UNIVERSITY NAME

LOGO
DEPARTMENT OF LAW
(Session: 2012-13)
CHILD LABOUR
In partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree
Of
P.HD
In
LAW

GUIDED BY:

SUBMITTED BY:

UNIVERSITY NAME
LOGO
DEPARTMENT OF LAW
(Session: 2012-13)
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that NAMEstudent of P.HD in the academic year 20122013 of this institute have completed their Dissertation Part-1 CHILD
LABOURand submit a satisfactory report as a part of requirement for
the award of degree of Master of engineering from COLLEGE NAME

Guide

Head of Department

Director

DECLARATION
We hereby declare that the work which is being presented in
the dissertation part-I report entitled
CHILD LABOUR
In partial fulfillment of PHD in LAW an authentic record of our own work
carried out under the guidance of Asst. Prof. .The work has been
carried out at University name.

INDEX

1. ABSTRACT
2. INTRODUCTION
3. REVIEW OF LITERATURES
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
5. CONCLUSION
6. REFERENCES

ABSTRACT

Child labor is regarded as one of the most serious problems of

human rights violations in the contemporary world. Millions of
children around the world have their rights violated every day and
this is of great concern for the international community. The
purpose of this study is to systematically examine & evaluate
child labor in developing Indian Countries and show how it affects
childrens ability to access education & care in comparison to
developed

One

central

aim

is

this

is

to

increase

our

understanding of new realities and aspects of educational

approaches in reducing child labor as well as to research the
awareness of theconsequences of child labor in developing
countries. In South Asia many cross sectional studieshave been
done on childrens labor as well as their education. But there are
few studiescomparing these findings with those from developed
countries. I want, within the frame of thisstudy to find out what
the child labor situation in South Asia is like and what measures
are beingtaken with respect to child labor both, from the local and
international arena the study design is comparative, retrospective
& qualitative in nature.

Subjects over seventeen years of age are excluded from this

sample. Qualitative research methods employed in the study have
included

semi-structured

interviews,

structured

texts

and

documents. Various cases have been collected in a uniform

manner and these together with field notes on children collected
programs comprise the main empirical basis for the discussion
and conclusions of the study, although additional information
from external source shave also been used.

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

Neglecting children means paralyzing a society wholly. If children

are deprived of this childhood-socially, economically, physically
and mentally- the nation gets deprived of potential human
resources for the social progress, economic empowerment, peace
and order social stability and good citizenry 1.Child labor is
generally speaking work for children that harm them or exploits
them in some way (physically, mentally or blocking access to
education).2 A child today cant develop to be a responsible and
productive member of tomorrows society unless an environment
which is conducive to his/her intellectual, physical and social
health

is

assured

to

them.

Child

labor

includes

children

prematurely leading adult lives.

Child labour is a significant problem in India. 2India has the
largest number of children employed than any other country in
the world. According to the statistics provided by the Government
of India around 90 million out of 179 million children in the six to
14years age groups do not go to school and are engaged in some
occupation or others. This means that close to 50 percent of
children are deprived of their right to free and happy childhood.

Child Labor
Child labor is work that harms children or keeps them from
attending school. Around the world and in the U. S., growing gaps
between rich and poor in recent decades have forced millions of
young children out of school and into work. The International
Labor Organization estimates that 215 million children between
the ages of 5 and 17 currently work under conditions that are
considered illegal, hazardous, or extremely exploitative. Underage
children work at all sorts of jobs around the world, usually
because they and their families are extremely poor. Large
numbers of children work in commercial agriculture, fishing,
manufacturing, mining, and domestic service. Some children work

in illicit activities like the drug trade and prostitution or other

traumatic activities such as serving as soldiers.

India, an IT giant and the world's second-fastest growing

major economy, has millions of Rajus: all under 14 years of
age, some as young as 4 or 5, and all toiling hard just to
get a square meal to keep body and soul from parting
company. Child labor is a dagger through India's soul. The
country has the dubious distinction of being home to the
largest child labor force in the world, with an estimated 30
percent of the world's working kids living here.
His liquid eyes, twin pools of innocence, have a sparkle that only
children are blessed with. He speaks in a staccato burst, tripping
over his words and lisps a current Bollywood hit with glee.
His toothy, impish grin belies the fact that while other children his
age are either playing or being schooled, he is forced to serve
food to people at the dhaba that he works at on the Mumbai-

Nagpur highway near Jalgaon in Maharashtra. He does not seem

to be a day over ten years old, but insists he is fourteen.
Raju he doesn't offer his surname goes about his chore with
a cheerfulness that is almost heart-breaking. If he knows that he
has been deprived of the right to childhood or of the joys of being
a goofy kid or to fulfill his true potential, he disguises it well
behind his infectious smile.
He has no inkling of what the future holds for him nor does he
seem to care. He is just too busy trying to earn enough to buy
some food so that he and his family do not go to bed hungry.
Today, though, he is happy, secure in the knowledge that he
would not have to make do with water alone when he goes to bed
after a grueling 12-hour work day at the dhaba.
India, an IT giant and the world's second-fastest growing major
economy, has millions of Rajus: all under 14 years of age, some
as young as 4 or 5, and all toiling hard just to get a square meal
to

keep

body

and

soul

from

parting

company.

Child labor is a dagger through India's soul. The country has the
dubious distinction of being home to the largest child labor force

in the world, with an estimated 30 percent of the world's working

kids

living

here.

Today millions of children work as laborers in various businesses

in India. You find children being exploited in restaurants, silk
industry, carpet weaving, firecracker units, etc.
These kids are forced to work to help their poor families, but this
robs them of their right to childhood and all its associated joys.
Child labor also crushes their right to normal physical and mental
development, to education and thus to a healthy, prosperous life.
Seven days a week, these children toil as hard as their tender
bodies can allow them to, working in inhuman conditions in
cramped, dim rooms, breathing toxic fumes, and every now and
then being subjected to verbal and physical violence by their
employers. These young children work for hours on end, suffering
from constant fatigue.
Most of these kids work for as less as Rs. 300 to Rs. 500 a month;
sometimes for no money at all as they are given food to survive.
Government statistics say that there are 2 crore (20 million) child
laborers in India, a country that has ambitions of becoming a

global superpower in a few years. Non-governmental agencies

assert that the figure is more than 6 crore (60 million) including
agricultural workers; some claim that the number could be 100
million, if one were to define all children out of school as child
laborers.
The International Labor Organization estimates that 218 million
children ages 5-17 are engaged in child labor the world over.
An estimated 14 percent of children in India between the ages of
5 and 14 are engaged in child labor activities, including carpet
production.
It would cost $760 billion over a 20-year period to end child labor.
The estimated benefit in terms of better education and health is
about six times that over $4 trillion in economies where child
laborers are found.
Some children are forced to work up to 18 hours a day, often
never leaving the confines of the factory or loom shed.
Children trafficked into one form of labor may be later sold into
another, as with girls from rural Nepal, who are recruited to work
in carpet factories but are then trafficked into the sex industry

over

the

border

in

India.

A recent report, produced by the International Confederation of

Free Trade Unions, says there are as many as 60 million children
working in India's agricultural, industrial and commercial sectors.
The report argues that India's booming economy takes advantage
of children workers to aid its growth and to bring wealth to a
minority.
Even though the urban centers see many child laborers,
estimates say that about 80 percent of child laborers reside in
rural India, where they are forced to work in agricultural activities
such

as

fanning,

livestock

rearing,

forestry

and

fisheries.

Reports say that there are more children under the age of 14 in
India than the entire population of the United States. And children
under 14 years of age account for about 4 percent of the total
labor force in the country. Of these children, nine out of every ten
work
Nearly

in
85

their
percent

own
are

rural

engaged

in

family

settings.

traditional

agricultural

activities. Less than 9 percent work in manufacturing, services

and

repairs.

About

0.8

percent

works

in

factories.

The most inhuman form of child exploitation is the age old

practice of bonded labor in India. Here children are sold to the

buyer like a commodity for a certain period of time. The labor that
the child is subjected to is treated as collateral security and
exploiters buy them for small sums at exorbitant interest rates.
There are many reasons for child labor. Poverty is the biggest
reason for child labor in India. The small income of child laborers
is

also

absorbed

by

their

families.

Absence of compulsory education at the primary level, parental

ignorance regarding the bad effects of child labor, the lack of
implementation of child labor laws and penalties, non-availability
and non-accessibility of schools, boring and unpractical school
curriculum and cheap child labor are some other factors which
lead to child labor.
Businesses save money as child labor is cheap and kids can be
easily exploited, taking advantage of their parents' poverty and
helplessness. This further spurs the rise of child labor in the
country. So factories find loopholes and get round the law by
declaring that the child laborer is a distant family member or is
above 14 years of age.

Child labor in India is mostly practiced in restaurants, roadside

stalls; matches, fireworks and explosives industry; glass and
bangles factories; beedi-making; carpet-making; lock-making;
brassware; export-oriented garment units; gem polishing export
industry; slate mines and manufacturing units; leather units;
diamond industry; building and construction industry; brick kilns,
helpers to mechanics, masons, carpenters, painters, plumbers,
cooks,

etc.

Thousands of affluent Indians hire youngsters for household

chores and to look after their own kids, under the pretext of
providing some money to the parents of the child laborers and of
offering a better life than he/she would normally have had.
Non-governmental organizations working towards eradicating
child labor in India say that:
Two out of every three working children are physically abused.
Over 50 percent children were being subjected to one or the other
form of physical abuse.
50.2

percent

children

worked

seven

days

week.

53.22 percent children reported having faced one or more forms

of

sexual

abuse.

21.90 percent child respondents reported facing severe forms of

sexual abuse and 50.76 percent other forms of sexual abuse.
Every second child reported facing emotional abuse.
The Indian Constitution says that child labor is a wrong practice
and standards should be set by law to eliminate it. The Child
Labor Act of 1986 implemented by the government of India makes
child labor illegal in many regions and sets the minimum age of
employment at 14 years. No wonder the barely 10-year-old Raju
at the dhaba said he was 14. Exploiters threaten kids in many
ways and the child has no way out but to lie to keep his job.
Due to economic factors, many of the law's goals are difficult to
meet. The law, for example, does nothing to protect children who
perform domestic or unreported labor. In almost all Indian
industries girls are unrecognized laborers because they are seen
as helpers and not workers. Girls are thus not protected by the
law.
June 12 was observed as World Day against Child Labor. A group
of eminent people on June 12, gave a petition to Prime Minister

Manmohan Singh seeking a ban on all forms of employment of

children under the age of 14 and sought urgent amendments to
the child labor law.
Save the Children, an NGO, which started a 45-day campaign
against child labor, asked 45 prominent people from various walks
of life to endorse a petition at the end of its campaign.

The problem of child labor continues to pose a challenge

before the nation
Government has been taking various pro-active measures to
tackle this problem. However, considering the magnitude and
extent of the problem and that it is essentially a socio-economic
problem inextricably linked to poverty and illiteracy, it requires
concerted efforts from all sections of the society to make a dent in
the problem.
According to the Census 2001 figures there are 1.26 crore
working children in the age group of 5-14 as compared to the
total child population of 25.2 crore. There are approximately 12
lakhs children working in the hazardous occupations/processes
which are covered under the Child Labour (Prohibition &
Regulation) Act i.e. 18 occupations and 65 processes. As per
survey conducted by National Sample Survey Organisation
(NSSO) in 2004-05, the number of working children is estimated
at 90.75 lakh. As per Census 2011, the number of working
children in the age group of 5-14 years has further reduced to

43.53 lakh. It shows that the efforts of the Government have

borne the desired fruits.
Way back in 1979, Government formed the first committee called
Gurupadswamy Committee to study the issue of child labour and
to suggest measures to tackle it. The Committee examined the
problem in detail and made some far-reaching recommendations.
It observed that as long as poverty continued, it would be difficult
to totally eliminate child labour and hence, any attempt to abolish
it through legal recourse would not be a practical proposition. The
Committee felt that in the circumstances, the only alternative left
was to ban child labour in hazardous areas and to regulate and
ameliorate the conditions of work in other areas. It recommended
that a multiple policy approach was required in dealing with the
problems of working children.
Based on the recommendations of Gurupadaswamy Committee,
the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act was enacted in
1986. The Act prohibits employment of children in certain
specified hazardous occupations and processes and regulates the
working conditions in others. The list of hazardous occupations

and

processes

is

progressively

being

expanded

on

the

recommendation of Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee

constituted under the Act.
In consonance with the above approach, a National Policy on
Child Labour was formulated in 1987. The Policy seeks to adopt a
gradual & sequential approach with a focus on rehabilitation of
children working in hazardous occupations & processes in the first
instance. The Action Plan outlined in the Policy for tackling this
problem is as follows:
Legislative Action Plan for strict enforcement of Child Labour
Act and other labour laws to ensure that children are not
employed in hazardous employments, and that the working
conditions of children working in non-hazardous areas are
regulated in accordance with the provisions of the Child
Labour Act. It also entails further identification of additional
occupations and processes, which are detrimental to the
health and safety of the children.
Focusing

of

General

Developmental

Programmes

for

Benefiting Child Labour - As poverty is the root cause of child

labour, the action plan emphasizes the need to cover these

children and their families also under various poverty
alleviation and employment generation schemes of the
Government.
Project Based Plan of Action envisages starting of projects in
areas of high concentration of child labour. Pursuant to this,
in 1988, the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme
was launched in 9 districts of high child labour endemicity in
the country. The Scheme envisages running of special
schools for child labour withdrawn from work. In the special
schools, these children

are provided formal/non-formal

education along with vocational training, a stipend of Rs.150

per month, supplementary nutrition and regular health check
ups so as to prepare them to join regular mainstream
schools. Under the Scheme, funds are given to the District
Collectors for running special schools for child labour. Most of
these schools are run by the NGOs in the district.
Government has accordingly been taking proactive steps to
tackle this problem through strict enforcement of legislative

provisions along with simultaneous rehabilitative measures. State

Governments,

which

are

the

appropriate

implementing

authorities, have been conducting regular inspections and raids to

detect cases of violations. Since poverty is the root cause of this
problem,

and

Government

enforcement

has

been

alone

laying

cannot
lot

of

help

solve

emphasis

on

it,
the

rehabilitation of these children and on improving the economic

conditions of their families.

The Puzzle of State-wise Variation

In 2010, surveys by a Non-Government organization (NGO)
estimated that the commercial cultivation of hybrid cottonseed
has emerged as the single-largest sector employing child labor in
India.1 The deployment of hybrid cotton since its first commercial
introduction in India in 2002 has generated colossal economic

benefits for farmers, contributed to the doubling of cotton yield,

and transformed India from a cotton importer to a major exporter
of cotton.2 However, the pursuit for greater profits has triggered a
sharp increase in demand for child labor in the cottonseed sector.
The cottonseed industry in Gujarat, one of the richest states in
India, presents a powerful illustration of the diverging trends
between economic growth and child labor. Between 2010 and
2011, Gujarats agriculture sector, driven primarily by the surge in
cotton cultivation, witnessed a growth of 16.6 percent however,
the state also became the focal point of national controversy for
allegedly achieving this phenomenal growth at the cost of
employing children.
Police, labor department officials, and NGO activists have found
themselves without legal recourse to stop child labor in the
cottonseed industry despite protests by civil society activists
regarding the ethical ramifications of employing children. This is
because farmers are not prohibited by Indian law from employing
children in agriculture.

The Child Labor (Regulation and Prohibition) Act, 1986 (CLPRA)

prohibits the employment of children below fourteen years in
certain occupations defined as hazardous by the Act and
regulates

the

working

conditions

of

child

labor

in

other

occupations. Despite regular reports of children being made to

work for up to fifteen hours, or dying of pesticide exposure and
snake-bites in the cottonseed fields, agriculture continues to be a
non-hazardous occupation and therefore, exempted from the
prohibition on child labor.
The predicament in the cottonseed industry captures changing
trends in the nature of child labor in India, and alludes to the
serious problems that have thwarted attempts to end this
phenomenon. The 4,00,000 children employed in the cottonseed
industry represent a tip of the iceberg official estimates vary
anywhere from eight million to thirty-two million children laborers
below fourteen years of age in the Indian workforce, depending
on which definition of child labor and which data source one
chooses to believe. If we take into account NGO and United
Nations (UN) agencies allegation that official estimates only
constitute twenty-five percent of the actual child-workforce, the

enormity of the problem becomes even more apparent. And sheer

numbers is not the only problem. What makes the issue of child
labor even more disquieting are emerging trends of intra-state
and

cross-border

child

trafficking,

employing

children

in

commercial agriculture, and a rapidly mushrooming child sex

industry. United States Department of Labors statistics suggest
that

forty

percent

of

women

sex-workers

in

India

enter

prostitution before the age of eighteen and NGO data from

district-level police records show that 96,000 children go missing
each

year.

Newspaper

reports

point

towards

the

recent

recruitment of child soldiers by the Naxalite armies in Andhra and

militant groups in Manipur.
The rampant prevalence of child-trafficking, forced labor, and
child-soldiering violates international conventions and national
laws, especially the International Labor Organizations (ILO) Worst
Forms of Child Labor Convention and CLPRA 1986. Even though
Indias child labor law prohibits the employment of children below
fourteen years of age in hazardous occupations, the real impact of
the law is feeble due to the endemic corruption, insensitivity,
and indifferent attitude of (government) agencies.7 Indias

Ministry of Labor and Employment (MoLE) reports that in the past

twenty five years, only 4000 employers have been prosecuted
under the CLPRA 1986 and even in those cases, the fines are so
small as to have a limited disincentive effect.
Bonded labor among children still exists even though it was made
illegal in 1976. Little effort is expended to collect accurate data on
child

labor,

to

enact

adequate

rescue,

rehabilitation,

and

transitional educational policies, or even to ensure that existing

laws are adequately enforced. India is one of the few legislatures
in the world that has not ratified ILOs Minimum Age Convention,
1976 and dragged its feet for decades before enacting a universal
elementary education law in 2009. Such a state of affairs is
reflective of the weak political discourse on child labor and
universal education in the country.
The plight of child labor in hazardous industries is often the focus
of media attention.
But it eclipses an even bigger problemthat of children working
in non-hazardous occupations such as agriculture, household
enterprises, and as domestic labor that constitute ninety percent

of the child-workforce in the country. But such children are not

covered by any protective legislation.
The argument that poor families need the income of their children
for survival has been used to justify the permissiveness towards
child labor in India for centuries.

This discourse also forms the underlying philosophy of the Indian

governments policy on child labour.
The rampant prevalence of child-trafficking, forced labor, and
child-soldiering violates international conventions and national
laws, especially the International Labor Organizations (ILO) Worst
Forms of Child Labor Convention and CLPRA 1986. Even though
Indias child labor law prohibits the employment of children below
fourteen years of age in hazardous occupations, the real impact of
the law is feeble due to the endemic corruption, insensitivity,
and indifferent attitude of (government) agencies.
Indias Ministry of Labor and Employment (MoLE) reports that in
the past twenty five years, only 4000 employers have been

prosecuted under the CLPRA 1986 and even in those cases, the
fines are so small as to have a limited disincentive effect.8
Bonded labor among children still exists even though it was made
illegal in 1976. Little effort is expended to collect accurate data on
child

labor,

to

enact

adequate

rescue,

rehabilitation,

and

transitional educational policies, or even to ensure that existing

laws are adequately enforced.

India is one of the few legislatures in the world that has not
ratified ILOs Minimum Age Convention, 1976 and dragged its feet
for decades before enacting a universal elementary education law
in 2009. Such a state of affairs is reflective of the weak political
discourse on child labor and universal education in the country.
The plight of child labor in hazardous industries is often the focus
of media attention.
But it eclipses an even bigger problemthat of children working
in non-hazardous occupations such as agriculture, household
enterprises, and as domestic labor that constitute ninety percent

of the child-workforce in the country. But such children are not

covered by any protective legislation.
The argument that poor families need the income of their children
for survival has been used to justify the permissiveness towards
child labor in India for centuries. This discourse also forms the
underlying philosophy of the Indian governments policy on child
labor.

