Abolition of child labour

Child labour robs children of their childhood, dreams, their basic rights and pushes them into perpetual bondage of hunger and poverty. It is a depressing scenario with about 152 million children are in child labour, almost half of them in hazardous labour, across the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has made many more children vulnerable to being compelled to work. The two waves of a pandemic have left lakhs of children orphaned while parents of millions of children jobless or without any livelihood for subsistence. The gains made over the past few decades in rescuing and rehabilitating children in child labour is poised to get lost if the countries and communities fail to protect these vulnerable children with legal shield and welfare measures. Even before the outbreak of the COVID-19 in pandemic form, the General Assembly of the United Nations unanimously adopted a resolution in July 2019 declaring 2021 as the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour. The UN body asked the International Labour Organization to take the lead in its implementation towards ending all forms of child labour by 2025. The World Day Against Child Labour to be observed on June 12, therefore, has special significance. Census 2011 found 43 lakh children are in child labour. Data from the 2021 Census will reveal how far the country could address the problem over the past decade. The shortfall in achievements of targets for 2020-21 presents a picture of poor implementation of the National Child Labour Project scheme. Official data reveal that against a financial target of Rs 110 crore, the achievement is only Rs. 8.46 crore. Against the physical target of attaining new enrolment of 50,000 working children in special training centres, only 5756 enrolments made in the year while against the target of mainstreaming of 50,000 children to the formal education system, only 8583 children were mainstreamed. The initial budget estimate for the scheme was Rs 120 crore while the revised estimate was Rs 50 crore. Only Rs. 12.26 crore, i.e., 24.52 per cent of the revised estimate was the actual expenditure till February 14, 2021. The Ministry of Labour attributes low enrolment of rescued child labourers during the current FY 2020-21 to lockdown on account of COVID-19 due to which the operational Special Training Centres (STCs) under District Project Societies established under the Scheme could not run. The number of Operational NCLP districts in the country was 107 in 2017-18 which increased to 114 in 2018-19 but declined to 88 in 2019-20 and further declined to 76 in 2020-21. In Assam number of NCLP districts decreased from three in 2017-18 to two in 2019-20. The decrease in the number of NCLP districts before the outbreak of the pandemic is an indication an increasing number of children might have been compelled to work in the country, but their employers have managed to hide them from authorities. This also gives rise to apprehension that rescued children have remained deprived of special training and mainstreaming into education due to which they remain vulnerable to be compelled to work. Over four years and nine months from April 2015 till December 2020, more than 2.25 lakh children were rescued from child labour and rehabilitated in India, but the poor implementation NCLP scheme also corroborates such apprehension about the vulnerability of these rescued children. The Central government initiated the NCLP scheme in 1988 to rehabilitate working children initially in nine child labour endemic districts of the country which later became a central sector scheme. Rescue figures over the past year is an indication that the country has a lot to do to end child labour and the UN General Assembly's call for ending all forms of child labour will remain as an unachieved task if rescue, rehabilitation and mainstreaming of every child in labour is not intensified. The enactment of Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016 ensured complete prohibition on employment or work of children below 14 years of age in all occupations and processes; linking the age of the prohibition of employment with the age for free and compulsory education under Right to Education Act, 2009; prohibition on employment of adolescents (14 to 18 years of age) in hazardous occupations or processes and making stricter punishment for the employers contravening the provisions of the Act. The Child &Adolescent Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 enacted after the amendment is a major tool against child labour. Undertaking an extensive survey is important to identify the working child population and rescue them and punish their employers following the act. Such surveys will yield results if citizens come forward to report the incidence of child labour. Guaranteeing the Right to Education under Article 21-A under which the state must provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age 6 to 14 years is vital to abolish child labour.