Child labour in India

INTRODUCTION

In India one of the most important social issue is of child labour. In ancient India children were used as helpers and learners under the supervision of their adult family members and relatives. There is a change in the social scenario due to urbanisation and industrialisation. Due to hard works and hard jobs various kinds of diseases and occurs. His earning is not a lot to take care of his family and continued to be illiterate. The process has augmented the strength of child labour in urban and industrial sectors, but the limited expansion of industry and its technology based orientation as well as protective legislation failed to accommodate any significant section of child workers. Most of the child workers have got temporary assignment in unorganised small-scale sectors, and they continue to maintain relations with the village set up with all primordial attachments. Since then, a few attempts have made to explore the objective laws operating in the emergence and change of child labour in different historical-social formations.

The causes of the growth of child labour

The first and the major cause of child labour is chronic poverty. In India half of the population are below poverty line so there are large numbers of child workers in India. There is an uneven distribution of land in India. The lower 50% house own only 4%. About 27% of rural household are tenants and another 30.4% are agricultural labourers (Government of India 1979). Such a condition force the children of poor families participate in the labour market. About 1/3 of the city people live in slums and tenements. In Madras city a study reflected that 98.8 % of the families of working children have an income below Rs. 500 per month (George 1978). Similar studies in Delhi and Bombay showed that 88 % and 78 % respectively, of such families having a monthly income below Rs. 500 (NIPCC 1978).

The second reason is the interest of the parents towards the culture of work. There is a caste occupation in India example weaving is done by the weavers. Some people do a particular type of work because it is their family tradition. A study made by student of Madras, Madurai, and Coimbatore indicated that, in all these places children coming to labour market were from low literacy groups of society. About 44 % of parents of the child workers were literate and another 33 % parents of child workers belong to low literacy groups (Kulshrestha 1978).

Migration of people from small villages to city is a big cause of child labour. Those child do certain specific type of work, like herding the cattle, bidi (leaf cigarette), jari work, spinning, pencil making etc.




GENERAL FEATURES

About 92 million children or nearly 2/5 of the total Indian child population live in a condition adverse to survival. The 1971 census estimates 10.74 million child workers (less than 15 years) in the country, representing 4.66% of the total child population 5.95 % of the total work force (Government of India, 1979). According to the estimation of national sample survey on March 1973 there were 16.3 million child workers between the age group of 5 to 14 years.

A recent study conducted by national institute of child development on working children at Bombay revealed that more than ¾ of the child workers belong to the age group of 9 to 14 (Pandha 1979). Likewise another study conducted by Indian council of child welfare on working children in new Delhi found about 95 % of sample working children belong to the age group between 10 to 14. This shows that most of the child workers belong to the age group of 10 to 14. Children who were below the age of the 10 years help their parents in house hold activities.

Most of the child workers are associated with agricultural. The 1971 census reviled that out of 10.74 million of total working children

Percentage Of Child Workers-----------------Occupation
78 % ----------------------------------------Agriculture
8.24 %-------------------------------------- Livestock, hunting, plantation, orchards.
0.22 % --------------------------------------Mining
6.08 %--------------------------------------Manufacturing, processing, servicing and repairing.
0.54 %--------------------------------------Construction
1.95 %--------------------------------------Trade and commerce
0.39 %--------------------------------------Transport, storage and communication
3.77 %--------------------------------------Other services

PROTECTIVE LAGISLATIONS

Sociological factors accentuating the visibility of the problematic aspect of child labour were behind the emergence of welfare consciousness on a global scale on occasion of children’s year in 1979. Because of so much burden on the back of child worker the United Nations has made an organisation to help the labour class.

In 1881 there came an act named Indian Factories Act, which provided that the minimum age of working in factories is above seven years including nine hours working per day and four day leave per month. In 1891 the India Factories Act revived this time the minimum age of working exceeded to 9 years and the working hours was reduced to seven hours. In 1901, another act came, the Mines Act prohibited employment of children below 12 years of age in mines and other dangerous employments. In 1911, the Factories Act prohibited employment of children during nights. The Factories Amendment Act of 1922, passed the implementation of ILO (International labour Organisation) convention of 1919, which contained that minimum age of employment should be fifteen years and the maximum working hours should be only 6 hours.

The employment of Children Act 1938 prohibited the employment of children less than 15 years. The Plantation Act 1951, and the Mines Act, 1952 prohibited the employment of children below 14 years of age.

Whatever knowledge we have gathered through these studies can hardly quench sociological thirst. Most are either ad-hoc reports, or impressions or at best local descriptions. The very few important surveys and sociological researches are inadequate to arrive at any generalised proposition on the formation of child labour force, the structural position in the total production context, the network of horizontal and vertical relation in the prevalent, the consciousness and the struggle in isolation and in alliance and on the future. It is therefore necessary to look at the problem from a broader perspective in different contexts.



· Hammad kamal & Farooque Ali