There has been little debate in policy circles as to why child labor
continues in India despite an average growth of thirteen percent
in per capita income, or why there are 9, 00, 000 children who
dont go to school in a country that prides itself on its 5, 00, 000
software professionals, or why the Indian government cannot
completely ban child labor when countries with much lower per
capita income have been able to introduce compulsory education
and ban child labor. So pervasive and powerful is the economic
argument in favour of child labor, that even international agencies
like the ILO have accepted the Indian governments strategy of
progressive elimination of child labor.

In fact the economic argument is so powerful that though India

finally passed the Right to Education Act 2009 (RTE) guaranteeing
free education to all children in the age- group of five to fourteen
years, the Indian legislature is still dithering to completely abolish
child labor in all occupations. Studies show that children who work
are twice as likely to not attend school as children who dont
work; also, children who work are less likely to learn in school
than

children

who

dont

work.

There

is

clear

evidence

corroborating the incompatibility of work and education. However,

the assumption in policy circles is that enacting a universal
education law will miraculously motivate employers to stop
employing child laborers, or inspire parents to send their working
children to school.
Both research and policy has focused on household poverty as the
prism through which the issue of child labor is addressed. Policies
have

focused

on

poverty

alleviation

schemes,

agricultural

subsidies, ration schemes etc. to alleviate household poverty. On

the

other

hand,

research

has

focused

on

economic

and

demographic characteristics of the household that cause child

labor. Strangely though, the role of state governments in India in

implementing education policy and its link to child labor has not
been

explored.

Indias

federal

structure

devolves

the

responsibility upon state governments to implement child labor

and elementary education policies. Yet with the focus sharply
being on improving the economic status of households, the role of
state governments in tackling the problem of child labor and
improving access to education has largely remained unexplored.

The Puzzle
The overpowering discourse on poverty overlooks a puzzle which
has encompassed the child labor problem in India: the puzzle of
state-wise variation in levels of child labor.

With studies focused on the country-level or household-level

analysis, the state-wise variation of child labor has been
overlooked in child labor research.
A state-wise analysis on child labor in the cottonseed industry
itself helps to flesh out the puzzle: between 2001 and 2010, the
overall child labor rate in the Gujarat, one of Indias richest states,
has risen from 3.8 percent to 7.8 percent, while the child labor
rate has declined from 10.8 percent to 4.7 percent in Uttar
Pradesh. What makes this comparison even more compelling is
that compared to Andhra, Gujarat has had much higher per capita
income than Andhra.
Compares income statistics in the two states: the per capita
annual income in Gujarat in 2009-10 was USD 756 compared to
USD 570 in Andhra Pradesh.12 The decadal growth rate of per
capita income in Gujarat was 14.9 percent compared to 9 percent
in Andhra.
Between 2005 and 2011, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the
agricultural sector grew almost similarly in both states: in Gujarat
it grew by 4.2 percent compared to 4.7 percent in Andhra. A study

in income inequality across Indian states found that Gujarat and

Andhra Pradesh have essentially the same levels of rural income
inequality.13 Gini coefficient for rural economy found to be 0.27
for Andhra and 0.28 for Gujarat in 2009-10. The comparative
change in the rates of child labor in Andhra and Gujarat
challenges the unquestioned axiom that poverty causes child
labor and therefore, logically, long-term economic growth must be
the panacea to child labor.
Across India, the story of high growth states showing higher levels
of child labor compared to lower growth states is repeated - the
Gujarat and Andhra comparison is only one such instance. I
examine the trend of change in rates of child labor as a
percentage of total population of children in the age group (5-14
years) using Census and NSSO data for the years 2001- 2010. I
measure rate of child labor as working children as a percentage of
total children (5-14) for the particular census year.14Based on my
initial analysis of state-wise data between 1981 and 2001, there
emerged 5 categories of states: i) Improving: States where

child labor rates have continuously declined ii) Not Improving:

States where child labor rates have continuously increased; iii)
Increasing,

then

declining:

States

where

child

labor

rates

increased between 1981-1991 but declined between 1991 and

2001; iv) Declining, then increasing: States where child labor
rates declined between 1981 and 1991 and increased between
1991-2001; and v) Little variation: States where child labor rates
have varied very little between 1981-1991.
Within the same national border, there exists wide variation in
work participation rates of children, ranging from a high of 12.3
percent in Mizoram to a low of 0.5 percent in Kerala.15 And these
rates are independent of levels of per capita income, controlling
for levels of inequality. Since the state and district level
administrations are the primary units through which child labor
policies are implemented in India, we would expect that there
would be some variation across states and districts in the manner
in which the child labor policies are implemented. What is
puzzling though is the extent of variation. Given that a uniform
national policy on child labor is operational across all states, what
explains this variation in child labor levels across India? If

economic growth does not lead to declines in rates of child labor,

what then explains state-wise variation? This dissertation seeks to
explore and find an answer to this puzzle of spatial and temporal
variation of child labor rates across Indian states.
Since the state and district level administrations are the primary
units through which child labor policies are implemented in India,
we would expect that there would be some variation across states
and districts in the manner in which the child labor policies are
implemented. What is puzzling though is the extent of variation.
Within the same national border, there exists wide variation in
work participation rates of children, ranging from a high of 12.3
percent in Mizoram to a low of 0.5 percent in Kerala.16 And these
rates are independent of levels of per capita income, controlling
for levels of inequality. If economic growth does not lead to
declines in rates of child labor, what then explains state-wise
variation? Further, there is also variation in state governments
approach towards tackling child labor. For instance, Kerala, the
state with the lowest child labor rates in India has not only taken
concrete steps to implement the CLPRA, but it is also going a step
further and enacting another legislation that will impose a blanket

ban on child labor. On the other hand, Mizoram, which has the
highest level of child labor in India, has only just adopted the
CLPRA in 2010.Given that a uniform national policy on child labor
is operational across all states, what explains this variation in
child labor levels across India?
This dissertation seeks to explore and find an answer to this
puzzle of spatial and temporal variation of child labor rates across
Indian states.
On the other hand, cultural arguments on child labor in India
blame the child labor issue on a hierarchical culture associated
with Indias caste system. They blame the status- quoist attitude
of policymakers for not allowing the poor social mobility by
denying them access to basic education. The whole notion that
culture is static is largely outmoded, and now culture is seen as
something that is locally specific. These arguments provide a
single- factor explanation to the complex child labor problem in
India. Both studies at the household level and at the country level
disguise the sharp spatial variation in levels of child labor across

Indian states, and focus attention away from institutionalized

interventions that have concretely mitigated child labor.
Studying state-wise variation in child labor is important for the
following reasons: First, an analysis of country-wise trends creates
an impression that India is performing well in reducing the levels
of children in the workforce. For instance, the work participation
rate of children has gone down from five percent in 2001 to three
percent in 2004-05. This positive country-level trend subsumes
the reality that the high decline in child labor in some states has
been averaged out by the increase or very slow decline in child
labor rates in other states. A state-wise analysis reveals why
certain states that are not necessarily the wealthiest have been
more successful at reducing child labor compared to others. If
economic growth is not automatically translating into fewer
working children, what are the other causal factors at work? A
state-wise analysis also reveals which policy interventions have
succeeded

in

reducing

child

labor,

and

whether

these

interventions can be replicated in other states. Unlike country or

household-level

studies

which

obliterate

the

role

of

state

governments, this dissertation focuses on the role of the state

interventions in eliminating child labor.
Second, the link between child labor and schooling quality is
seldom acknowledged in the child labor literature. Even now
debates center on long-term economic growth as the favoured
route out of child labor. The economic argument disguises the role
that quality of schooling has on children of the poor. In 2010,
forty-two percent children in elementary schools were found to be
dropping out.19 Studies have found that dropouts are the most
vulnerable group to be drawn into the child workforce.20 Yet there
is little debate on the quality of education in government schools,
or any well-thought out policies for transitioning working children
into the schooling system. Indias flagship program on child labor,
which

only

protects

children

in

hazardous

industries,

is

implemented in forty-five percent of Indias districts and covers

only about five percent of children in the workforce.21 Therefore,
in order to explain variation in levels of child labor across states, it
is more meaningful to focus on elementary education policy than
child labor policy. I show how the variation of institutional factors

like the states implementation of elementary education policy

impacts levels of child labor across states.
Third, studies that attribute child labor to culture assume that
Indian states are uniform in their social and cultural ethos.22 The
overpowering emphasis on poverty as the cause of child labor
draws attention away from the unique cultural blueprint of each
state.
While the discrimination faced by children of certain castes in
accessing the school system is documented in studies on
educational participation, how such push-out factors lead to
child labor is not fleshed out in the child labor literature. This
study focuses on the effect that cultural variation across states,
founded on attitudes towards gender and caste-disparities, has on
parental attitudes towards sending children to work or to school.
Finally,

there

is

compelling

evidence

that

the

curtailed

educational opportunities that come with child labor play a

significant role in locking children into a life-time of low-pay and
vulnerability, transmitting poverty across generations in the
process.23 Child labor, then is not only caused by poverty, but

also causes it.24 Seen from this perspective, increase in child

labor in some states and decrease in others has the potential of
exacerbating regional income inequalities over a period of time.
Analyzing the trends and causes of state-wise variation in levels
of child labor enables us to grapple with the problem of regional
income

inequalities.

interventions

that

It

can

would
be

also

broadly

help

design

implemented

governments and replicated across states.

Child Rights in India

to

by

policy
state

India, home to one fifth of the worlds children, ratified the

Convention on the Rights of the Child in December 1992. Since
then, rapid economic growth, averaging 4.5 per cent annually
between 1990 and 2007, has lifted millions out of poverty and
combined with government action to improve trends in child
survival and development. According to national sources, the
national under-five mortality rate fell sharply from 117 per 1,000
live births in 1990 to 72 in 2007. Use of improved drinking water
sources rose from 62 per cent in 19921993 to 88 per cent in
20052006. Primary school attendance rates for girls 610 years
old climbed from 61 to 81 per cent over the same period, helping
lift the gender parity rate for primary education from 0.82 to 0.96.
Deprivations and disparities remain large, despite economic
progress Despite this marked progress, many challenges for
realizing child rights in India remain. Partly because of its
immensity, India experiences child rights deprivations in greater
absolute numbers than any other country. Each year, 1 million
newborns die during the first month of life; another million die
between 29 days and five years. Almost 55 million children under
five are underweight for their age. In excess of 20 million children

of primary school age are not attending school. More than 40 per
cent of the population currently lives on less than $1.25 per day,
128 million people have no access to improved drinking-water
sources, and a staggering 665 million defecate in the open. Rising
incomes have been accompanied by widening disparities in
income, education, access to health care and development
outcomes. The 20052006 National Family Health Survey shows
sharp divergences in access to essential services and key
development outcomes across caste, ethnic, gender and wealth
strata. These disparities extend to child protection, given the
countrys moderate rate of birth registration (69 per cent) and
high rate of child marriage. Despite legislation prohibiting child
marriage, the latest household surveys indicate that an estimated
47 per cent of women aged 2024, and 16 per cent of men aged
2049, were married or in union before age 18. In addition, the
countrys skewed sex ratio at birth and high level of child labour
remain significant challenges. Concerted efforts are yielding
results The Government of India, its partners and a multitude of
non-governmental organizations have made determined efforts to
reduce child deaths, expand access to health care and get

children into primary school. The country is also making headway

towards identifying child protection violations and creating legal
means of redress. It is beginning to address material disparities
by targeting essential services to owards marginalized groups
such as scheduled castes, scheduled tribes (the indigenous
peoples,

or

Adivasis)

and

others

who

suffer

entrenched

discrimination. A National Commission for the Protection of Child

Rights was established by the Government in March 2007 to
monitor proper enforcement of child rights. In addition, a
comprehensive

plan

called

the

Integrated

Child

Protection

Scheme has been set up to protect vulnerable children. Womenled and women-focused organizations are thriving in India, which
is home to some of the worlds most innovative institutions
empowering women in the community, the workplace and
government.

Similarly,

non-governmental

organizations

and

voluntary groups have for decades been among Indias most

energetic advocates for child rights. An example is Balkan-Ji-Bari.
Founded in 1923, this organization has become a recreational and
educational

institution

for

impoverished

Adivasi

children,

providing vocational training, vaccinations and other services.

Young people are showing the way to overcoming some of the key
obstacles to fulfilling child rights. In 1990, child labourers involved
with the Concerned for Working Children organization launched
their own association Bhima Sangha, which has become an
international model for childrens participation. Beginning in 1997,
Bhima Sangha has established makkala panchayats, or childrens
councils, that run parallel to adult councils. In the state of Kerala,
the government has institutionalized child participation through
Bala Sabhas or childrens neighbourhood groups. There are
45,417 clubs in the state, with around 800,000 participants.
Challenges

ahead

Widespread

and

entrenched

exploitation,

gender discrimination, caste bias and other social problems in

India will not be overcome overnight, and it is uncertain how the
20082009 global fuel, food and economic crises will affect the
countrys social progress. As all three threaten to undermine
Indias economic growth, there is a grave risk that the share of
people living in absolute poverty will increase, possibly slowing or
even stalling recent moderate gains in child survival, health and
education. The Government of India and other stakeholders are
working towards fulfilling child rights and young people

themselves are voicing their priorities and embracing community

involvement. Their continued participation and leadership will be
critical to achieving continued human progress in India during the
years to come.

CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF LITRATURE

Studies on child labour cover reports of various types prepared by

various governmental, semi-governmental or voluntary agencies
of national and international statures. These reports are based on
primary or secondary data and are about urban or rural, industrial
or agricultural areas. There are few nation-wide studies on child
labour, the earliest sti~dy being the one conducted by Labour
Bureau, Ministry of ., Labour 0954). The study was based on
secondary information and a few on the spot.
investigations in industries, e.g., mines, plantations, cottage
industries

like

handloom,

weaving,

leather

making,

carpet

making, tailoring, potteries etc. In 1979. being the international

year of child, the Central Government sponsored some studies on

child labour and also undertook nation-wide rapid survey on child
labour. The study investigated the dimensions of the child labour
and the occupation in which children were employed, and the
existing labour laws- their adequacy and implementation of
various pieces of labour legislation. Many disturbing factors like
long hours of work and low wages were also brought out. The
study recom~nended a model legislation on child labour and also
suggested

the

organisations,

need
trade

to

involve

unions

and

social
parents

workers,
to

voluntary

assist

in

the

enforcement of legislative measures. Besides this, the subject has

also been widely discussed at a number of national and
internatiotlal seminars and conferences from time to time.
The studies concerning child labour can be broadly divided into
journalistic and those conducted by several social scientists. The
scientific studies can be further divided into macro and micro
studies. The micro-level empirical studies on child labour have
been undertaken both in the rural and urban unorganised
industrial sectors in the country. Although the studies on working

children conducted in rural areas are many, they are beyond the
purview of the present study.
The journalistic studies tend to be ilnpressionistic in nature. A few
of such journalistic reports e.g., Burra 1986, 1988; Bhatty 1996;
Joseph 1996; 1996, 1998, 1999; Sunitha 1996; Karunanithi 1997;
Weiner 1991, 1996; White 1996; Sankanagoudar 1997; Bhalerao
1996; Dasgupta 1997; Chandra 1999; Sinha 1996; Krishnakumar
1997:

Sobhana

1999;

Anandarajakumar

1998,1999;

Chandrasekhar 1999; lmmanuel 1998; Anker 2000; Singh 1999;

Mishra 2000; Lieten 2000 etc, have been published in diff'erent
journals and national dailies. Researchers of diverse social science
backgrounds have conducted studies on child labour. Since child
labour is a social issue, the main emphasis of the researchers has
been applied one, most of'them have tried to suggest ways to
solve this problem or to lessen its intensity. In such studies, the
theoretical aspect of the problem usually gets a secondary
emphasi.j. The studies have mainly covered the following areas,
vi~.. the background characteristics of working children, their
working condition with an emphasis on varying problems arising
from different occupations, the determinants of' child labuur, the

adverse consequence of child labour, the manner in which these

adverse consequences can be lessened or removed and the
legislative solutions and their limitations.
The earliest micro level study in this area is reported as early as
1975. These studies cover most of the largest towns of India like
Madras (1975), Mumbai 1980, Delhi 1977, Calcutta (1984, 1991)
Varanas~

(1985),

Cunack

(1

992),

Ahmedabad

(1

994),

Kancheepuram (1 996). Sivakasi (I 094), Jammu Kashmir (1 987,

1992;, Bangalore (1988) etc. There are small surveys or studies
covering specific industries such as Fire works lndustry of Sivakasi
(Tamll Nadu), Glass and Bangle Industry in Firozabad (U.P), Lock
Industry, Aligarh (1-i.P), Carpet weaving Industry, Mirzapur (UP),
Bikanar, Sikar, Jaipur, Tonk (Kajasthan and Jammu Kashmir), Sari
and Embroidery, Lucknow (U.P), Slate Industry (M.P), Diamond
Cutting and Polishing in Surat and Palanpur (Gujarat), Bidi
manufacturing in Murshidabad (West Bengal), Stone Polishing in
.laipur, (Kajasthan) and Coir Industry (Kerala). Also during the
year 1988, Government of India, Ministrv of Welfare and UNICEF,
the Child Labour Cell of National Labour Institute,
conducted

situational

analysis

of

street

children

Noida
in

big

metropolitan

cities

like

Delhi,

Madras,

Mumbai,

Kanpur,

Bangalore, Indore, Hyderabad and Calcutta. Recently micro level

studies were also conducted in Patiala in Punjab, Goa. Darward
city, Bidar, Vijayawada, Kochi, Calicut etc
Child labour studies conducted in big metropolitan cities e.g.
Mumbai (Mussafir Shah ct al, 1977) Bangalore (Patil 1988), Delhi
(Barooah et al, 1977), Varanasi (Jayul et al, 1985) Calcutta
(Ghosh, 1985) Calcutta (Sinha 1991), Jarnmu and Kashmir (Kitchlu
1987). Ahemadabad (Singh, 1992), Cuttack (Mishra, 1997),
Madras (Sheriff, 1992), Calicut (Immanuel. 1998), Kochi (Patrick,
1999) show the predominance of male children. Their percentages
vary from 65 to 100 per cent in these studies. But in Sivakasi
(Menon, 1987; Krishnan, 1996) and Kancheepuram (Usha, 1996)
67 to 72 per cent of working children were female. These studies
also indicate that more than 60 per cent of children are above 10
years of age at the time of entry in the labour market. In almost
all studies, larger percentage of working children belongs to Hindu
religion, but the percentage of scheduled castes and other.

backward class children among them is significant. As found in

Mumbai (1980), Baroda (1987) and Sivakasi (1986) studies their
percentage were 58 per cent ,58 per cent and 61 per cent
respectively. A review of their educational status reveals that
more than two third of the working children as found in the
studies of Varanasi (Juyal et al, 1985), Calcutta (Ghosh, 1989;
Sinha, 1991) did not have any schooling while more than one
third of the child workers in Mumbai (Muzafir Singh et al, 1980)
and 45 per cent in Delhi (Barooh et al. 1977) were illiterate. More
than 50 per cent of the working children drop their studies during
early primary school stagc as depicted in the studies of Varanasi
(Juyal, 1985), Jammu Kashmir (Kitchlu, 1987), Calcutta (Ghost).
1984), Mumbai (Muzafir Singh et al, 1980), Delhi (Baroonh et al,
1977), Bangalore (Patil, 1988), Ahmedabad (Singh, 1992). Studies
in Kerala (Immanuel, 1996; Sooryamoorthy, 1996) revealed that
90 per cent of the working children are illiterate. The lack of or
low level of literacy and poor educational status is likely to be due
to negative attitude of the parents towards education of their
children.

Generally, there are two schools of thought on child labour. The

first school of thought is what may be called the poverty school.
The proponents of this school point out that the children who
enter the labour market are compelled to do so because of the
poverty of their families. These families cannot afford to send
their children to school because they need them for work at home
or outside. The second school of thought may be termed the
education

school.

For

its

advocates,

poverty

is

not

the

determining factor for not being able to send children to work.

