 1986 and 2016 and Right to Education Act (2009), children in India continue to remain extremely vulnerable to human trafficking, illiteracy, poor physical and mental health, experiencing a failed childhood that compromises the future quality of human capital.
Home of child labour
Although India has been partially successful in arresting the growth of child labour, this evil persists to the tune of outnumbering the population of many nations. According to a report by the Kaillash Satyarthi Foundation and Census 2011 projections, India will have 7.8 million child labourers in 2023 comprising a male-female share of 57% and 43% respectively. Despite a higher decline in the annual child labour rate in 2001-11 (-2.01%) compared to 1991-2001 (-1.16%) and 1981-91 (-1.88%), India continues to have a significant count of child labour. While the postponement of the 2021 census serves as a handicap in obtaining an accurate count of child labourers, projections based on the 2011 census indicate a significant regional variation within the nation.
Shrinking nationally but rising in several states
The encouraging rate of decline in the prevalence of child labour does not apply across the nation, with an increase in select states like Kerala (5.68%), Himachal Pradesh (1.62%), Uttarakhand (1.62%) and Uttar Pradesh (1.22%) between 2001 and 2011. On the contrary, states such as Telangana (-7.22%), Haryana (-6.6%), Karnataka (-6.47%), Andhra Pradesh (-6.41%), West Bengal (-4.34%), Jammu and Kashmir (-4.15%), Madhya Pradesh (-4.11%) and Rajasthan (-3.90%) registered a significant decline during the same period. In absolute terms, Uttar Pradesh (2.1 million), Bihar (1.01 million) and Rajasthan (0.8 million) had the highest while Kerala (0.04 million) and Delhi (0.03 million) had the lowest in 2011. By 2025, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand will have the highest rates of child labour.
The estimated number of children working in 2025 will amount to 74.3 lakh, of which 60.2 lakh will be shared by seven states. As a result, if these states are given special focus in implementing measures to end the practice, the incidence of child labour in India could be minimised, if not eliminated. Districts such as Mahe, Lakshadweep, Lahaul & Spiti, Diu, Idukki, North & Middle Andaman, Lohit, Kollam and New Delhi witnessed the biggest rise in child labour while Lakhimpur, Krishna, Mahendragarh, Lalitpur, Doda, Nirmal, Kolhapur, Karauli, Nanded and Lucknow are the districts that saw the biggest fall. Districts with the highest concentrations of child labour, in terms of absolute numbers, include Allahabad, Ghaziabad, Bareilly, Kurukshetra, South Twenty Pargana, Patna, Idukki, Bangalore, Navsari and Alwar.
Poverty cycle and multidimensional deprivation
Child labour is an essential manifestation of poverty that traps children in a vicious cycle of poverty. While child labour frequently appears in low income households, it regenerates itself resulting in the widespread transmission of poverty across generations. Owing to impoverishment, a child enters the workforce leading to another generation being compromised on adequate skills, literacy, competence and overall well-being. It limits a child's well-being in terms of education, physical and mental health, social and economic opportunity, and deprivation on multiple facets in later life. It leads to multidimensional deprivation, marginalisation and exploitation with explicit violation of children's fundamental rights to equal opportunities, social justice and a decent life.
Right to Education: A failure in implementation
The Right to Education Act (RTE) guarantees children between the ages of 6 and 14 the right to free and compulsory education under Article 21a of the Indian Constitution. The fundamental purpose of this act is to universalise child schooling, leaving no children out of school irrespective of the status of their household. However, the RTE Act does not fully prevail on the ground, resulting in the staggering number of child labourers. This is compounded by the failure to properly implement numerous schemes of free provisioning like clothing, food and learning aids, thus not only sustaining child labour but also violating their constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights. While we claim advances in educational attainment as a whole, a large number of children are denied basic education. The failure to curb child labour has in turn led to a failure in turning the demographic dividend into an opportunity.
Toothless Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act
In the platinum decade of India’s independence, this failure also reflects the dysfunctional child labour laws, focusing only on the "prohibition" and "regulation" of child labour rather than advancing the country's fundamental goals of eliminating it. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016, is undoubtedly a later thought that came 15 years after the right to elementary education and six years after the RTE act. Compared to the 1986 Child Labour Act, the new Child Labour Act of 2016 expressly prohibits children from engaging in any form of labour that comes in conflict with their right to education. This legislation, however, is ambiguous in two ways. First, there is no stated minimum age below which children are not entitled to work, not even in exempted sectors. Second, there is no prohibition on employment in hazardous occupations or processes carried out as part of family work. Hence, the child labour law does have a serious conflict with the RTE Act, and the amendment appears to be one step forward with two steps back.
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Identification, intervention and implementation
A genuine inclination without a serious intervention sustains child labour in India. If a nation cannot guarantee a decent childhood for its children, it is a failed nation. With a count of 8 million children denied their fundamental right, India needs multi-sectoral intervention to address this concern. Such intervention needs a comprehensive identification of these vulnerable children as well as their parentage/household to resolve this menace on a war-footing. A perfect prescription lies in three I's -- identification, intervention and implementation. Vouching for a decent childhood for all children will ensure that the nation's future is in good hands.
(Balhasan Ali is Senior Research Fellow and Dr Udaya Shankar Mishra is Professor, International Institute for Population Sciences Deemed University, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Mumbai)