Child workers suffer as India ignores law

India’s reputation for preventing children working illegally has been exposed in a shameful investigation released today. Three years after a law banning child labour came into effect, the government has carried out no inspection in most states, including Delhi, to check on illegal child labour. The body in charge of protecting the booming country’s 420 million children only has 10 staff, and only 138 cases were brought against people employing child workers from October 2006 and April 2008.

These Labour Ministry figures, revealed under the country’s right to information law, show less than one case was made for every three million Indian children and activists say they make a mockery of the Child Labour Prevention Act. In most states, not one inspection had been carried out since the ban in 2006, the inquiry by the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) child rights organisation revealed. “In the last three years, a mockery has been made of the law. Previously, only the stone quarries, sari factories, industries and brick kilns were the culprits,” said Bhuwan Ribhu, a lawyer and national secretary of BBA. “But now, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act is being flouted behind every other door,” Ribhu, told the Indo-Asian news service.

India has the most child workers in the world, with an estimated 60 million to 115 million young people missing out on an education to earn money. The problem is so big that activists say it is nearly impossible to spend a day in the country without using some goods or services — from domestic help to mined minerals — that do not rely onchild workers. The child labour law, passed in 1986, bans the employment of children under the age of 14 in a bunch of industries, from working on factory floors to waiting on tables. It carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a 20,000 rupee (£270) fine, but slack policing of it and badly under funded enforcement agencies are damaging millions of young lives, critics say. “We know the law and we are doing our best to set things right. But all said and done, we are really understaffed and overworked,” said joint labour commissioner Piyush Sharma. “Earlier we were supposed to penalise culprits who employ children, but now we have to also rehabilitate the child, send him home and keep track of him.”

According to a 2001 census, an estimated 185,595 children are employed as domestic help and in small roadside eateries. Most child domestic workers in India are trafficked by placement agencies.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children