There is no 'evidence' that only poor people are con~pelled to
force the children to work. Both these schools have their scholars
who conduct their surveys, collect data, and validate one or the
othcr scllool of thought Some studies e.g. Rosenwerg and Evenson
(1970) and Kanberi and Kulkarni (1985) in India have revealed
that fertility rate among the families of working children
particularly from rural area is high. This is true to a large extent
for the families of working children in urban areas also. The
Mumbai (Mussafir Singh et al, 1980), Baroda (Srinivasan, 1987)
Bangalore (Patil, 1988) and Ahemadabad (Singh, 1992) studies
indicate that the averagc sue of the family of working children in

towns was more than five members. Thus large size of family is
one of the positive determinants of child labour.
Further some studies indicate migration to cities and from rural to
urban as one of the important factors contributing to increase in
child labour. The Delhi study (Barooah et al, 1977) shows that a
substantial number of migrants among child workers were
engaged particularly in aornestic service, hotels and way side
restaurants. Micro level studies oSKomala ( 1 999), Venugopal (1
998) and Rao (1 999) show that a substantial number of children
working in cities are migrants. Studies in Kerala Patrick (1 999),
lmmanuel (1 996). Sooryamoorthy (1 996), Viljayakumar (1994)
also share this view. In Mumbai (Musafir Singh, 1980) the study
shows that more than 50 per cent of the working children were
the exclusive product of urban slums as their families had
migrated to city before their birth. Almost all (90%) of them
belonged to migrant families. The frequency of migration by the
child labourers either with their adult family members, or alone,
or with friends and relatives shows that minimum number of child
labourers has migrated two to three times which constitutes
65.38 per cent. Poverty, Family disturbances. unemployment and

non-availability of land were the push factors For migration of

child labourers. The findings of the study on Migrant child labour
in Orissa (Tripati, 1997) reveals the following things.
Migrant child labours are mainly from the drought prone
poverty-stricken scheduled caste and tribe families.
The contribution of child labours to The contribution of child
labours to the tamily income is substantial as they contribute
at par with adult members.
Child labour constitute more than 38 per cent of the total
labour force among the brick-kiln labourers of Bolangir
(Orissa) migrating to Ganjam District.
Work environment of the brick-kiln labourers is grim and
they are usually victimised by health hazards of tuberculosis,
eye and hand injuries.
The child labourers in brick making industry toil hard and
usually walk a distance not less than 16 kms per day.
Most of the migrant child labourers of Holangir are illiterate,
which constitute more than 83 per cent.
Most of the migrant child labourers of Bolangir are indebted
to the moneylenders locally known as 'gointia'.

Idandless labourers and marginal farmers combinedly

constitute
households.

85

per

cent

of

the

migrant

child

labour

Though large number of migrant child labour households

migrate to Ganjam District but comparatively a higher

percentage (55 per cent) migrates to outside Orissa.

About 50 ptr cent of the nugrant child labour families are
having a family size of 5 to 8 members. + Eighty per cent of
the child labours that migrate to Surat are in the age group
of 11-14. + Textile and handloom sector is the maill
employer of child labour in Surat, which constitutt: about 80
per cent.

Most of the child labourers have only primary level of

education and they are deprived of continuing their studies.
+ The main occupation of the parents of child labourers is
agriculture.
Poverty and indebtedness have been manifested among the
migrant child labourers of Cianjam. A study conducted among the
migrant child workers of Mithila region (Manavi, an N(iO. 1995)
show that thc lack of awareness in parents and the prevailing
illiteracy among the children are the most important factors that
compel the poor families to send their children to work It is
generally believed that the economic compulsion forces children

to seek employment and earn for the family. This has been proved
by different studies such as those of Musafar Singh et a1 (1980).
Ghosh (1984), Sinha (1991), Singh (1992), Kanbargi et a1 (1991),
and Rao (1999). l'ht: studies give multiple reasons for children
being in labour market. Datta (2001) traces the root causes of the
problem and suggests certain pr:~cticahle solutions for the.
abolition or elimination of child labour.
A majority of the working children are employed on temporary
basis in seasonal work. Comparatively the self-employed children
have greater stability than the bounded labourers employed for
lifetime. Unlike adults the child labour is least bothered about
stability of employment. 'The studies on child labour by Barooah
et al (1997) and Singh ( 1980) reveal that two third of the child
workers were working less than a year on regular basis. The
studies of Nangia et a1 (1987) and Patil (1988) reveal that a little
less than one third of these children worked on more than a job.
The reasons for frequent change of their job are heavy work, low
wages, desire of their parents, ill treatment of parents and
employers etc.

There are few studies on working children in urban areas which

address the working hours and Lack of educational tacilities.
Children are employed in a variety of occupations. It was reported
that, in some cases, when agencies send their children for
vocational training to outside agencirs, the children have been
exploited. A study conducted in Mumbai reveals that selfemployed child workers were working for 10 hours a day and
earned around Rs. 80 per month on an average. The lack of fixed
place of shelter and harassment by officials were their main
problems. Various common forms of explo~tation of working
children mentioned in the studies under review are excessive long
hours of work, low wages and insanitary and unhygienic condition
of work. The hours of work and time schedule of child workers
vary considerably according to the nature of establishment in
which the children are engaged. Most of the studies Patil (1988),
Weiner (1991), Burra (1994), Tripathy (1996,1998) Rao (2000),
Lieten (2000) indicate that their working hours vary from 8 to 12
hours per day. The studies further revealed that the monthly
wages paid to the children are very low compared to adult
workers.

A number of scholars have attempted to investigate the problem

of child labour in India in detail. 'Child and State in India' by
Weiner (l991), 'Born to Work' by Burra (1994), 'Eradicating Child
Labour from the World: Some Basic Issues' by Hinvay et al.
(1991), Child Labour in the Indian Subcontinent' by Kanbargi
(1991), 'Human Rights and Child Labour in lndlan Industries' by
Saksena (1999), 'The Economics of Child Labour' by Kannan
(2001) etc are some of the debated works on the question of child
labour in India. Weiner presents an academic discussion on the
various aspects of' child labour and a crltical perspective towards
the educational policies of the Ciovernment of lndia and that of
the states. He argues that on educating its children lndia remains
way behind the rest of Asia that it will take a major infusion of
resources and political leadership to catch up. He stressed the
need for putting compulsory education on the political agenda.
His works brings out the historical linkages of child labour with the
age-old value system based on caste system. Weiner holds the
view that rather than the low per capita income and the less
developed nature of the economy, the belief' system of the Indian
society and the elite is largely responsible for the perpetuation of

child labour in the country. He also critically analyses the

education policy persued by the state and central governments
and points out its elitist character.
Burra's 'Born to Work' (1995) is hased on first hand field
investigations carried out in the brassware, gem polishing, pottery
industry, lock making and glass factories. Utilising data collected
under adverse and even hostile conditions, Burra describes the
workins conditions of these children. It emerges that a large
number of children as young as five or six years work throughout
the night under great health and safety hazards. Hurra contends
that the state policies aimed at protecting children are poorly
conceived and badly enforced. This study provides hard evidence
of widespread abuse and exploitation. Saksena analyses the
factors responsible for the prevalence of child labour and the
consequences and repercussions of sending children to work. This
study also analyses the steps taken by the Government of lndia
since independence, and points out the loopholes of legislation,
policies and programmes. Hirway et al (1991) clearly elaborates
the true nature and magnitude of the problem of child labour in
lndia with extensive demographic and statistical data. Ramesh

Kanbargi (1991) in his book 'Child Labour in the Indian SubContinent' analyses the demographic trends of child labour and its
relation with fertility, literacy and education. Rao's edited work
'Exploited Children' (2000) analyses the dimensions of child
labour in India and the broad trends and multidimensional
approaches to the problem of child labour. l'he nature, magnitude,
working conditions, causes and consequences are discussed at
length. Lt presents the position of child labour engaged in
different industries in different parts of the country. It also reveals
and analyses the socio-economic characteristics of child labour,
their levels of earning, levels of living and impact on household
income. Further, various aspects of migrant child workers are
discussed and suggest strategies to eliminate the problem of child
labour. Sanon (1998) in his work 'Worklng Children: A Sociological
Analysis' treats the problem more comprehensively. It provides a
holistic picture of the problem by narrating qualitative and
quantitative aspects of the issue.
Kannan (2001) in his edited work, 'The Economics of Child Labour'
discusses the determinants and correlates of child labour in the
context of liberalisation and globalisation. On the initiative of the

Ministry of Welfare, Government of India and the UNICEF the Child

Labour Cell of National Labour Institute, Noida conducted
situational analysis of street children of big metropolitan cities like
Madras (Joe, 1992), Utter Pradesh (Jain et al. 1992), Mumbai
(Gosalia et al. 1992), Calcutta (Ghosh, 1992), Kanpur (Pande,
1992), 1)elhi (Panicker, 1993), Indore (Philip, 1992), Hyderbad
(Rao and Malik, 1992). All these studies are based on empirical
evidence. Out of these studies reviewed above only a few deals
with migrant child labour. No comprehensive empirical study on
hoteliering industry has been conducted. Rajendran (1998)
conducted a pilot study on the migrant children working in the
hotels and restaurants of Dindigul district of Tamil Nadu reveals
the nature of the work and the types of work they are doing.
These studies establish the relationship between the eradication
of child labour and universalisation of primary education.
The studies on child labour reviewed above indicate that the
plight of the working children has close relation with certain
aspects of individual capitalism. These studies point at the need
to

understand

the

prevailing

socio-economic

situation

and

advocate a closer look into the deep roots in order to reveal the

nature of children's economic contribution. Some studies have

identified social relations of production and mode of exploitation
that conditions the activities of children.

Until recently, most studies linking child labor and health have
focused on the health of currently working children. The
comprehensive review by Graitcer and Lerer (1998) presented a
mixed picture of international evidence regarding the impact of
child labor on health, primarily because of data limitations. Data
on the extent of child labor itself is subject to considerable error,
but data on the incidence of child injuries on the job are even
more problematic. Sources of information come from government
surveillance, sometimes supplemented by data from workers
compensation

or occupational health

and safety incidence

reports. These latter sources are less likely to be present in the

informal labor markets in which child labor is most common, and
government surveillance is often weak. Nevertheless, reported
injury rates are not small: of working children aged 10-14, 9% are

estimated to suffer injuries annually, and 3.4% are estimated to

suffer disabling injuries. Information on longer term health
consequences of child labor such as occupational diseases or
repetitive motion injuries is even more limited and subject to
errors. In a rare example of longitudinal data applied to the
question, Satyanarayana et al (1986) examined anthropometric
data on 410 children over a 17 year period in a rural area in India.
They found that children who worked in agriculture, small-scale
industry and services gained less in height and weight when
followed through to adulthood than those who attended school.
They did not consider the issue of nonrandom selection into work
or industry. Two larger-scale studies using different Brazilian data
sets provide some evidence on the negative long term effect of
child labor on adult health. Kassouf et al (2001) found that the
probability of self-reported poor health increases as the age of
labor market entry decreases. However, this result should be
interpreted with caution in that child labor and schooling are
treated as exogenous and no other control variables are used.
Giuffrida et al (2005) found that starting to work under age 9 has
a negative and significant effect on adult health. Their estimates

control for age, race, education, wealth, housing conditions, and

unemployment status. However, if child labor alters wealth,
housing status or unemployment later in life, some of these
controls are jointly determined with child labor and adult health,
again raising concerns about endogenous child labor.
Rosati and Straub (2004) used a sample of Guatemalan siblings
that controlled for unobservable household attributes in assessing
the impact of child labor on adult health. However their strategy
still treats child labor and possible resulting decisions regarding
schooling and income as exogenous. In addition, their sample is
restricted to adults who are still living with their parents, and so
their sample is heavily weighted toward relatively young adults.
Moreover, if the decision to live with parents is conditioned on
health outcomes, as would be the case if healthy children are
more likely to live on their own and children suffering illness or
disability are more likely to remain with their parents, then their
sample will be biased toward finding adults with health problems.
Selection might explain why they find such large adverse health
consequences: having worked as a child increased by 40% the
probability of having health problems as an adult. Nevertheless,

their finding of very large health consequences from child labor

illustrates the importance of further examining the link between
child labor and adult health. There does appear to be a prima
facie case that starting to work early in life can lead to the early
onset of physical disabilities in adulthood. Figure 1 shows the
relationship between age of labor market entry and various health
conditions for several birth cohorts in Brazil. Adults who started
working earliest as children have a higher incidence of back
problems and arthritis than do their contemporaries who entered
the labor market at older ages. Older cohorts have a higher
incidence of these problems than younger cohorts, but the
downward pattern between health problems and age of labor
market entry is found in all cohorts. Interestingly, there is no
apparent pattern between the incidence of hypertension and age
of labor market entry. Presumably, the incidence of hypertension
would be tied more closely to heredity and life style and less to
early labor market entry.
The downward pattern between age of labor market entry and
adult adverse health outcomes are found for many self reported
problems including walking, bending, lifting, pushing, climbing

stairs, and kidney disease (see Appendix 1). Other than the last
measure, these health problems appear to be physical and
potentially associated with repeated physical stress. In contrast,
no apparent correlation between child labor and adult health
exists for selfreported asthma, diabetes, cancer, tuberculosis,
cirrhosis, depression, heart disease, and tendonitis. Other than
the last indicator, these health conditions tend to reflect heredity
and life style choices rather than physical ailments. These
correlations suggest that there may indeed be a relationship
between starting to work at a young age and poor lifetime health.
The balance of the paper examines whether we can identify a
causal link between child labor and adult health that is consistent
with the correlational patterns.

CHAPTER 4
MAGNITUDE AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOUR

Child labor is upsetting. The popular images in the developed

world are drawn from Dickens and the dark, satanic mills of the
industrial revolution on the one hand, and the sweatshops and
street children of the cities of the developing world on the other. A
common, and natural enough, reaction in developing countries
has been legislation to ban child labor, following the historical
lead of the developed world as it emerged from its period of
industrialization. In fact, trade sanctions are being recommended
in some developed countries, against the exports of developing
countries that use child labor. Many, including developing country
governments, see this as a thinly disguised protectionist device.
Many others, economists among them, have argued that child
labor legislation, even if it could be enforced, is not the only way,
or necessarily the best way, of tackling the issue.

The Nature and Magnitude of Child

Labor How much child labor is there in the world The answer to
this question depends, of course, on what one means by child
labor. At one extreme, all non-educational, non-leisure time of
individuals below a certain age can be counted as child labor. At
the other extreme, only full-time employment in economic activity
would be counted. The former includes light work after school or
in school holidays, which helps in skill acquisition, while the latter
excludes part-time engagement in such horrendous activities as
child prostitution. Part of the definitional problem arises because
when most people talk of child labor they mean bad child labor
such as prostitution, or scavenging, or backbreaking work on a
construction site, or long hours in a carpet factory, etc. Such
bad child labor can be part-time or full-time, and a child can
both engage in schooling and in bad child labor. Getting
comparable estimates for such child labor is impossible, not least

because what constitutes bad child labor is itself in dispute. The

term child labor covers a wide range of situations, to which the
ethical, economic and legal response could be very different (see
Box 1: Four child workers). To begin with, it is not clear how to
define child. In the West, it is customary to do so by
chronological age, but in many societies cultural and social
factors enter as well (Rodgers and Standing, 1981). The evolution
of a child to adulthood passes through socially and biologically
defined life phases, over which the degree of dependence and the
need for protection of the child gradually declines, e.g., in many
societies an apprentice even if only eight or nine years old is often
not considered a child - a determination based on social status
rather than age (Morice, 1981). In that sense too, many societies,
especially poor rural ones, do not view child work as bad.
Rather, it is part of the socialization process which gradually
introduces the child into work activities and teaches the child
survival skills. This view is present in many African countries
(Bekombo, 1981; Agiobu-Kemmer, 1992).
The concept of work is equally problematic to apply to the
range of activities, which children do. They can range from help

with domestic work, to work in the household enterprise or farm,

to wage work. It can be light artisan work, trading, or heavy
physical work (see Rodgers and Standing, 1981, for a useful
typology of children's activities). For the purpose of defining a
policy towards child labor, both the nature of the work and the
nature of the relationship between the child and the employer
must be considered. A key element is whether the arrangement is
exploitative. In the extreme, this can take the form of bonded
labor, quasi-slavery, or feudal relationships. In many cases a debt
incurred by the parents is the bond, which forces the child to
work towards repayment of the debt. It is estimated that in South
Asia there are several million child bonded laborers (ILO, 1992).
However, other aspects of child labor can also be considered
exploitative, such as when the child starts full-time work at too
early an age, or works too many hours, or when the work puts
excessive physical, social and psychological strains on the child
and hampers the child's development in these areas (UNICEF,
1986; ILO, 1992). The ILO (1993) has recently attempted to
produce statistics on child labor based on a uniform definition economically active population under the age of 15. The

discussion in ILO (1993) highlights the difficulties that arise in

terms of data availability - eventually, a number of sources had to
be used, including a set of specially designed questionnaires sent
to 200 countries and territories (the response rate was uneven
across regions). In any event, on the basis of returns from 124
countries, the ILO estimates that there are about 78.5 million
economically active children under 15 years in 1990. The figure
for children 10-14 years old is 70.9 million, with a participation
rate of 13.7 percent. Table 1 presents the figures by region. It will
be seen that participation rates are highest in Africa, and
particularly high in Eastern Africa. The lower figure in Southern
Asia may relate to country coverage.

By contrast to the ILO total, UNICEF (1991) estimated that there

were 80 million children aged 10-14 who undertook work so long
or onerous that it interferes with their normal development. Such
widely differing estimates for the same age group (10-14) show
well the implications of different definitions and methodologies.
This is further illustrated by figures for one country - India - from

the work of Weiner (1991): How many of India's 82 million

children not in school are in the work force Given the
uncertainties of definition and the complexities of remuneration, it
is no wonder that estimates of child labor vary so greatly in India.
India's 1981 census reports only 13.6 million in the work force ...
other studies put the number of child workers higher. The official
National Sample Survey of 1983 reports 17.4 million child
laborers, while a study by the Operations Research Group of
Baroda, sponsored by the Labor Ministry, concluded that the child
labor force was 44 million, including children paid in kind as well
as in cash.
hus estimates vary widely depending upon who makes the
estimates. The basic difficulty of course is that there is no
systematic data collection on child labor. Labor force surveys
typically exclude respondents below 15 years or below the upper
mandatory

schooling

age,

hence

missing

the

child

labor

phenomenon entirely. Yet, as the aggregate estimates indicate,

there can be little doubt that in many parts of the world, child
labor is pervasive. Table 2 shows some selected estimates for
Africa and Asia, based on micro-data collection, often of an

anthropological nature, which was undertaken to study a variety

of household behaviors. While such estimates can make no claim
of representativeness, they show that participation rates for
children are often in the 20-60 percent range depending upon age
and type of work. Rates increase with age and tend to be higher
for boys in the case of wage-work or work in the household
enterprise or farm. Girls participate more in domestic activities.
Such figures suggest that the incidence of child labor varies
greatly from country to country, and possibly within countries as
well, but they confirm that the numbers of children working are
high enough so that the issue of child labor deserves to be a
matter of priority concern in many countries.

The Structure of the Labor Market

Cain and Mozumder (1980) have argued that the economic value
of children, and the implications for reproductive behavior, cannot
properly be assessed without reference to the structure of the
labor market. The latter determines the level of wages, which in
turn determines the contribution of children to household income.
A key factor is the flexibility of wages. In competitive markets,
where wages are flexible, children can substitute for adults in the
market place. Where wages are at a floor, whether due to
legislation, collective action or because they have reached an
(adult) subsistence minimum, the employer will prefer adult
workers (assuming their productivity is higher than that of
children). Effective minimum wages can thus in principle deter
child labor, although in practice one must ask whether minimum
wage legislation is more likely to be effectively enforced than
legislation banning child labor.
Various forms of market segmentation, ironically, may reduce
child labor. Exploitation and wage discrimination against children
will reduce the returns to child labor, and hence the supply. There

is little hard evidence on the extent of wage discrimination

against children. Cain and Mozumder (1980) present evidence
that in rural Bangladesh, where children's work is paid by the
piece, there is no evidence of wage discrimination relative to what
adults receive for the same work. In a review of case studies,
Bequele and Boyden (1988) observed that it was extremely
difficult to obtain precise data on levels of remuneration of child
laborers, in part because the information is very sensitive, but
also because children's wages tend to be paid in a combination of
cash and kind. Sometimes payment is made by the task and is
subject to deductions for defects in the product, late delivery,
time lost through ill health, etc. However, in spite of these
difficulties in observing remuneration levels, Bequele and Boyden
conclude that children's earnings are consistently lower than
those of adults, even where the two groups are engaged in the
same tasks. Jomo (1992) reaches the same conclusion based on
several case studies on Malaysia. If wage discrimination against
children is indeed the norm, one would have to surmise that the
wage elasticity of child labor supply is quite low, since none of the
case studies reported any difficulties on the part of the employers

to recruit children. This is the opposite of what the two

econometric analyses cited earlier found.
Monopsonistic demand conditions in the market will also depress
children's

wages.

Monopsonistic

conditions

occur

often

in

developing country labor markets and can be due to concentrated

ownership of land, credit and product monopolies, share cropping
arrangements, imposed or natural restrictions on labor mobility,
or, simply because of lack of alternative employment possibilities
(Cain and Mozumder, 1980). Possibilities of mobility or finding
alternative employment are often lower for children than adults.
In such conditions, the children's wage is determined mainly by
the elasticity of supply. As said earlier, evidence from Egypt and
India suggests that children's labor supply is elastic with respect
to their wages (Levy, 1985, Rosenzweig, 1981) but other case
studies cast doubt on it. The relative importance of the formal
sector in the economy and the degree of segmentation with the
informal sector also determines the demand for child labor. In
general, the evidence suggests that the amount of child labor in
the formal economy is small, with the possible exception of
plantations (see e.g. Bonnet, 1993, for Africa; Goonesekere, 1993,

for Sri Lanka). However, in many countries there is a tendency

towards

informalization

of

production

methods.

Formal

enterprises either break up in smaller units or engage in

subcontracting with households or informal enterprises (mainly to
try to escape social legislation which adds to the cost of labor). In
such conditions the demand for child labor may well increase. An
important aspect of this is the apprenticeship system, which ties a
child to a small enterprise usually for many years, in principle to
learn a trade. In practice, especially in the early years of the
apprenticeship, the child often serves the master, and only later
will

there

be

any

actual

learning

(Mendelievich,

1979).

Nevertheless, the apprenticeship can be seen as a process of

socialization together with a transfer of know-know, and some
have argued that it would therefore be a mistake to view it as
exploitation of child labor (Bonnet, 1993).

The role of technology

The second major factor determining the demand for child labor is
the technology of production. This factor becomes more relevant
the less children are perfect substitutes for adults. Many of the
cases where this factor plays an extreme role are those that incite
reports in the press and by civic societies. Examples are the use
of boys in mines, because the tunnels are too small for adults to
crawl through; the use of boys as chimney sweeps; the use of
girls to weed and pick cotton; the use of children to weave
carpets because children have more nimble fingers and can tie

smaller knots than adults. By implication, changes in technology

can have a profound impact on the incidence of child labor. The
green revolution in India led to reduced child labor and increased
school attendance (Rosenzweig, 1981). The mechanization of
Egyptian agriculture, especially the growing use of tractors and
irrigation pumps, reduced the demand for child labor in tasks such
as driving animals to power waterwheels, picking cotton, and
hauling freight borne by donkeys (Levy, 1985). In some cases, the
technological change in question can be fairly elementary.
DeGraff et al. (1993) document that in the Philippines, the
introduction of electricity in the community reduces the amount
of market labor for children, and, similarly, having electricity in
the home reduces the amount of home production by children. In
the

quarries

of

Bogot,

the

introduction

of

wheelbarrows

displaced children who previously carried rocks piece by piece

(Salazar, 1988).
In the textile industry e.g. the mechanization of spinning and
weaving wiped out the family mode of textile production and
increased the specialization of work in the factories. This reduced
the demand for child labor and increased the demand for skilled

labor. It is important to note that the reduction of the share of

children in the workforce in Europe's eighteenth-century textile
industry

occurred

prior

to

the

introduction

of

legislative

restrictions on child labor (Galbi, 1994). Today's technology can

have ambivalent effects on the demand for child work. The
miniaturization and assembly-line production in the electronics
and electrical appliance industries has again led to some demand
for nimble fingers. Not everywhere are robots the ultimate
suppliers of this skill. In garment production, the advent of fairly
cheap multi-function sewing machines has once again made
possible home production, and much manufacturing relies on subcontracting arrangements, often leading to girls' work at home.
Empirical assessments of the implications of technological change
are lacking and would be needed before the importance of
technology relative to other demand factors can be assessed.

The Welfare Economics of Child Labor

Having discussed some of the key determinants of child labor, in
the next section we will discuss policy interventions to reduce

child labor. But to seek to reduce or even ban child labor must be
based on a conviction that there is too much of it relative to the
social optimum. Whether or not there is too much or too little of
an activity can be examined systematically using the framework
of conventional welfare economics -- such an analysis may also
provide insights into appropriate interventions. This section
outlines a discussion of the issues. The basic analytical framework
is that of household decision making in the allocation of children's
time between labor and non-labor activities, together with an
assessment of private and social returns to each activity. Each
household will allocate the time of its children to wherever the
perceived private return is highest, until the marginal return is
equalized across all uses of child time. The crucial question is
whether the marginal social return, suitably defined, is also
equalized. Conceptually, there are three sets of issues. First there
are those to do with pure efficiency, where no distributional
questions are raised. Secondly, there are issues involving
intrahousehold distributional considerations. Third, there are the
issues involving interhousehold distribution. We consider each of
these in isolation.

Let us start with a state of affairs where all household are

identical, so that there are no interhousehold distributional issues
at all. Let us also assume that there are no intrahousehold
allocation issues -- households give the same weight to the
welfare of children as the social welfare function. In such a
situation, the only remaining issue for welfare economics is that of
efficiency of the allocation of children's time, emerging out of
some sort of market failure either in the market for child labor, or
in other markets. Thus, suppose there is a failure in the market for
education. The social returns to primary education are higher than
the private returns, for whatever reason (which may be quite
indirect e.g. primary education for girls leads to lower fertility and
this is desirable from the social point of view). Thus in the social
optimum more children would be at school than at work (in the
family or outside). What should be the nature of the intervention
Basic welfare economics teaches us that it is best to attack
market failures in the very markets in which they occur -- it is
always second best to intervene in related markets. The lesson
here would be that it is second best to attack the problem by
taxing or banning child labor (thereby inducing the household to

use that time in alternative ways). Rather, policy should focus on

raising the private rate of returns to education to bring it closer to
the social returns, because child labor is merely the symptom of a
market failure elsewhere. The same applies in cases where
incomplete markets for risk spreading lead to the use of child
labor as a diversification device. The first best solution is to
encourage the development of credit and risk markets. There is
no presumption that banning of child labor, for example, is the
appropriate response to this market failure. Now take the case
where the market for child labor is monopsonistic, so that the
wages

for

child

labor

are

depressed

below

the

efficient

competitive level. Minimum wages in such a market will of course

raise wages and increase the employment of children. Note that
in this case the efficient direction of movement is to increase child
labor -- this also increases the wages of children, which raises
distributional issues, and it is to these that we now turn Let us
start with a case where all households are identical, but within
each household there is discrimination against children -meaning by this that the household objective function gives a
lower weight to the utility of children than the social welfare

function (the argument is perhaps most persuasive in the case of

female children). Then, even if there is no market failure of the
conventional type, and there are no interhousehold distributional
issues, there may nevertheless be too much child labor. It is,
however, important to model the intrahousehold allocation
process accurately, since the policy interventions will differ
accordingly. Suppose we have the unitary model of the
household where the head of the household gives greater weight
to the cash income generated, and less weight to the loss of
leisure and schooling by the child, than the social welfare function
does. In this case the issue is how to rearrange incentives for the
head of household so that he does the right thing. This can be
done either by taxing (perhaps even banning) child labor or by
subsidizing education. There is no longer a natural ranking
between these two alternatives. However, now consider the case
where household allocations are better described through a
bargaining model (perhaps between the father and the motherchild nexus). Then directly altering the bargaining power of the
mother is a relevant instrument. Increasing wages, even to the
child, can then be seen as strengthening the fall-back option of

the mother-child nexus. We now focus on the situation where

there are no market failures and there are no intrahousehold
issues, but households differ in their wealth and capabilities,
thereby leading to a distribution of outcomes in welfare. In what
sense might there now be too much child labor The answer is
that it may be the case that child labor is correlated with low
income households, and a reduction in household poverty leads to
a reduction in child labor. Notice that child labor is not here an
independent

object

of

concern

--

rather,

it

is

simply

manifestation of low household income. Child labor, therefore, far

from being banned, should be used as a targeting device.
Interventions

should

be

planned

which

transfer

resources

(nutrition, for example) to child laborers, since this is the way to

transfer

resources

to

poor

households.

Of

course

such

intervention may well lead to an increase in child labor, but that

should not necessarily worry us from this perspective -- so much
the better, if the object is to help poor households and if the
poverty alleviation effects dominate the incentive effects. With
this framework, let us now work through and pull together the
consequences of a particularly popular policy intervention -- the

banning of child labor. There are two cases to consider: one where
the ban is enforced, and one where is not.
If the ban is enforced, this means that children will no longer be
found in the labor market, but will be shifted to family labor or to
schooling. If there was previously inefficiency in the education
market, so that there were too few children in school from the
point of view of the social optimum, then this will move us closer
to that optimum but, as discussed above, it would definitely have
been better to have intervened in the education market. But what
if there was no inefficiency in the education market From the
perspective of pure intrahousehold distribution, suppose it was
the case that putting children into the labor market gave them a
lower level of welfare than putting them in school, but this was
done because the household head preferred to put them there to
get the cash incomes. Then forcing the ban on child labor is good
if the social welfare function gives a higher weight to the child's
welfare than the head of household does. But what if child welfare
depends on the cash income of the child because this is what
strengthens the bargaining power of the mother-child nexus
Then, of course, banning of child labor may make the child worse

off after the intrahousehold bargaining is completed. Now take the

case where the problem is one of interhousehold distribution,
where poorer households send their children out to work, but
wealthier households send their children to school -- the two
decisions being rational given the wealth levels of the two
households. Then it should be clear that a ban on child labor
makes the poor household worse off since it is a restriction of its
opportunity set -- much better to target transfers conditional on
child labor (which will, paradoxically, increase child labor).
Suppose, as is quite likely, that the ban is not enforced, but the
ban creates rents in the system. Quite simply, if employers are
the ones who would be fined, they bribe the policemen etc. to let
them continue, but this is an extra cost to them. This will reduce
the demand for child labor and, in a competitive setting, will
reduce the wages of children and reduce the extent of child labor.
The consequences can once again be thought through for
efficiency, intrahousehold equity and interhousehold equity. To the
extent that more children now go to school this will move the
system closer to efficiency if the market failure is in the market
for education -- but once again, it would have been better to

intervene in that market directly. To the extent that the head of

household was sending the child into the labor market against its
better interest, the lower wages will force a reallocation to
schooling which will increase the child's welfare. But to the extent
that intrahousehold allocation is governed by bargaining power
and cash income confers this power, the child will be worse off.
Finally, to the extent that poorer households send their children to
work

based

on

rational

decisions

which

do

not

entail

intrahousehold inequity, lowering the wages of child labor will

make these poorer households worse off.
The welfare economics of child labor thus leads to a complex and
richly textured analysis which does not suggest a single, or even a
dominant, way of approaching the issue. An array of policy
instruments is likely to be required, addressing different aspects
of failures arising from efficiency or distributional considerations.
In particular, it seems clear that legislation, even if it could be
enforced, is at best only one instrument in an array that has to be
used. There is however, a major counter to the welfare
economics perspective on child labor. This is the non-welfarist
framework where certain rights are self-evident, natural and

given. Policy analysis has to take these as constraints and

proceed on this basis. A good example is slavery. It is generally
accepted that nobody has the right to sell themselves into slavery
-- irrespective of whether this would be welfare improving from
the efficiency (or even the distributional) point of view. It can be
argued that child labor falls into this category. The fact of child
labor violates a basic human right, and it should be banned. It is
also easy to see how a focus on international conventions and
legislation emerges from the basic rights perspective. Not only
is the signing of conventions and passing of legislation symbolic a clear expression of the acceptance of the right in question - but
vigorous attempts at enforcing such legislation are seen as
furthering a basic right. In this framework, the fact that attempts
to enforce legislation may hurt the very group whose right is
being protected is not as important a consideration. Legislation
can also, of course, be justified in a welfare economics
framework, though its efficacy has to be heavily qualified. But
from both the welfarist and the non-welfarist point of view the
key issue has to be one of enforceability. As we will discuss in the
next section, most developing countries simply do not have the

administrative capacity to enforce the full gamut of child labor

legislation, in the face of overwhelming incentives for the
existence of child labor. In fact, what capacity exists is probably
too thinly spread to have an effect. Moreover, the fact of the
legislation

makes

it

more

difficult

to

put

in

place

other

interventions -- since child labor is not supposed to exist if the

legislation is being enforced. And added to the above is the fact
that in many societies certain types of child labor, even if
exacting, are not seen as a violation of children's rights. On the
contrary, apprenticeship, work on the farm, etc. is seen as an
important rite of passage.
Putting together these arguments, we would argue that while it is
certainly appropriate for nations to accede to international
conventions as a statement of overall objectives, specific
legislation on child labor should be tailored to their enforcement
capacity, and directed to what might be termed the extremes - as
seen by society. Thus, for example, child prostitution would be
accepted universally as a candidate for legislation and targeted
heavy enforcement. The same would apply to children in bonded
labor. But when it comes to children working on farms, or even

factories, a better approach is to provide incentives for schooling,

and to use the fact of child labor as a targeting device to transfer
resources to the child and its family -- to focus, in other words, on
drawing children away from labor but protecting them when they
do find themselves at work.

Policy Intervention
The foregoing discussion brought out a number of variables which
can be affected by economic and social policies. Let us start with
fertility. Ceteris paribus, where the number of children is reduced
the amount of child labor will decrease. This is not the place to
review what works and does not work in family planning and
population policies (for a recent review, see .........), and it suffices
to underline the importance of such policies as a tool to reduce
child labor. Moreover, the relationship between fertility and child
labor becomes stronger in later phases of demographic transition,
so that the effect of population policies on reduction of child labor
will increase over time. Child labor is strongly associated with

poverty. Poor households need children's income to survive and/or

to insure against unforeseen income losses. Successful poverty
alleviation policies (see e.g. the recommendations in World Bank,
1990) will thus tend to reduce child labor. Since in most countries
poverty alleviation is a long-term objective, short term actions
aimed at reducing income risk for poor households will also have
beneficial effects on child labor. Examples are the provision of
agricultural credit or credit for small household enterprises, or
other policies which provide insurance against income loss (e.g.
by granting flexible repayment terms of existing loans, or
providing community-backed consumer loans without collateral).
Such programs would contribute to breaking the bonds which
caused bonded child labor in areas where it is now prevalent We
cited several examples earlier in the paper where technological
change contributed to the reduction of child labor (mechanization
and changes in cropping patterns in agriculture, mechanization in
carpet weaving, introduction of wheelbarrows in quarrying, etc.).
Programs to promote adoption of such technologies obviously
deserve a place in the list of policy instruments to reduce child
labor. The benefits of educating girls for child welfare are well

known. One of those benefits is the reduction of child labor,

through

the

income

effect

stemming

from

an

enhanced

contribution by an educated mother to her family's income, and

the associated demand for quality children, i.e. children who do
not work but go to school. Since school attendance and work are
the main competing claims on the child's time, the balance can
be shifted in favor of school attendance by reducing its cost.
Direct costs can be reduced through subsidies and indirect costs
by bringing schools closer to the children's homes. Moreover,
where costs of education are low, the negative effects from large
household size on school attendance can be largely offset, and
this is likely to reduce the supply of child labor. This consideration
is especially important in an era of economic adjustment where
many countries need to cut levels of government expenditure,
including often social expenditure. Maintaining measures which
keep the cost of education low for poor households makes sense
not only from a pure educational perspective but also as a tool to
diminish child labor. The way education is provided can also be
made more flexible to meet the needs of working children. In
particular, evening and weekend classes, and schools near the

work place, would promote attendance. Informal and vocational

education will often attract the children more and provide skills
they can more easily relate to. Last, but not least among
economic measures with an impact on child labor is the provision
of

alternative

income

sources

for

children

and

improved

employment opportunities for their parents. This is of course

affected

by

the

overall

state

of

the

economy,

and

the

government's economic policies, especially those relating to

employment and the labor market.
An interesting program which combined social and economic
incentives was sponsored by ILO in Manila to help scavenger
children working on Smokey Mountain - Manila's infamous
garbage dump. The program attempted to provide children with
an alternative, more safe, source of income to scavenging
garbage, and provided training and credit to their parents to help
them set up small businesses. Initially the program failed, but
after a more intensive approach, a small number of children were
effectively helped. The program illustrated that the key to success
is to provide alternatives to both the economic and social payoffs of children's work, but it also showed that it is difficult and

costly to do this, and depends critically on local community

involvement (Gunn and Ostos, 1992). This experience in the
Philippines has been shared by other programs also: community
operated

multiple-service

programs

providing

alternative

employment for children as well as education and health services,

have had some success but typically with limited coverage. They
are resource-demanding and complicated to operate (Myers,
1991). Finally, let us turn to legislation. Historically, the single
most important and common approach to the problem of child
labor has been the adoption of legislation. The ILO has sponsored
many Conventions and Recommendations banning child labor and
most countries now have some form of legislation or regulation
prohibiting the employment of children below a certain age and
specifying the conditions under which minors may work (Bequele
and Boyden, 1988). The age threshold and the scope of the
legislation vary. In the majority of countries the minimum age for
entry to employment is 14 or 15, but there are about 30 countries
where it is only 12 or 13 years (ILO, 1992). In many countries
higher minimum ages apply for hazardous work. Almost all
legislation exempts work in household enterprises, but some limit

the scope further by excluding also domestic service and

agriculture.

One

fundamental

problem

with

enacting

and

enforcing legislation banning child labor is that there are no

interest groups to support it: the government often considers it
embarrassing to admit the existence of child labor, the employers
of children will obviously be hostile to legislation, and the children
themselves and their parents are usually not organized (Morice,
1981). Legislation is therefore likely to be effective only where
there is a capable administration, determined to implement the
laws, where there is relative difficulty in hiding child work, and
relatively little advantage from child work (Rodgers and Standing,
1981). This situation, especially the last factor, existed in the
cotton mills of eighteenth-century Europe. The employment of
children started falling a half century before the introduction of
legislation, mainly because it was to the advantage of factory
owners to switch to adult workers. Particularly, the growth of the
cotton industry drove up the wages of children, and the maturing
of child workers produced a labor market for productive adults,
where transaction costs associated with hiring and screening
adult workers fell (Galbi, 1994). Legislation to ban child labor thus

fitted in with an ongoing economic trend. Documentation about

effective enforcement of child labor legislation is spotty at best.
Most information pertains to labor inspectors describing their
degree of understaffing and their difficulties to visit factories and
to enforce penalties before the courts.
There is little question that in many countries, labor inspectorates
are seriously understaffed. In the Philippines e.g. there are fewer
than 200 inspectors nation-wide for almost 400,000 employers
(Bequele and Boyden, 1988).5 The ongoing trend towards
informalization in the labor market will make inspection even
more difficult in the future. In fact, it has been argued that in
some cases child labor legislation may have contributed to this
process, because it makes it easier for employers to hide child
laborers (Bequele and Boyden, 1988). Weak enforcement does
not of course provide an argument for not passing legislation.
Apart from its symbolic value, it can be argued that legislation is
the only way to effectively address some of the more extreme
cases of child work, such as prostitution, child soldiers, etc.
However, the legislation cannot be seen in isolation from
enforcement capacity. Where such capacity is limited, it needs to

be concentrated on those cases where economic incentives are

not likely to have much impact.
In putting in place child labor legislation, an argument can be
made for using a graduated approach. As Rodgers and Standing
(1981) pointed out it is one of the ironies of child labor that,
where it is prohibited by law, the law is likely to leave child
workers unprotected, since legally they do not exist (p. 39). The
law should hence address also issues of working conditions
(safety, working hours, etc.) and ensure that these regulations
apply to all workers, including children. It may be easier, in a first
phase, to force employers to limit children's workdays, to provide
adequate lighting or safety equipment, rather than to force them
to forego child labor altogether. (However, for an opposing view,
see Goonesekere, 1993, who argues that a gradual approach
leads to confusion and is harder to implement than absolute
prohibition.) Similarly, outlawing certain practices in general, e.g.
bonded labor as a means to repay credit, may have a beneficial
effect for children, even when it falls short of stopping child labor.
Legislation can also affect child labor through compulsory
schooling laws. The record of enforcement seems better here than

with legislation banning child labor (Weiner, 1991). However, here

too, a certain level of enforcement capacity is needed, not just in
the form of inspectors but also a well functioning birth registration
system, a high level of literacy, etc. The community has a
potentially crucial role here, since community-based monitoring of
school enrollment and attendance is more likely to succeed than
occasional visits from an inspector of the Ministry of Education.
(Weiner, 1991, illustrates these points for the case of Europe and
North America.)
Ultimately then, and as was argued in the previous section, child
labor is best addressed through a combination of legislation and
economic incentives (Myers, 1991; Goonesekere, 1993). This is
now well accepted by international agencies addressing the
problem of child labor, such as UNICEF and ILO (see e.g. UNICEF,
1986; ILO, 1992). It is unlikely that any one approach will succeed
everywhere and the balance between legal and economic
measures needs to be adapted to the incidence of child labor, the
type of prevalent work and work arrangements, and the
conditions of the markets. To illustrate this we revisit the four
prototypical child workers we described earlier, and suggest ways

to help them and their families Brazil and India have both
followed approaches that combine legal action with economic
incentives. In India, the legal framework is provided by the 1986
Child Labor Act, prohibiting the employment of children below 14
in hazardous occupations. The economic framework is in the
National Policy on Child Labor, which targets education for all
children up to age 14, and proposes an extensive system of nonformal

education

combined

with

employment

and

income

generating schemes in areas with a high incidence of child labor.

A series of pilot projects has been set up (Narayan, 1988). n
Brazil, the focus is on street children. The Government has
recognized that its customary bureaucratic procedures would fail
to effectively address this problem. Instead, a community-based
strategy was set up, where the Government's role was limited to
providing technical support.
By 1986, local volunteer commissions existed in most major
urban

areasorganizations

that

were

community-based resources (Myers, 1988).

able

to

mobilize

If economic incentives and legislation are the two pillars on which

efforts

to

help

working

children

need

to

be

based,

the

effectiveness of each will be greatly enhanced by simultaneous

efforts at advocacy and mobilization, and empowerment of the
children and their families. Because many of the most exploited
and endangered working children go unnoticed, their situation
must be brought forcefully to the attention of government and the
public, in an effort to mobilize a constituency to defend them.
Advocacy entails combating ignorance but also prejudice, fear
and denigration towards working children. There is a great irony in
such negative views, because working children often assume
great responsibility to help themselves and their families (Myers,
1991). Many working children and their families operate within
very

limited

economic

and

social

options

effective

empowerment can expand those options, and give the children a

larger share of society's possibilities and benefits. Myers (1991)
discusses ways to achieve this, most of which are characterized
by a strong involvement of local communities, but aided and
supported by national or international organizations. As said, child
labor has much negative stigma attached to it, certainly among

government officials. Sometimes a more positive view can open a

road to helping working children more effectively. In particular, it
may be possible to use child labor as a targeting device, and
extend certain benefits to child workers. As the previous section
indicated, this is especially appropriate where child labor is a
manifestation of poverty. Many working children are inadequately
fed and do not go to school. The government could provide
factory meals to working children, as it provides in some cases
school meals to children in school. Similarly, primary health care
workers could be mandated to visit and provide free care to child
workers. Employers could be ordered to restrict children's work
day to five or six hours so that children can attend school at least
part-time. Such measures would benefit children who are in an
economic situation which is not likely to change in the short run
and would make them better off. (In fact, the added benefits may
be perceived as an increase in real wage and increase the supply
of child labor - this is not, however, a reason for not helping child
workers and can be seen as an effectively targeted transfer to
poor families.) Such programs of course would require rather

profound shifts in many governments' current attitude of denial

and/or all-or-nothing bans.
We think that such gradual solutions which recognize an
economic reality and take advantage of it to help those in an
unfortunate situation, will ultimately contribute to the long-term
elimination of child labor.
Finally, there are other factors that we have not discussed yet,
which can profoundly affect the lives of children. One such factor
is peace. We must make a distressing call of attention to the
impact of war and ethnic and civil strife on children. There is
evidence that increasingly boys, sometimes as young as 12 years,
are being used in the fighting militias. Often they are abducted
and forcibly conscripted (Goonesekere, 1993). While in such
situations, civility and law enforcement are absent, the use of
children in such conflicts should be considered a war crime not to
be forgotten after the end of the conflict.

Child Labor Policies

The Policy of the Government on the issue of Child Labour The
National Policy on Child Labour declared in August, 1987, contains
the action plan for tackling the problem of Child Labour. It
envisages:

A legislative action plan: The Government has enacted the

Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 to prohibit
the engagement of children in certain employments and to
regulate the conditions of work of children in certain other
employments.
Focusing

and

convergence

of

general

development

programmes for benefiting children wherever possible, A

Core Group on convergence of various welfare schemes of

the Government has been constituted in the Ministry of
Labour & Employment to ensure that, the families of the
Child Labour are given priority for their upliftment.
Project-based action plan of action for launching of projects
for the welfare of working children in areas of high
concentration of Child Labour.

Directions of Supreme Court

On 10th December 1996 in Writ Petition (Civil) No.465/1986 on
MC Mehta verses state of Tamil Nadu the Supreme Court of India,
gave certain directions on the issue of elimination of child labour.
The main features of judgment are as under:

Survey for identification of working children;

Withdrawal of children working in hazardous industry and

ensuring their education in appropriate institutions;

Contribution @ Rs.20,000/- per child to be paid by the

offending employers of children to a welfare fund to be
established for this purpose;

Employment to one adult member of the family of the child

so withdrawn from work and it that is not possible a contribution
of Rs.5,000/- to the welfare fund to be made by the State
Government;

Financial assistance to the families of the children so

withdrawn to be paid -out of the interest earnings on the corpus
of Rs.20,000/25,000 deposited in the welfare fund as long as the
child is actually sent to the schools;

Regulating hours of work for children working in nonhazardous occupations so that their working hours do not exceed
six hours per day and education for at least two hours is ensured.
The entire expenditure on education is to be borne by the
concerned employer.

The implementation of the direction of the Honble Supreme

Court is being monitored by the Ministry of Labour and
compliance of the directions have been reported in the form of

Affidavits on 05.12.97, 21.12.1999, 04.12.2000, 04.07.2001 and

04-12-2003 to the Honble Court on the basis of the information
received from the State/UT Governments.
Enforcement Figures on Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 for the last five years

Year

Inspections

Violations

Prosecutions

Convictions

2009

328077

8709

5633

1489

2010

255176

11182

4570

1536

2011

150771

14411

6011

976

2012

164453

12019

5018

1144

2013

174994

8859

3486

1041

Total

1073471

55180

24718

6186

International Programs
The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour is
a global programme launched by the International Labour
Organization in December, 1991. India was the first country to
join it in 1992 when it signed a Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) with ILO. The MOU that expired on 31.12.1996 has
thereafter been extended from time to time and has recently
been extended till 31st December, 2006. The long-term objective
of IPEC is to contribute to the effective abolition of child labour. Its
immediate objectives are:
Enhancement of the capability of ILO constituents and NGOs
to design, implement and evaluate programmes for child
labour;
To identify interventions at community and national levels
which could serve as models for replication; and
Creation of awareness and social mobilization for securing
elimination of child labour

ILO-assisted programmes relevant to child labour INDUS.

Funded jointly by the Government of India and U.S. Department of
Labor (USDOL), the project which concluded in 2008 covered 21
districts in five states (Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu,
Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi), and operated in close collaboration
with the NCLP and SSA. Launched in February 2004, it identified
children working in the target districts, withdrew them from
hazardous work and provided them with transitional schooling,
pre-vocational education, and social support to prevent relapse.
Adolescents who were withdrawn from hazardous work were
provided with vocational training and alternatives for income
generation.

For parents, the project encouraged savings and

development of more lucrative livelihoods. The project sought to

retain

children

mainstreamed

from

transitional

to

formal

education by improving their access to quality schooling.

In

addition, the project included a monitoring and tracking system,

advocacy, and capacity-building of national, state, district and

local institutions. The project generated considerable interest in

non-project areas prompting INDUS to promote replication of its
successful strategies beyond the project areas.

Andhra Pradesh State-Based Project : Funded by the U.K.

Department for International Development (DfID), the project was
launched in 2000 with the aim of using innovative models
involving State agencies, employers and workers organizations
and civil society to address child labour. Its urban model has
already been replicated by the State Government. The project has
also assisted the State Government develop its state Plan of
Action for the elimination of child labour and to set up and finance
a State Resource Centre.

In the August 2008

review of the

project, DfID has agreed to continue funding until March 2009

when state government funding for the Plan of Action will kick in.
Karnataka

State-Based

Project, Funded

by

the

Italian

Government, this project works in Chamarajnagar and Bidar

Districts

and

has

components

on

awareness-raising

and

education, income generation through skills training and self-

employment promotion. It is also promoting the Self-Help Group

approach for participatory development and self-sustaining social
change. As an alternative to child labour and to provide skills to
adolescents,

the

project

partners

provide

modular-based

vocational training. Grass root and block level institutions,

including the NCLP Societies are being capacitated to combat
child

labour.

Community

child

labour

monitoring

is

being

established. The project is undertaking policy-oriented research,

particularly on child labour in the agriculture sector. It is also
pursuing the improvement of working conditions and child labourfree production (for example in silk) in local industries.
INDUS (INDO-US CHILD LABOUR PROJECT)
The Indus Project is jointly funded by the Ministry of Labour,
Government of India and the Department of Labour, United States
of America (USDOL) and is implemented in ten hazardous sectors
in 21 districts across five states viz. Delhi, Maharashtra, Madhya
Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. The Project has been
completed on 31st March 2009. An estimated 103,152 child and

adolescent workers withdrawn and rehabilitated against set target

of 80,000 children.
The major components of the project would include:
Identifying children working in hazardous occupations by
means of a detailed survey.
Withdrawing children in the age group 8-14 from hazardous
occupations and providing them meaningful transitional
education.
Making

provision

for

systematic

Vocational

education/training of adolescents.
Providing viable income generating alternatives for families
of children withdrawn from work.
Strengthening public education of child workers (to be
implemented through the Department of Education, MHRD)
Monitoring/Tracking.
Social mobilization.
Capacity building of National/ State and Local Institutions

 Raising interest towards Action against Hazardous Child

Labour in other States.

LIST OF DISTRICTS COVERED UNDER INDUS PROJECT

State

Number of Districts

MADHYA PRADESH

Damoh, Sagar, Jabalpur, Satna and Katni

MAHARASHTRA

Amravati, Jalna, Aurangabad, Gondia and Mumbai Suburban

UTTAR PRADESH

Moradabad , Allahabad, Kanpur Nagar, Aligarh and Ferozabad

TAMIL NADU

Kanchipuram, Thiruvannamallai, Tiruvallur, Nammakkal and Virudhunagar

DELHI

NCT Delhi

Total

21

NEW IPEC

Districts

Converging against Child Labour: Support for Indias

Model (USDOL)
Objective:The Development Objective is to contribute to the
prevention and elimination of hazardous Child Labour,
including trafficking and migration of children for labour.
Geographical Coverage:India ( Two districts each in Bihar,
Jharkhand, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Orissa )
Duration: 42 months
USDOL Donor Contribution : US$ 6,850,000

Ministry of Labour & Employment is implementing a pilot Project

Converging Against Child labour support for Indias Model in
collaboration with International Labour Organisation, SRO Delhi
funded by US Department of Labour with the objective to
contribute to the prevention and elimination of hazardous child
labour, including trafficking and migration of children for labour.
The Project is covering two districts each in Bihar, Jharkhand,
Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Orissa for duration of 42 months.
USDOL Donor Contribution of US$ 6,850,000

State

Bihar

Districts
Sitahmari
Katihar

Jharkhand

Gujrat

Madhya Pradesh

Orissa

Ranchi
Sahibganj
Surat
Vadodara
Jabalpur
Ujjain
Cuttack
Kalahandi

COMMITTEES AND ADVISORY BOARD ON CHILD LABOUR

In terms of the Provisions of Section 5 of the Child Labour
(Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986, further occupations and
processes may be added to the Schedule of the Act as per the
recommendations of the Child Labour Technical Advisory
Committee (CLTAC). The Committee consists of a Chairman and

nine

other

Members

appointed

in

terms

of

Child

Labour

(Prohibition & Regulation) Rules.

In addition, a Central Advisory Board on Child Labour has
also been constituted to review the implementation of the
existing legislations and suggest measures for welfare of working
children. Current Composition of the Board may be seen by
clicking here.
Finally, in order to monitor the functioning of the NCLPs,
a Central
Committee

Monitoring
sees

the

Committee has
overall

been

supervision,

formed.

The

monitoring

and

evaluation of the National Child Labour Projects. It is set up under

the Chairmanship of Secretary, Ministry of Labour & Employment
with

representative

of

State

Governments

and

concerned

Ministries/Departments. The composition of the Committee may

be seen by clicking here. The State Governments have also been
advised to set up State Level Monitoring Committees similar to
the Central Monitoring Committee to monitor functioning of
National Child Labour Projects in their States.
NCLP SCHEME

Government had initiated the National Child Labour Project (NCLP)

Scheme in 1988 to rehabilitate working children in 12 child labour
endemic districts of the country.
EXPANSION OF NCLPs

YEAR

NO. OF NCLPs SANCTIONED

TOTAL

1988

12 NCLPs

12

lX Plan

88 NCLPs

100

X Plan

150 NCLPs

250

Xl Plan

21 NCLPs (INDUS)

271

Objective of the Scheme:

This is the major Central Sector Scheme for the rehabilitation
of child labour.
The Scheme seeks to adopt a sequential approach with focus
on

rehabilitation

of

children

working

occupations & processes in the first instance.

in

hazardous

 Under the Scheme, survey of child labour engaged in

hazardous occupations & processes has been conducted.
The identified children are to be withdrawn from these
occupations & processes and then put into special schools in
order to enable them to be mainstreamed into formal
schooling system.
Project Societies at the district level are fully funded for
opening up of special schools/Rehabilitation Centres for the
rehabilitation of child labour.
The special schools/Rehabilitation Centres provide:
1. Non-formal/bridge education
2. Skilled/vocational training
3. Mid Day Meal
4. Stipend @ Rs.150/- per child per month.
5. Health care facilities through a doctor appointed for a group
of 20 schools.
The Target group:

The project societies are required to conduct survey to identify

children working in hazardous occupations and processes. These
children will then form the target group for the project society. Of
the children identified those in the age group 5-8 years will have
to be mainstreamed directly to formal educational system through
the SSA. Working children in the age group of 9- 14 years will
have to be rehabilitated through NCLP schools established by the
Project Society.
Project Implementation:
The entire project is required to be implemented through a
registered society under the Chairmanship of administrative head
of

the

district,

namely,

District

Magistrate/Collector/Dy.

Commissioner of the District. Members of the society may be

drawn from concerned Government Departments, representatives
of Panchayati Raj Institutions, NGOs, Trade Unions, etc.
Funding pattern:
The projects have been taken up in the Central Sector, the entire
funding is done by the Central Government (Ministry of Labour &

Employment). Funds are released to the concerned Project

Societies depending upon the progress of project activities.
Present Status of NCLP Scheme:
At present about 6000 special schools are in operation under
NCLP scheme. As on date more than 10 lakhs children have been
mainstreamed into the formal education system under the
Scheme.

CHAPTER 4
CHILD LABOR IN INDIA AND ITS CAUSES

As per generally agreed norms employing a person below age 18

years of age is termed as child labor. However depending upon
socioeconomic factors the definition of child labor may slightly
differ, In India it is allowed to employ persons above age 14 but
less that age 18 for light work which is not hazardous and does
not require extreme physical exertion
Hence in India employing any person between age 14 but less
than 18 years in any hazardous activities or activities requiring
extreme physical exertion may be termed as child labor. Also
employing any person below age 14 years in any kind of activity
aimed at earning a living is termed as child labor.

POVERTY THE MAIN REASON FOR CHILD LABOR.

Poverty can be termed as the main reason for child labor in India. Though the
country has achieved commendable progress in industrialization, the benefits of the
same have not been effectively passed on to the lower strata of society. The
disparities in income have progressively increased more so after the opening up of
the Indian Economy from the late 80s. People who had the resources became richer
by employing the poor who were readily available as cheap labor. The average
earnings of a poor industrial worker is still about 2 dollars per day even in
suburban areas around Mumbai and other metropolitan cities of India. In order to
keep costs down even large companies employ unorganized workers through

contractors who get uneducated and unskilled and semi-skilled people at very low
wages.
This helps the industries to keep their labor costs down at the cost of the poor
laborers. In effect what happens is that the children of these poor unorganized
laborers have to find some work to help run the family. They cannot afford to go to
school when they do not have food to eat and when their other brethren go hungry.
Hence children from such deprived families try to work as domestic servants, or in
factories who employ them and remain uneducated and grow up that way
becoming perennial victims of this vicious cycle or poverty and suppression.
FATALIST ATTITUDE OF THE POOR TOWARDS LIFE.
Most of the people belonging to the lowest strata of society in India have a fatalist
and submissive attitude towards life. They do not believe that that their lot can be
better.
HIGH POPULATION LEADING TO BREAK NECK COMPETITION FOR
JOBS.
The industrialists in India have been successful in taking advantage of this
disadvantage faced by job seekers. Due to high population the job seekers not in a

position to bargain a higher wage. As a result the poor remain poor working for
low wages.
ILLETERACY AND LACK OF EDUCATION.
Illiteracy is a situation when a person is not able to read and/or write. This is when
the person is not in a position to get even primary education. Lack of education is
another aspect which is a result of illiteracy and lack of information. An
uneducated person is one who is generally unaware of things which an average
person is required to know. Such people are normally unaware of their human
rights and the rights of their children too. The children of such people normally
become child laborers around their homes.
IRRESPONSIBLE ATTITUDE OF EMPLOYERS.
A general sense of irresponsibility towards society is seen the employers in India
who are least bothered as to how their employees survive. In spite of being aware
of the high cost of living and inflation they are least bothered and least ashamed to
pay wages which are much below sustenance levels. Also if the employers were
responsible they in the first place would not employ children at all.

INITIATIVES TAKEN BY THE GOVERNMENT.

INITIATIVES TAKEN BY THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA TO TACKLE
THE PROBLEM OF CHILD LABOR.
The Human Resource Development Ministry of India under its various programs
of child development has taken initiatives to tackle the problem of child labor. It
has been declared that primary education is the right of every Indian Child and that
it is compulsory.
However most of the legislation passed lacks teeth to the effect that nothing can be
effectively enforced or implemented. The machinery to tackle this problem

effectively at the grass root level is lacking. Hence nothing much has been
achieved.
WHY

GOVERNMENT

LEGISLATION

HAS

PROVED

TO

BE

INEFFECTIVE.
As the causes of child labor are many and various the strategy to tackle this
problem has to be multifaceted. The Government lacks the will to implement
legislation like minimum wages and organize unorganized labor. The Government
also lacks the will to implement coercive legislation to punish those employing
child labor.
WHAT IS THE REMEDY?
Education of both the employers and the employees is the only remedy to eradicate
child labor completely. Unless employers realize and recognize that employing
children is un-ethical and goes against their fundamental rights they will not be
deterred from employing children. Similarly unless the parents of poor children are
not made aware of the fundamental rights of their children they will not be deterred
from sending their children to work. Let us hope and pray that good sense will
prevail and both employers and parents of children will realize their mistakes and
rectify them.

Child Labor Truth in India

Much more than the dry statistics of per capita income, these things distinguish the
Third World (TW) from the First World (FW).
Middle-class folks with a foot in both worlds must balance off the conveniences
and inconveniences of one versus the other.
The FW offers far better amenities, such as 24X7 clean running water, stable
electricity, decent public transport, etc. The TW conveniences all revolve around
cheap labour.

An "expensive" haircut and a shave in an upmarket Delhi salon costs less than $5 less than a tenth of similar quality service in the FW.
A middle-class TW citizen can hire help to hand-wash underwear, shine and lace
up shoes, and fetch glasses of water, not to mention cooking, cleaning, walking
pets, driving, paying bills and generally keeping house.
The electrician, the plumber, the mechanic and the computer-assembly guys are all
available on call and cheap. The local cabbies are on call 24X7 and they give old
customers credit.
Desis miss these things sorely in the FW. The gulf in the cost of such services is
vast, as Ms Khobragade sadly discovered. There are multiple downsides to living
in the Third World, of course.
The TW denizens endure air and noise pollution, chaotic traffic, poor public
transport, power cuts, on-off water supply, poor garbage disposal, endless
corruption and red tape, and so on.
One can only hope that development and growth will help alleviate these problems.
But the cheap labour will disappear along the way, as incomes rise and education
penetrates. That is inevitable.

Third World labour is cheap because there is a vast pool of poor, under-skilled,
under-educated people forced to perform menial tasks.

Nobody likes cleaning loos or washing undies, and people opt out of doing these
things for a living, if they can get paid to do other things.
As poverty reduces, and education permeates down to lower-income groups and
across gender, fewer people will end up forced to clean loos for a living.
The costs of all labour-intensive services, and especially of skilled services, will
rise sharply.
The TW barber, mechanic, mason, carpenter, plumber or electrician learns the trade
by being apprenticed as a 12-year-old (often to respective fathers). In the FW, these

services are provided by somebody who opted to learn skills in a polytechnic, or a

TW immigrant.
The FW service providers price their expertise much, much higher.
Child labour is cheap and it helps to create a permanent pool of under-skilled
people because the child also misses out on education. Even as an adult, that
individual will provide cheap labour.
Gender disparities in education also differentiate the TW and the FW. The TW
women lag far behind in every stage, from literacy, to years of schooling, to
college enrolment.
Again, this helps create a permanent pool of cheap, under-skilled labour. If child
labour is outlawed, or reduced in scope and regulated, the pool of cheap labour will
become smaller.
If gender disparities are eroded with more women being better-educated, that pool
also becomes smaller.
My bai's daughter is training as a beautician. My durwan's daughter is studying
computer science.
I don't think either of those girls will clean floors, or wash clothes, for a living.

The subcontinent will become both more equitable and more prosperous, if girls
are allowed to study and women to work outside the home, even as children are
removed from the workforce.
The Nobel Peace Prize sends powerful signals. If recognition of Malala Yousafzai
and Kailash Satyarthi helps spark broad reforms, it will accelerate the processes of
getting girls into school and kids out of workplaces.
But don't be surprised if middle-class whining about the difficulty of getting good
help also rises in volume if these hugely desirable outcomes come to pass.

CHAPTER 5
RESEARCH METHODOLGY

Child labor is a complex phenomenon. Not all work done by children can be
regarded as child labor in the way the term is used in this paper. Distinction must
be made between child labor on the one hand and activities considered part of a
natural socialization process on the other hand. Child laborers are those entering
the labor market or taking on too much work and too many duties at too early an
age. Definition of too much work at too early an age is subject to both individual
and cultural differences. Basically, however, one may say: Child labor means
work performed by children who are too young for the task in the sense that by
performing it they unduly reduce their present welfare or their future income
earning capabilities, either by shrinking their future external choice sets or by

reducing their own future individual productive capabilities (Andvig, 2001). As

will be described latter child labor may be grouped into different categories were
the most important distinctions is the newly established concept of the worst forms
of child labor. Another important distinction is between the working children who
live in their parental household and the children who operate on their own. The
latter is fare the smallest group, which methodologically needs to be addressed
separately. This paper primarily discuss the measuring of the children who lives in
their parents household and those living in other households (domestic workers,
foster child etc.) .The effect of the work on the child also forms the basis for the
national and international legislation in this area,as described in chapter two below.
The paradox is that the legal definition of child labor is widely agreed on, and child
labor is regulated in international conventions that are commonly accepted, but this
definition is normally not used as a basis for collecting and sometimes analyzing
child labor data. As explored in this paper, this absence of an appropriate survey
methodology, rather than the definition itself, constitutes the main reason for the
present lack of good data on child labor.
The challenges in both measuring and analyzing child labor are embedded in the
content of the concept. As desribed abow child labor is not defined by the activity
itself as equal to work, play, going to school, or other activities that children might
be occupied with, but by the effect the activity has on the child. Measuring and

mapping child labor cannot therefore be accomplished by copying the

methodology used, for example, in measuring adult employment. Nevertheless,
this is exactly what is normally done today by using labor market participation as a
proxy for child labor as shown in chapter two, which contains a closer look at the
main sources of child labor data. Child labor research must take place in three
steps. The first concerns determination of which activities should be defined as
child labor. This type of research is an ongoing process, identifying levels and
circumstances under which activities become a potential threat to a childs
development. However, as described in chapter two, a basic understanding of what
should be regarded as child labor exists, and it is reflected in the national and
international regulations.
The second step is, given the knowledge of what type of activities are to be
considered child labor, finding out how many and which children fall within this
group. This includes developing a proper methodology for collecting the necessary
data and proper analytical tools. This question is addressed in chapter three which
concludes that improvements are needed in this areain applying knowledge of
what type of work or activity may interfere with the childs development as the
basis for determining the number of child laborers and analyzing the results. A gap
exists between what is actually known regarding child labor, , and the use of this
information in data collection and analyses. The logistical difficulties in measuring

child labor should however be recognized. Already mention is those children not
resting in a household or hidden away by employers etc. Other problems is the
households interpretation of the concept of child labor and sometimes reluctance to
share information given that this in many cases will be illegal. The third step,
addressed in chapter four, is to analyze the wider consequences of child labor on
the household and the society. Such analysis, were the child laborers are identified
from children not doing too much work at too early an age, can also be used to
analyze why children work. Both types of analysis is today seriously handicapped
by the lack of accurate data. For comparative research and international policy
development, providing better data is essential.
Research Design
For our research we will take up descriptive Research design as it
answers the question what is going on? A good description is a
fundamental to the research enterprise and it adds immeasurable
of the shape and nature of the society.
Data Collection will be done in two phases:-

PreliminaryPhase - In the initial phase we will try to understand

what child labor law is? Below is the process we would be
following: Secondary
preliminary

Phase: - Based on the outcome of the

phase;

detailed

questionnaire

will

be

developed to collect information for the study.

Sampling Technique: - All these data will help in formulating
very comprehensive case study. All sample units will be personally
contacted and interviewed.
The methodology which will be used for carrying out the report is
as follows:Type of Data Sources: For present research work, primary as
well as secondary data will be used.
Tools for collecting Primary Data: - The information will be
collected directly

1. Questionnaire and Surveys: - This will include range of

response questions, close ended questions, providing limited
answers to specific responses or on a numeric scale.
2. Interview: This will include people to interview, Develop the
interview questions including open-ended questions and
close ended questions and carefully eliminating leading
questions.
Tools for collecting Secondary Data: - Various statistical tools
will also be used to analyzing the secondary data.
1. Document Review: - Obtaining the actual forms and
operating documents currently being used. Reviews blank
copies of forms and samples of actual completed forms.
2. Observation: - analyzing annual reports and press releases,
verifying the statements made during the interviews.
3. Web Search: - The information related to outside region
(other part of India and Globe) will be studied from internet
to other published papers.

4. Various policies will be dealt in details by referring various

government publications and reference book,

journals,

published data from time to time.

THEORATICAL FRAMEWORK
The theoretical framework is the foundation on which the entire
research project is based. It is a logically developed, described
and elaborated network of association among the variable
deemed relevant to the problem situation.

Few

basic features of

the theoretical framework have been discussed now:

DEVELOPMENT OF HYPOTHESES
A hypothesis is a logically conjectured relationship between two or more variables
expressed in the form of testable statement. Relationships are conjectured on the
basis of the network o associations established in the theoretical framework
formulated for the research study.
NULL HYPOTHESIS:
child labor enforced by the economy is our null hypothesis.
ALTERNATE HYPOTHESIS:
child labor is not enforced by the economy is our alternate hypothesis.
LEVEL OF SIGNIFICANCE:
0.05 is our level of significance
CALCULATIONS:

Research design is a step by step process. It provides the basis for

testimony. The need of the research itself determines the
methodology and the design of the research.
Detail of study includes:
Purpose of the study
Types of investigation
Extent of researcher interference
Study setting
Unit of analysis

Time horizon
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY:
Our purpose of study is Hypothesis testing because in this
research we test our hypothetical statement which we developed
in previous step.
TYPES OF INVESTIGATION:
Our type of investigation is correlation because we find the
important variables or factors that contribute their part in
percentage increase in labor child.
STUDY SETTING:
Nature of our research is of non contrived because we do our
research in natural environment and not in Artificial environment
that is not in labs.
UNIT OF ANALYSIS:
In our research unit of analysis is population because in this
research, questioner are filled by everyone who is the part of
society.

TIME HORIZON:
Our study is one-shot or cross-sectional studies because
in this research data are gathered just once in order to answer
research questions.
RESULT:
Since our calculated value lies inside of critical region therefore
we reject alternate hypothesis and accept null hypothesis. Its
mean that "child labor enforced by the economy
DATA NEEDED TO MEASURE CHILD LABOR
To measure child labor, given that it is not an activity equal to work, play, going to
school, or other activities that children might be occupied with, but an activity
defined by its consequences, these qualitative conditions must be translated into
measurable parameters. To a large extent this is done by the international
conventions themselves, which set age limits and specify sectors and activities that
should not be undertaken by children. Still undefined, however, are critical values
for measuring light work, hazardous work, and work performed at the expense of
education. Improving the statistics on child labor requires development of a set of
questions that can be used in a child labor module in several types of household

surveys. Looking at the existing tools, including both living condition and labor
force surveys, practical ways need to be found to:

Measure all types of activities undertaken by children including the time

spent working in both productive and nonproductive (domestic) work;

map the nature of the work in order to determine if the child is engaged in
any healththreatening activities;

map school attendance and performance and measure the time used at
school.

The main differences from todays practice will be to:

ask children not only if they worked for one hour or more during the
preceding week, but for how many hours they worked and what work they
did; ?? include the same questions regarding household work;
record not only the type of industry or profession but include a broader
description of the work;

add adequate questions on school attendance and performance.

The age of children included in this section would have to be as low as five years,
or the age of starting primary school. Some child labor modules for use in
conjunction with different household surveys have been developed already. A
Child Labor Survey Instrument The challenge in designing a survey instrument
will always be to gather as much information as possible through a very limited
number of questions. Important information will, however, be collected in other
parts of the household survey, making it possible to combine the basic information
collected on child labor with other relevant information. Household surveys on
general living conditions can be suitable for looking into child labor and issues like
family income and welfare, health, and access to facilities like water and fuel. A
labor force survey may make it possible to look at intrahousehold sharing of work
and tasks and also at the demand side of child labor for wages. Special child labor
surveys may be extended to cover the particulars of the employers of children
working outside the household, the childrens present or former teachers, and
representatives of the community (see, for example, Grimsrud, 1998a or ILO,
1995). This paper, however, will concentrate on the very basic issue, ensuring that
enough data are collected to identify the child laborers.
Age And Respondent The age span to survey may depend on the purposes of the
survey, the minimum age for employment, and the age for completing compulsory
education in the country concerned. For international comparability the child

should probably be defined as a person between 5 and 14, 15, or 18 years of age.
An important question is whether the children themselves should be interviewed or
if the parent should be used as a proxy. This has methodological implications and
might require resources that are not available. Questions may be asked of parents,
children, or both. Experience has shown that the mother may be better informed
about the activities of the children than the father is. This is why questions on
childrens work activities might be better placed in a mother-and-child module
rather than in a labor module, which is often addressed only to the head of
household for all household members. The best is of cause to interview the
children themselves. This creates a problem regarding the youngest children,
included in those below 10 to 12 years of age. It is not likely that these children
will be able to respond properly on their own. The presence of an adult may
influence the answers given by the child. In any case the survey should record
whether the child is answering for him or herself. The special difficulties attached
to interviewing children must not be underestimated. The notion of what is work
and what is not work is, for example, different within different cultures and
between individuals, and children especially can have very different notions of
what they do. A typical answer from a child might be that on a given day he or she
did nothing. This response could mean anything. In order to enumerate and

quantify the activities of children, one must go beyond this and get the child to
explain more specifically.

Mapping The Childrens Activities All types of activities (schooling and

nonschooling, economic and noneconomic activities) of children need to be
enumerated, and the volume or workload of their activities quantified, so that the
assembled statistical information can be cross-tabulated by the different
characteristics of the variables included in the questionnaire.10 It is likely that a
child will participate in several activities and sometimes even hold more than one
job outside the household. To the extent possible both the current and the usual
activity of children should be mapped, the first in reference to activities during the
reference week, and the second in reference to the 12-month period preceding the
inquiry date. The latter is important for taking account of seasonal variations,
which are characteristic of a considerable proportion of childrens activities,
including schooling. Measuring use of time is both difficult and time consuming
and childrens use of time has its own special hurdles. One disadvantage with most
of the techniques is that the method requires the child and/or parents to recall
information, opening the way for selective memory and socially desirable biases.

The ILO (1996) reports that its survey experiment based on asking children to
recall the time spent over the past three days from a list of different activities was
not so successful for the purposes of investigating childrens activities and the
intensity of their work. Even when presented with a long list of economic and
noneconomic activities, many children could not recall the activities in which they
had been engaged during the 24 hours preceding the date of the survey. And even
when they were able to identify the activities, they had little recollection of the
amount of time spent on each. Most children seem to remember only those
activities that they liked most, especially those in which they made good
earnings.
For including child labor measurement in labor force or living condition surveys,
the best compromise between need for information and capacity to collect it may
be to use a basic activity list, asking direct questions about how much time children
spend on specific activities. The advantage of this method is that it is very cost
effective, and many instruments have already been developed and tested in
previous surveys. A time diary is, however, perhaps a better way to capture all the
data required for analyzing time allocation and should be preferred in the special
child labor surveys. A two-fold approach, combining asking the child questions
about time spent on specific activities such as school and work outside and within
the household and using a time diary, may also be one solution. For more on time

use, see appendix II. One aspect of time use for children is the link and interaction
with adult activities, in particular the link between labor supply of children and
adults. Since the demand for child labor is intertwined with the demand for adult
labor, the analyst would be helped by information on the activities of both adults
and children. General household surveys will cover many of these characteristics
of the householdfathers and mothers work and education status; number, age,
and gender of siblings. Therefore surveys should make certain to link every child
to his or her parent in the household by ID code, identify orphans and foster
children, and obtain information about their parents for children whose parents are
dead or absent.

Health-Threatening Work To be able to analyze whether the

recorded activities represent some special health threats to the
child, the activity needs to be described more closely. Almost
every working environment involves one or several health and
safety hazards. Occupational hazards may be difficult to identify
and can have different health consequences for different workers.
Chemical, physical, biological, and stress hazards are found in the
workplace in combination, and their adverse effects are often
cumulative, causing occupational accidents and diseases. These
factors

create

special

challenges

in

measuring

childrens

occupational health environment. In addition, children differ

biologically from adults in their anatomical, physiological, and
psychological characteristics because of their process of growth
and development. These differences may make them more
susceptible to occupational hazards in the workplace than adult

workers, and the health effects can be more devastating for them,
causing irreversible damage to their physical and psychological
development,

including

permanent

disabilities,

with

serious

consequences to their adult lives. The same work environment

that adult workers regard as safe may constitute a heaththreatening environment for the child. It is further important when
collecting health data to include not only accidents, injuries, and
illnesses suffered and their frequency and gravity, but also to try
to map the potential threat to the childs mental heath and
normal development.
Since most children work outside the formal labor market,
defining the workplace for children may be difficult. The best
example of this is housework, which is considered child labor if it
affects the childs health development or school performance.
Hence it becomes difficult also to talk about occupational heath
for children. So a more general approach is needed, measuring
the childs general heath status and asking if the children in
general are exposed to situations that may pose a threat to their
heath. One of the weaknesses of the household survey approach
in regard to health and safety is that even if surveyors ask

concretely about health threats, it is the childs and/or parents

anticipation of the situation that is measured. In a special child
labor survey this can be addressed by interviewing employers or
teachers and even actually observing the activities of children,
but normally this may not be possible. Such traditional nutrition
measurements as height and weight or 21 mid-upper-arm
circumference thus provide vital information about the working
childs health situation. Both these measurements are, however,
more difficult to interpret for the age group 5 to 18 than for any
other age group given the large individual differences in growth
pattern among children in this age group. School Attendance
Proper measurement of the childs education performance is
essential in identifying the child laborer. Information on the childs
school history and, for those still in school, performance are thus
necessary. Performance will include such observations as whether
the child follows normal progression, does not have to skip school
or homework regularly because of work, if, for example in the
peak agricultural seasons, the work conflicts with attending
school. In this respect the number of years of schooling
constitutes perhaps the most important data, but daily school

attendance clearly matters as well. Weekly and yearly school

hours and time should also be mapped. Repetition indicates
whether sufficient learning is occurring and also affects learning
directly. It may be an indication that the child is bearing too heavy
a work burden outside school.
For

those going

to

school,

data

gathered should

include

something about the quality of the education. One indicator of

quality is the number of pupils in the class; others might be
material inputs in the classroom, such as blackboards, textbooks,
and

the

physical

condition

of

classrooms,

teachers

characteristics, and pedagogical practices. The distance between

home and school and fees and all other costs associated with
attending

school,

such

as

books,

uniforms,

transportation,

additional private tuition, and gifts to the teacher, should be

mapped. Capturing all these other costs are important. The price
at which uniforms are available can affect childrens schooling
outcomes, particularly if government schools require uniforms.
Similarly, if the school does not provide textbooks, the price of
these textbooks will also affect households schooling decisions.
Parents may withdraw their children from school or send them to

school without a full set of textbooks. The same applies to other

learning materials that parents are expected to purchase.
Distance can also be viewed as a price; parents may be
discouraged from sending their children to school due to the high
opportunity costs of the childrens time spent traveling to school
and, in some cases, direct transportation costs. In many
developing countries, many communities are a great distance
from schools, especially at the secondary level. The total cost to a
household of enrolling a child in school includes not only the sum
of the direct money costs, but also the opportunity costs of the
time that children devote to schooling. This cost may vary
throughout the year, being higher in the peak agriculture seasons,
for example. This is central in measuring and analyzing child
labor. The data collected on time use of the child in combination
with information on the activities and work of other household
members shed light on this. If children are not going to school,
why are they not? There is a growing focus in the literature on
child labor on the so-called push-out reasons: no school in the
village, bad school performance; not liking the teacher, and not
finding the teaching relevant are reasons for not going to school

(see for example Burra, 1995). It is of course sometimes difficult

to distinguish these from the traditionally given reasons for
dropping out, such as the need to work to help the family and the
need to support the family financially. The childs or parents
understanding of the situation, which is what is actually
measured, can also reflect what is socially acceptable or believed
to be the right answer to such a question.
Other Questions Even if the primary objective of a child labor
module in a household survey is to determine the level of child
labor, some information helping to understand the reasons,
context, and welfare implications should also be included. One
such area is the demand side in respect to those children working
in the labor market. Additional information could include if and
how they are remunerated, and why and at what age they took up
work outside the household. For more questions and elaboration
on questions that could be added to a child labor module.
One of the problems with household-based surveys is that they
tend to exclude homeless children who live and work on the
streets with no fixed place of usual residence, and for this reason

they do not give a complete picture of child labor at the national

level.11 Nevertheless, household-based surveys will capture the
overwhelming majority of child laborers. Another group is children
put under the guardianship of relatives or other persons. These
constitute a problem, being especially susceptible to much abuse
in these areas of work. Behind the guardianship status there are
often other arrangements, which amount to child labor, including
bondage, which is among the worst forms of the practice.
Mapping all children in the selected households, including those
not being the children of the head of household, may include
some of these children. This section has identified the minimum
of information needed to measure and analyze child labor. Figure
3 gives an example of such a child labor module that could be
added to a household survey. In the development of all such
survey instruments, compromises need to be found between the
number of questions one may be able to include and the number
of areas one would like to address. In the last part of this chapter
some of the questions that are highly relevant but not essential
for collecting data on the number of child laborers are debated
further.

what is normally collected in household and labor force surveys

on child labor, and it would be an important step in the direction
of getting better child labor data to have such a minimum number
of questions asked regularly through households surveys, in
particular in labor force surveys.
In linking the child labor module to a labor force survey, the
questions on childrens work may be considered to be taken out of
the labor market part of the questionnaire and made part of the
child labor module. Surveys must exercise caution in using the
expressions child labor and work in questionnaires, since the
understanding

of

their

meaning

may

differ

both

between

individuals and in different cultural contexts. Girls work activities

in

particular

are

often

underreported

due

to

specific

interpretations of what constitutes work. (See Grimsrud, 1998a).

Analyzing

The

Data

The

challenge

of

gaining

better

understanding of child labor rests not only on obtaining better

data but also on analyzing the data more effectively. Given the
definition of child labor and data mapping the childrens activities,
identifying the child laborer still depends on analysis of the data.
Does the child carry out work, duties, or activities that constitute

a health risk and, for children under 1415 years of age, is this
work carried out at the expense of the childs education?
Being economically active or in the labour market is, as
mentioned above, not the same as being a child labourer.
Nevertheless, it might be useful to use this concept as a point of
departure. But even in identifying the economically active
children we have problems because children usually work in their
own household or at the family plot (more than 80 per cent of
economically active children do so). Even those working outside
the household will in most cases work together with their parents
or other family members. Such children help for example a parent
employed in the fields of large farms or plantations to fulfil a
production quota or assist in the family business, and hence will
not be directly receiving wage. Only a relatively small number of
children are employed directly by an employer. Analysing on the
ILO and World Bank/LSMS data sets one should be aware the way
that questions are posed ant the definitions behind. The ILO, for
example, defines work as something you do in return for any kind
of remuneration, while UNICEF defines it as something you do for
pay or not, for persons not belonging to your own household. Both

the ILO and LSMS use the adult labour market categorisation for
children, i.e. the terms paid wage labour, unemployed, farm
labour and self employed. As mentioned previously, many
children, even among those working outside the household, do
not receive wages. Their remuneration is often part of a parents
pay. Sometimes children start working without pay in order to
obtain a paid position in the enterprise at a later stage.
We also need to look at the concept of non economically active
child labourers or non market work which mainly includes
housework

beyond

certain

scale.

UNICEF

is

the

only

organisation to hve defined an international threshold on four

hours or more a day working in the household, the ILO leaves this
to be decided nationally. The ILO Zimbabwe survey, for example,
sets five hours a day of household work as the threshold for
defining child labour. Age Some information can be taken directly
from the definitions: if the child is under 12, and the work is any
kind of labor market activity, then the child is a child laborer. But
a complete picture needs some additional information on the
current legal situation in the country concerned and on how to
categorize the information given.

The ILO conventions ask the states to develop comprehensive

child labor legislation defining not only the age limits for entering
into the labor market but also the type of work that should be
considered health threatening for children under 18 years of age.
Some types of work listed in the conventions are mentioned in the
corresponding recommendations, and others might be added by
the states themselves. However, legislation of this type is often
very broad, as are the conventions themselves, banning children
from undertaking health-threatening work in general. To know if
the legal entry age for full-time labor market work is 14, 15, or 16
years in the country concerned is obviously essential to measure
the number of child laborers. Also essential are the entry age for
light work and the age for leaving compulsory education if the last
is higher than the legal age for entering the labor market. For
international benchmarking and statistics, and in cases where the
above information is unavailable, the international minimum
minimum standards of 14 years of age for full-time labor market
work, 12 years for light work, and five years of compulsory
education from ages 7 to 12 might be used.

Health How should activities that constitute a threat to a childs

health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral, or social development
be defined? As mentioned, the ILO convention provides some
important guidelines. One statistical and measurement problem is
that the health effects of a particular activity will not necessarily
occur parallel to undertaking this activity. The type and duration
of childrens work should therefore be analyzed by using previous
experience on what might constitute such a threat. Examples of
this could be being away from the parents, especially for younger
children, which is often the case of domestic workers. Another
example is being denied the opportunity to play (UNICEF, 1997,
24). In determining the types of work that constitute the worst
forms of child labor, consideration should be given, according to
ILO Recombination 190, as a minimum, to: (a) work and activities
that expose children to physical, psychological or sexual abuse;
(b) work underground, under water, at dangerous heights, or in
confined spaces; (c) work with dangerous machinery, equipment,
and tools, or work that involves the manual handling or transport
of heavy loads; (d) work in an unhealthy environment that may,
for example, expose children to hazardous substances, agents, or

29 processes, or to temperatures, noise levels, or vibrations

damaging to their health; (e) work under particularly difficult
conditions such as for long hours, work at night, or work where
the child is unreasonably confined to the premises of the
employer. Children are both more exposed to work-related injuries
and illnesses and often less in a position to protect themselves.12
It is believed that throughout the world, occupational injuries and
mortality rates for children exceed those of adults (Graitcer and
Lerer, 1998). The fact that children are both easier to discipline
and more docile than adults is often a reason given for employing
children. Some hazards might apply only to children. Children are
more likely to be injured because tools and machinery are not
designed for their proportions (Ennew, 1997). Beginning work in
childhood also means the individual will have a longer time to be
exposed to cumulative hazard. Some children, domestic servants
for example, are particularly vulnerable because of their work
situation, being at the mercy of their employers and invisible to
the outside world. In analyzing the data one should not
underestimate the information gained by measuring the childs
anticipation of the situationfor example, if he or she is afraid of

doing a particular type of work, dislikes some activities more than

others, and experiences pain from the work.
School The next important question is whether all children of
primary school age who are not in school should by definition be
considered child laborers or if this should depend on the type and
amount of work they do. Child labor is after all not the only reason
for a childs not going to school. All three conventions make
special reference to education, however, in their definition of child
labor.13 To link the definition of child labor to education also in
statistics can therefore be highly relevant, helping to create
meaningful data as a basis for policy interventions. The problem
remaining is to define which types and amount of nonschooling
activities interfere with education for children under age 1415.
All societies have individuals with very little formal education who
have nevertheless been as successful in their working life as
those with education. But in general the link between access to
education and prosperity in working life is clear. This link brought
the part-time school system in 18th-century Britain under fire.
The part-time system, where children from poor families could
combine school and work, existed from the middle of the 19th

century until the beginning of the 20th century. While seen in the
beginning as an opportunity for children from poor families, it was
in the end found to reproduce poverty more than help children out
of it (Cunningham, 1992). The experience and debate around it
show how difficult it might be to measure child labor. It took more
than a generation to measure the effects of the parttime system
However, a reasonable critical value for school attendance and
workload beside school may be identified based on the local
school system. Figure 4, based on data from Yemen, might be
used to exemplify this (Grimsrud, 1998a). The figure plots the
number of hours spent in school and in working activities
including homework.14 Some children attend school full time
(more than 30 hours a week for more than six months of the
year), but very many of those who combine school with work
spend less than full time at school.
three groups among those combining school and work. The first is
those who attend school full time and work only a limited number
of hours (here, less than 25 hours a week). These children are
most likely to fall outside the definition of child laborer (those in
the upper left part of the diagram), though that is not a given

because the nature of the work they perform may be detrimental

to their development. The second group is children working very
long hours, probably to the detriment of their education. They do
fall within the definition of child labor (those in the upper and
lower right part of the diagram). The third group comprises those
both working few hours and going to school less than full time
(those in the lower left part of the diagram). Apart from possible
measuring errors, this pattern might be due to lack of education
opportunities. This group will also fall within the definition of child
laborer, but these children would probably be integrated into the
school system full time if given the opportunity. Some elements
for extended child labor surveys If the resources are available to
include a child labor module, a household survey may well be
extended beyond mapping the level of child labor to studying
both its causes and its consequences. Following are some ideas of
what could be included in such a survey. Respondent Household
surveys should be supplemented with interviews of employers
and teachers and mapping of the community. If the analysis is to
go into the question of critical levels, maybe the children should
not be the main source of information, as at present, but rather

adults through panel data or more in-depth studies enabling

analyses on the long-term effects of early entry into the labor
market.
Education More direct measurement of education skills could be
included by, for example, asking the respondent: Can you read
and understand everyday written material, such as a letter or
newspaper? 32 Can you write, say, a letter to a friend? Some
simple variants of a newspaper text should in this case be
prepared (in the language used by the household).

More questions helping to determine the cost of schooling for the

family are also useful. Questions might include: Did any people
who are not members of your household, such as relatives or
friends, or any stipends or scholarships from private or public
funds help to pay any of your educational costs during the past 12
months? Did you participate in any feeding program or receive
any free or subsidized meals at your school? Do you take private
lessons in some of the same subjects as your regular education?
To determine the extent of absence one would need to know the

opening hours of the school. This could be taken from other

sources or one could ask the respondent. How many days has
your school been open in the past seven days? How many days
have you attended school in the past seven days? If attendance is
less than open days, was your absence caused by: sickness or
illness, work, or some other reason? It would be ideal to know
about all absences during the entire school year and even past
years. Absence during the previous week is a very rough indicator
of the necessary information, but it is unlikely that children or
their parents will be able to recall accurately absences over a
longer period of time. A question about means of transportation
might be added: How do you get to school? By walking, bicycle,
public transport, private transport, or other means? One reason
for dropping out of school has been found to be lack of
correspondence between the school year and the time when
children are needed most to work in agriculture. A more flexible
approach from school here might mean that children do not drop
out. A question could be:
Does the school calendar follow local agricultural seasons? Some
questions on the quality of the education could be added,

including: How many classes are there at your school? How many
teachers are there at your school? Describe the facilities where
the schooling takes place. Work A standard labor force survey
would include the questions: Did you want to work (more) during
the past week (past seven days)? And: Did you actively search for
(more) work during the past week (past seven days)? These two
standard labor market participation measurement questions
might be seen as irrelevant to at least the younger children, but
they still could say something about the relation between work
and education and therefore could be included. Most children
seem to be recruited into the labor market by their parents or
other close relatives. Several surveys do indicate that children
working under the guardianship of their parents have less harsh
working conditions than others. To map this one could ask: How
did you get this job? Response options would include: my father;
my mother; other relatives; friends of my parents/guardians; my
friends; I actively went and looked for jobs; or other ways. Do you
work under the supervision of a member of your household
(specify), under the supervision of an employer, or without
supervision? Do you work together with a close household

member? Do you give part or all of your earnings to your

parents/guardians or other relatives you usually reside with? The
migration status, where the children have been working and for
how long, the reasons why they work, their own immediate and
future plans and those of employers using child workers may also
be included and also questions like: Do you believe that your work
will increase the possibilities of getting other jobs in the future?
Other issues In an extended survey, infrastructure (or the lack of
it) that influences the opportunity cost of childrens time might
also

be

important

to

capture.

This

might

include

rural

infrastructure, agricultural extension, and childcare facilities. For

example, providing a source of potable water to a rural
community may reduce the opportunity cost of childrens time,
particularly that of girls, because they no longer need to walk long
distances to obtain water for their families. A lot of information
can be captured through mapping the perceptions of the children
themselves and their parents. In other sections of the household
survey the perception of the parents about work and education
for their children could be mapped: How do they explain the
reasons why their children have to work? How do they perceive

the value of education? Do they differentiate between their boys

and girls regarding the need for education and the duties at
home? The child could be asked: What would be fun to do if you
were not working? Going to school, playing, watching TV, listening
to the radio, doing nothing? This type of question, by looking at
the childs aspirations (or lack thereof), helps to understand some
of the childs present situation.

CHAPTER 5
DATA ANALYSIS

It is difficult to monitor the current number of children engaged in

child labour.

This is because the Indian Government does not

collect or analyze current data regarding child labour. Collecting

information is difficult because people know child labour is against
the law and they do not want to get into trouble (Devi 1985, 37).
Many official figures continue to be based on information
gathered in 1981 (HRW 1996, 122). UNICEF estimates that there
may be from seventy-five to ninety million child labourers under
the age of fourteen (HRW 1996, 122).
What are children doing in terms of work?
The 1981 Census of India (cited in Nangia 1987, 72) divided child
labour into nine industrial divisions.
I.

Cultivation,

II.

Agricultural Labour,

III.

Livestock, Forestry, Fishing, Plantation,

IV.

Mining and Quarrying,

V.

Manufacturing, Processing, Servicing and Repairs,

VI.

Construction,

VII. Trade and Commerce

VIII. Transport, Storage and Communication, and
IX.

Other Services

Table 1.1 shows the percentage distribution of child workers by

these industrial divisions in 1981.

Human rights organizations

tend to focus on the manufacturing types of child labour because

most children in these situations are bonded labourers. Bonded
labourers work in conditions similar to slavery in order to pay off a
loan, and for children this is usually a parents debt (HRW 1996,
2). Estimates place the number of bonded child labourers in India
at close to one million [International Labour Organisation (ILO)
1992, 15].
Table 1.1 Percentage distribution of child workers (in India) by
industrial divisions.

Type of
Worker

Industrial Divisions (refer to text for explanation of divisions)

I

II

III

IV

VI

VII

VIII

IX

Urban

5.32

14.73

3.07

0.20

39.16

3.27

15.03

2.45

16.77

Rural

38.87

45.42

6.61

0.25

5.72

0.47

0.96

0.10

1.60

Total

35.93

42.74

6.30

0.24

8.65

0.72

2.19

0.30

2.93

Causes of child labour in India and governmental policy in

dealing with it
Child labour is a source of income for poor families.

A study

conducted by the ILO Bureau of Statistics found that Childrens

work was considered essential (Mehra-Kerpelman 1996, 8). In
some cases, the study found that a childs income was between
34 and 37 percent of the total household income.

This study

reveals that a childs income is important to the livelihood of a

poor family. However, there is a questionable side to this study
because the parents of the child labourers gave the answers to
the survey.

Parents want to support their decision to end their

children to work by saying that it is essential.

Still, they are

probably right; for most poor families in India, other sources of

income are hard to find. There are no social welfare systems and
no easy way to get a loan/

What is clear is the fact that child labourers are being exploited.
For equivalent work, studies show that children are paid less
than adult workers (see Table 2.1)

Table 2.1 Comparisons of child wages and adult wages for the
same type of job.
(Child workers of Delhi region sample study)

Child wages compared to adult wages

Equal

Equal to
Half

Half to
One-third

One-third to
One-quarter

Less than
One quarter

Uncertain

6.1

24.7

Percent
according
to

39.5

19.1

7.0

employers
response

What role does poverty play?

3.7

The percentage of the population of India living in poverty is high.

In 2011, 37% of the urban population and 39% of the rural
population were living in poverty (ILO 1995, 107). Poverty has an
obvious relationship with child labour.

Families need money to

survive; children are a source of additional income. 63.74% of

child labourers said that poverty was the reason they worked .
The combination of poverty and the lack of a social security
network form the basis of an even worse type of child labour
bonded child labour. For the poor, there are few sources of loans
of any type and even if there are sources available, few Indians
living in poverty qualify.

For a small amount parents exchange

their childs labour for money (HRW 1996, 17). Since the salary of
a bonded child labourer is less than the interest on the loan, the
loan grows.

It is impossible for the poor to pay off such loans

(HRW 1996, 17) and the child must continues to work until the
loan is repaid.
Even though poverty is cited as the major cause of child labour, it
is not the only cause. Poor schools, a lack of schools, or even the
expenses of schooling leaves some children with little else to do

but work. The attitudes of parents also contribute to child labour;

some parents feel that children should work in order to develop
useful skills.

Indian Government Policy on Child Labour

Since its independence, India has made a commitment to work
against child labour and government laws do not allow children to
work under the age of 14 (Constitution of India cited in HRW
1996, 29). The Bonded Lbaour System Act of 1976 also ended
forced labour by law and freed all bonded labourers.

In 1994 the Elimination of Child Labour Programme was designed

which promised to end child labour by the year 2000. It promised
children a one hundred rupee payment as well as one meal a day
for attending school instead of working (Human Rights Watch
1996, 119-120).

Where the funds for this program are is

unknown. The government needs eight and a half billion dollars

for the program over five years. (HRW 1996, 120).
All the policies that the Indian government has support the
eradication

of

Child

Enforcement is the key.

Labour

but

the

problem

remains.

No enforcement data for child labour

laws is available. Officials should, but do not, collect statistics to

monitor enforcement of the laws (HRW 1996, 131). Although the
lack of data does not mean enforcement is nonexistent, the
number of child labourers and their work participation rates show
that enforcement, if existent, is ineffective.

Education and its effects on child labour

What is the current state of education in India in
comparison to other developing countries?

Indias state of education is not effective enough to give basic

literacy skills to the population. It has been observed that the
overall condition of the education system can be a powerful
influence on the supply of child labour (Grootaert and Kanbur
1995, 193). The 1991 Census of India shows that 64% of males
and 39% of females were literate (The World Bank 1995, 113).
Indias primary school completion rate of 38.0% was also lower
than Chinas rate of 70% and Sri Lankas rate of 90.8% (UNESCO
cited in Weiner 1991, 159).

Few students are reaching fifth or

sixth grade, and dropout rates support this conclusion.

Rates

measures by the Department of Education show that 3.5% of

males and 39% of females drop out (Government of India cited in
the World Bank ).

Why? One possible reason given by Nangia

(1987) is that the family needs money and thinks school is a

waste of time. This causes parents to take children from school
and place them in the labour force (p.182). In this case, poverty
and the inadequacy of the school system play significant roles in
causing child labour, and also affect each other. Poverty forces
high dropout rates, and so no matter how good schools are,
school completion rates and literacy rates will still remain low.

Compulsory Education
The concept of compulsory education, where all school-aged
children are required to attend school, fights the poverty that
pulls children out of school.

Policies relating to compulsory

education not only force children to attend school, but also

contribute funds to the primary education system, instead of
higher education.
An example of a country where compulsory education has worked
to reduce child labour is Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government
decided to enforce compulsory education in the 1920s and
1930s (Weiner 1991, 173).

With this compulsory education

policy, school participation rates rose from 58 percent in 1946 to

74 percent in 1963 (Weiner 1991, 173).

The literacy rate also

increased from 58 percent in 1946 to 86 percent in 1984 (Weiner

1991, 172).

The corresponding result has been that the

employment rate of children in the ten to fourteen age group has

declined substantially (Weiner 1991, 174), and currently stands at
5.3% for males and 4.6% for females (ILO 1995, 113).

The Indian state of Kerala distinguishes itself from the rest of India
with its educational system (Weiner 1991, 175).

Kerala spends

more money on

colleges and

school-level education

universities (Weiner 1991, 176).

than

Keralas emphasis on primary

education has lead to a dropout rate of close to 0%, a literacy rate

of 94% for males and 86% for females (The World Bank 1995,
113), and a low child work participation rate of 1.9% (in 1971).
This compares to the Indian average of 7.1% in 1971 (Weiner
1991, 175).

Weiner (1991) also points out that The Kerala

government has made no special effort to end child labour. It is

the expansion of the school system rather than the enforcement
of labour legislation that has reduced the amount of child labour.
Article 45 of the Constitution of India states that The State shall
endeavour to provide within a period of ten years from the
commencement of this Constitution for free and compulsory
education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen
years (Jain 1985, 219). This goal has not been reached yet.

Child labour is a significant problem in India.

Its prevalence is

shown by child work participation rates which are higher in India

than in other developing countries.
The major cause of child labour is poverty. Even though children
are paid less than adults are, whatever income they earn is of
benefit to poor families.

In addition to poverty, the lack of

adequate and accessible sources of credit forces poor parents to

use their children as bonded child labourers. Some parents also
feel that a formal education is not useful, and that children learn
work skills through working.

Another cause is poor access to

education. In some areas, education is not affordable, or is found

to be inadequate. With no other alternatives, children inevitably
spend their time working.
The Constitution of India clearly states that child labour is wrong
and that measures should be taken to end it. The government of
India has set a minimum age of employment. This Act does not
make all child labour illegal. Despite policies enforcement is a
problem. If child labour is to be stopped in India, the government

and those responsible for enforcement need to start doing their

jobs. Policies without enforcement are useless.
Education in India also needs to be improved. High illiteracy and
dropout rates reflect the low quality of the educational system.
Poverty plays a role in the ineffectiveness of the educational
system.

Dropout rates are high because children are forced to

work in order to support their families.

The attitudes of the

parents also contribute to the lack of enrollment.

Compulsory

education may help in regard to these attitudes. The examples

of Sri Lanka and Kerala show that compulsory education has
worked in those areas.

Hopefully the future will show that

progress will be made towards universal education, and stopping

child labour.
Child labour cannot be eliminated by focusing on one cause, for
example education, or by strict enforcement of child labour laws.
The government of India must ensure that the needs of the poor
are filled before attacking child labour. If poverty is addressed,
the need for child labour will automatically be reduced. Children
grow up illiterate because they are working and not attending

school. A cycle of poverty is formed and the need for child labour
is constant from one generation to the next. India needs to deal
with the underlying causes of child labour and the enforcement of
laws.

Only then will India succeed in the fight against child

labour.

Table1.3 and 1.4 explain the magnitude of the Child Labor in

various states in India. Similarly, out of school children accounted
to be 17.9 per cent of child population. There is sharp decline in
the number of child labour over the last decades in our country.
Hence, 2010-14 estimates show that, the number of Child Labour
has declined in major states in India (Table 1.5).
Table 1.3 Magnitude of Child Labour and Out of School
Children in India
Distribution of Children

2011 Population

2014 Population

Census

Projection and
Estimates

Child Population
Male
Female
Total
Child Labour (10-14)

120795938
132367710
253163648

116274000
125485000
241759000

Male
Female

5862041
6804336

3894131
4276744

Total
Out of School Children
Male
Female
Total

12666377

8082954

32428634
45878836
87126075

19199205
24184992
43274861

A significant decrease in percentage of Child Labour to the total

child population. Similarly, out of school children declined to
almost to fifty per cent between 2011 and 2014 estimates in
India. There is a large difference between total Child Labour and
out of School children. Hence, it is evident that the regulatory
measures and rehabilitation programmes have yielded positive
response for eradication of Child Labour in recent years. The
presence of Child Labour is not uniform in all the states in India.
According to 2011 census U.P. stands number one in terms of
absolute strength and percentage of Child Labour. The proportion
of Child Labour is high in 5 North and Eastern states while it is low
in Tamilnadu and Kerala. The percentage of Child Labour is also
declining in western India (Table 1.4)
Table 1.4 Changes in the Magnitude of Child Labour and
WPR between 2011 and 2014 (Children in age group 514Yrs)

STATE

CHILD

CHILD

WORK

PERCENT

WORKE

WORKER

PARTICIPAT

AGE

R IN

ION RATE

SHARE

2011

2014

OF CHILD
LABOUR
STATE
2011

2014

WISE
2011

2014

Andhra

1661940

1363339

9.98

7.7

14.7

10.80

Pradesh
Delhi
Gujarat
Madhya

27351
523585
1352563

41899
485530
1065259

1.27
5.26
8.08

1.35
4.28
6.71

0.20
4.60
12.00

0.30
3.80
8.40

Pradesh
Punjab
Uttar

578889
1410086

418801
1927997

4.83
3.81

3.61
4.04

5.10
12.50

3.30
15.20

Pradesh
Maharash

1352563

1065259

8.08

6.71

12.00

8.40

tra

Table 1.5 Magnitude of Child Labour in India 2014 Top (11

districts having more than 85,000 Child Labour)
State
Rajasthan
Andhra Pradesh
Karnataka
West Bengal
Uttar Pradesh
West Bengal

District
Alwar
Mahabub Nagar*
Gulbarga
Medinapur
Bulandshahr
Maldah

No. of Child Labour

140318
138475
99914
95739
85296
88556

As many as 367 districts (72.96 per cent) have shown increase in

Child Labour between 1991 and 2001 census. Only 136 districts
have shown a decline in the magnitude of Child Labour. The
increase is alarming in Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan,
Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh states.
According to (2004-05) NSSO estimates 68.14 percentage of Child
Labour is working in agriculture followed by manufacturing and
trade and hotels in India. The percentage of Child Labour engaged
in agriculture is still high in the States like Madhya Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat,

Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Orissa. It is found very low in Kerala

and Tamil Nadu. This can be attributed to the social development
activities initiated in early 1980s in the southern states, in
continuation with British rule.

Constitutional and Legal Measures

The ILO adopted more than 180 conventions of which 20 of them
are related to Child Labour. The 1979 and 1999 conventions
specifically passed resolutions to adopt minimum age of Child
Labour at 15 years and directed the member countries to adhere
to and emphasize to creating conditions which will be conducive
for free educational access to all children up to the age of 15
years. 15 There have been legisllative attempts extending
protection of law to working children over a long period. The
Factories Act 1881 fixed minimum age of a child as seven years,
subsequently 1891 Factories Act fixed at 9 years. Mines Act of
1901 fixed 12 years and the factories (Amendment) Act of 1922
fixed the age limit at 15 year. The Act also prohibited work of
children between 7pm and 5.30am. The children (Pledging of
Labour) Act 1933 also prohibited pledging of children that is
taking of advances by parents and guardians. The Factories Act
1934 had elaborated provisions for regulating the employment of
children of various age groups below 17 years. Similarly, the
employments of children Act 1938 prohibited employment of
children

in

occupations

dangerous

to

their

health

and

development. The constitution of India 1950 has special mention

about

children

working

during

the

nights.

On

the

recommendations of M S Gurupada Swamy Committee, a

comprehensive

legislation

of

Child

Labour

(Prohibition

and

Regulation Act 1986) was passed by parliament and repealed the

employment of children Act 1938. The Act defined the Child
Labour, lists prohibited areas of employment, regulating Child
Labour (under 14 years) work permitted and the lists of penalties
for violation of Act. The Act covers importantly the following
issues of Child Labour in India: i. to ban the employment of
children i.e. those who have not completed completed age of 14th
year, in specified occupations and processes; ii. to lay down
procedure to decide modifications to the schedule of banned
occupations or processes; iii. to regulate the conditions of work of
children in employment where they are not prohibited from
working ;
iv. To fix enhanced penalties for the employment of children in
violation of the provisions of this act and other acts which forbid
the employment of children and; v. to bring about uniformity in
the definition of child in related laws;

Developmental and Rehabilitation Programmes

Besides legal and constitutional measures, the Government of
India, with the co- operation of state Governments have
embarked up on various developmental and welfare measures.
India has a long history of seeking to avoid exploitation of working
children through various labour laws and with the specific
provisions

guaranteed

by

the

constitution

of

India.

The

Government also initiated employment and income generation

programmes for eradication of the problem o child labour in India.
During the 1970s the Government of India initiated employment
generation programmes like food for work, RLEGP (1980),
Community

Development

Programmes

and

recently

the

MGNREGS (2005). During the 1980s the Government of India

initiated several action oriented rehabilitation programmes to

withdraw children from work and prevent them from entering the
labour markets. Several projects have been sanctioned both by
the Ministry of Labour and by the Ministry of Social Justice and
Welfare, Government of India, and grounded at the gross root
level. The approach of the Department of Education is articulated
in the National Policy on Education and is based on the
assumption that poverty causes Child Labour. And this can be
eradicated by is to providing them with some opportunity of Nonformal Education (NFE) which is an alternative channel for the
larger number of children who do not attend school full time
basis. The most significant step in this direction was the adoption
of the National Child Labour Policy in 1987. The National Child
Labour policy aimed at successfully rehabilitating Child Labour
withdrawn from employment and reducing the incidence of Child
Labour.
The three main special ingredients of the child labour policy are:
a) legal action, including emphasis laid on strict and effective
enforcement of legal provisions relating to child labour under
various labour laws; b) utilizing on going general development

programmes of other Ministries and Departments for the benefit

of Child Labour, wherever possible, and c) launching projects for
mainstreaming and welfare of working children in the areas of
high concentration of Child Labour. Considering the complexity
and magnitude of Child Labour problem, the National Child Labour
policy was announced in 1987 with a determined political will.. In
order to translate the National Policy, the Government of India
initiated the National Child Labour Project Scheme in 1988.
Initially Child Labour project schools were opened in 12 districts in
the country and subsequently extended to 250 districts by end of
10th five year plan. As many as 3, 74,255 child labourers have
been mainstreamed through the NCLP schools by end of Tenth
five year plan. Particularly, Andhra Pradesh State has achieved
significant progress by mainstreaming 1,73,297 Child Labour,
nearly 40 per cent of total mainstreamed in India. Enforcement of
Child Labour laws was more effective in Andhra Pradesh during
1996-2004. During this period, the Government of Andhra
Pradesh has initiated all possible measures to reduce the number
of child labourers.

Child Labour Rehabilitation Programmes

The

Government

of

India

also

initiated

measures

for

improvement of educational infrastructure in every nook and

corner of the country more so in Andhra Pradesh. The initiatives

like residential schools welfare hostels buildings ITDA schools and

many more educational infrastructural developments have picked
up during 8th, 9th, 10th five year plans and continuing in the
current 11th plan. The important initiatives include DPEP,
SSA/RVM besides National Child Labour Project Schools. Under
these programmes, Primary schools, Upper primary schools, High
schools are established and adequate numbers of teachers were
appointed. Construction of school buildings, providing library and
computer facilities, improvement of school environment and
liberal

provisions

for

drinking

water,

sanitation

and

other

maintenance grants are made available to each of the schools.

Transit homes, Alternative schools, RBCs have been established
for enrollment of out of school or never enrolled children for
mainstreaming into normal life.
In brief, the Government of India has always followed a pro-active
policy towards elimination of Child Labour. The constitution of
India

not

only

secures

compulsory

and

universal

primary

education to all children. General development programmes

(MNREGS) targeting poorest of the poor have been embarked
upon elimination of poverty, the root cause of Child Labour in the

country. Further, the project based plan of action focusing on

areas with high concentration of Child Labour has been initiated
through the National Child Labour Projects (NCLP).
The NCLP programmes were initiated in 1988 in 12 Districts of
highly concentrated States with Child Labour in India and
extended to 150 districts by end of 9th plan, 250 districts during
the 10th plan period. In each of the districts selected for the
project The major objective of Project Society (PS) of NCLP is to
withdraw children in the age group of 5-14 years working in
hazardous occupations and mainstream them into the formal
education system. The project society plays very important role
for eradication of child labour working in hazardous nature of
activities.
Identified children in the age group of 9-14 years need to be
withdrawn from the work/factory environment and rehabilitated
through special schools run by the NCLP project society. Working
children in the age group of 5-9 years are required to be
mainstreamed directly to the formal education system through
the progrmmes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) introduced by the

Ministry

of

Human

Resource

Development

(MHRD).

This

necessitates coordination between the NCLP (PSs), District

Education Department and SSAs. Project Societies have been
working since 1996 in AP and remarkable progress has been
achieved.

Andhra

Pradesh

state

which

earned

dubious

distinction of having largest number of child labour, could slide

down to second rank by 2001 census. Fifteen years have been
completed since the initiation of the NCLP. Hence the evaluation
of the project is significant. The present evaluation study is
undertaken in four districts of Andhra Pradesh State during the
year 2011-12 to find out the status of Child Labour 22 regulation
and rehabilitation programmes. The government has initiated
employment generation programmes through RLEGP, NREGS,
MGNERGS and other relevant steps to improve annual income of
the poor so that they need not prefer the children for wage
employment.
It is imperative to conduct a policy oriented project evaluation
study to analyze the out come of the policies and projects. The
present study evaluation helps policy makes to identify gaps and
initiate corrective measures to achieve the desired objectives and

makes the programme more effective and responsive, which also

helps to modify the strategies from time to time, keeping in mind
the ground realities. In this context, the evaluation of Child Labour
eradication projects assumes vital socio-economic importance. As
per censes 1991, Andhra Pradesh was having largest number of
Child Labour, subsequently it slided to second rank in 2001
censes. In view of this, the study of policy to combat Child Labour
is gaining importance. It is long time, nearly two and half decades
of Government policy of combating Child Labour in India and
needs to evaluate and identify the gaps if any, and to suggest
remedial

measures.

The

Government

of

India,

Planning

Commission New Delhi sponsored the evaluation of the project on

status of Child Labour in Andhra Pradesh.
The proposed study employed multi-stage, stratified sampling
method while selecting the districts, mandals, villages/schools
and respondents. As mentioned above, at first stage three
districts, one from each region - Andhra, Telangana, Rayalaseema
of Andhra Pradesh have been selected. At second stage from each
district three mandals, two villages in each mandal are selected.
23 At third stage the study was factored into developed and

backward areas, concentration of Child Labour in different sectors,

intensity of rural-urban migration etc, while selecting the districts,
mandals and villages

CHAPTER 6
FINDINGS AND SUGGESATIONS

Findings
It is observed that there is still large number out of school
children in some of the mandals selected for the purpose of
the present study. Out of school children is considered as
major problem and it is because of inefficient management
of government schools. The teachers from Government
school show a little interest to retain the children once they
are admitted. Due to lack of follow up, some of the children
do not turn up for school over a period. Such children appear
to be remaining as out of school in the study villages.
The NCLP schools are being managed by Non-Governmental
Organizations in most of the districts of the state. However,
in Khammam district the schools are directly managed by
NCLP society. The most important activities of Child Labour
schools are survey, mobilization, convergence, identification;
enrollment, attendance, retention mainstreaming and child
tracking. These functions are not properly attended by the
NGOs and their functioning is found to be unsatisfactory.
Kurnool and Mahabubnagar are among the selected districts
for the present study. The NCLP schools were not functioning

in these districts during 2009-10 and 2010-11. It is not that

there are no children to be admitted. The Project Societies
are not given priority by the district administration. It is very
important to conduct executive meetings of NCLP societies
at least once in 6 months to review the working of NCLP
schools, identify issues, challenges and identify remedies to
achieve the targeted goals. But in some of the NCLP
organizations, the executive meetings were not even held for
four years. In two of the four districts selected for the study,
the meetings were conducted once in a year.
The composition of NCLP societies is found to be loaded with
maximum number of officials of convergent departments,
but the representation to the trade unions, parents, youth
clubs, women groups, and social workers is negligible.
The number of teachers working in NCLP schools is two in
each of the school. The female teachers out-numbered the
male teachers. Teachers with matriculation or plus two
standards are serving NCLP schools. Very few of them are
qualified with B.Ed., while untrained teachers get training at
local DIET institutions.

Attendance of children in NCLP schools ranging between 5065 per cent showing the ineffective management of NCLP
schools. Children in the age group of 9-14 year constitute

more than 55 per cent.

Non-Child Labour children out numbered (80 per cent) the
child labour in NCLP schools, indicating its deckling trend
similarly children working in hazardous nature of works are
gradually declining. More than half of the NCLP admissions
are found to be out of school children getting admitted to
complete the enrollment of 50 candidates as stipulated by
the Ministry.
The executive meetings of project societies did not ensure
serious discussion on survey, identification, enrollment,
mainstreaming, tracking, nutrition, finance, accounting, and
documentation, mobilization of civil society, support and
periodical campaign against abuse of children by employers.
The Project Directors are appointed from among retired
officials,

some

Deputy

Labour

times

Assistant

Commissioners

Labour
or

Commissioners,

Officials

from

other

departments are deputed as incharges or with full additional

charge to administer NCLP societies.

Field officers, office typist cum clerk, accountant /steno are

also appointed on the basis of minimum consolidated pay
which does not provide meaningful livelihood to the working
people in NCLP. The adhoc nature of appointments of PDs did
not ensure efficient management of schools and finances
and causing for closure of NCLP schools in some of the

Project Societies of selected districts.

Non-seriousness of in-charge and deputation PDs was

responsible for delay while sending quarterly reports to the
Ministry. It is revealed that, the Ministry of Labour and
Employment, Government of India did not acknowledge the
receipt of reports and documents dispatched by the project
societies. There is an element of laxity in between these two
ends. Most of the NGOs did not continue the NCLP schools in
Kurnool and Mahaboobnagar districts, due to non-release of
funds by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, New Delhi
on time. Inordinate delay for release of finances was
important reason for closure of the NCLP schools.

Mobilization of support from parents, civil

organizations,

Red

Cross,

employers

and

society

convergent

departments is lacking. Always it is the headache of NCLP

school teachers those who are putting all their efforts along
with NGOs and PDs to run the NCLP schools. The initial
enthusiasm

and

collective

responsibility

of

convergent

departments is gradually getting evaporated since inception

of the programme.
Convergence

of

officials

and

civil

society

regarding

awareness generation campaign towards the targeted child

labour is lacking.

Vocational education is not given importance in most of the

schools and the teachers are not appointed exclusively for
this purpose.

Distribution of reading and writing materials, provision of

food and nutrition is found to be un-satisfactory. Stipend is
getting deposited in post-offices as stipulated by the Ministry
of Labour and Employment, Government of India. Child
trafficking activity is reasonability good in Khammam district.
Nominal health check-ups are conducted in the schools. Skin
diseases, cough and others health problems are common
among the NCLP school children.

 Children attaining the age of 14 years are either admitted in

formal SSA/ KGBVs/ Government welfare residential schools.
However, significant number of children is getting back to
labour market due to poverty and other economic problems
in the families. It is to note that after mainstreaming the
children to formal school the required child tracking is
lacking in all the districts except Khammam.

Mainstreaming is an important step in the process of

rehabilitation of Child Labour. In all the four districts selected
for the study, a significant number of Child Labour was
mainstreamed every year and the level of enrollment was
also stabilized, but very important aspect like child tracking
is not taken care.

The NCLP School buildings are in bad condition lacking white

wash, toilets for both boys and girls in most of the schools in
the selected districts.

The Child Labour eradication is still a challenge in India;

though the proportion of Child Labour is declining very fast.
The hardcore child labour is still associated with poverty

(urban), traditional occupations (agricultural), landlessness

etc. in selected districts.

Suggestions
Still poverty is the root cause of child labour in urban areas
of the study. Therefore, the social development model is only
alternative for eradicating Child Labour problem. The process
of development for poorer sections through promotion of
compulsory education, health and skill development. The
government schools are ineffectively functioning in the study
villages contributing for child labour and out of school
children. Effective and efficient management of the schools
is a prerequisite for the solution.

Promotions of non-agricultural economic activities like

micro, small and medium industries are the best alternatives
to improve employment and income generation for the rural
poor. Literacy levels have been improving in recent decades

and it is time to encourage production of mass consumption

goods with involvement of educated women among the rural
poor and arrest rural urban migration. It is essential to
arrest the rural-urban migration to eradicate Child Labour in
urban areas. Basic needs like uninterrupted electricity,
drinking water roads and transport, establishment of English
medium schools accessible to poorer sections are some of
the infrastructural facilities to be provided to arrest the ruralurban migration.

Easy access to credit at affordable rate of interest is

important factor to the rural poor to improve livelihood
activities and to the Child Labour problem in state.
Child Labour households rehabilitation programmes may be
strengthened to minimize drop-outs/out of school children.
Child Labour households may be given a special package of
one time support so that livelihoods may be improved.
Project societies may be reorganized with more members
from SHGs, youth association, social workers and retired
officials with good track record. Awareness generation
programmes

may

be

conducted

with

involvement

of

convergent departments, youth associations, SHGs, Civil

Society members.
The Government of India need not dilute the concept of
NCLP societies, but to continue its campaign more vigorously
despite the declining trend in the occurrence of Child Labour.
As a matter of fact, the rural poverty is getting transferred to
urban areas, consequently the Child Labour.
A periodical review of NCLP societies by an independent
organization in each of the district is essential for plugging
the

lapses

institutes

and

may

its
be

limitations.
assigned

to

Universities,
study

NCLP

research
schools

performance periodically and report the pitfalls and gaps to

the district or state administration.
It is felt that the physical facilities in the NCLP schools are
found to be very poor, simply resembling the conditions of
BPL households.
The NCLP School children may also be given uniform, foot
wear and pocket money on par with students in government
residential schools.
It is recommended that the NCLP children may be given
decent and quality food for their sound physical and mental
growth.

The number of NCLP schools can be reduced by something

some of the schools situated in most vulnerable places.
Adequate financial support, release of funds at least on time
may be ensured. The number of children enrolled in each
school may be increased from 50 to 100. With these

measures, the state can rationalize the expenditure.

The NCLP schools may be given the status of residential
institutions giving education up to +2 levels.
The NCLP schools may be reorganized on the lines of
Kasturibha

Schools

so

that

physical

and

educational

environment of the schools may be improved to give an

impression of attraction to the poor children and their
parents so that they are not neglected or marginalized while
providing education through NCLP schools.
The financial support to maintain the NCLP schools is found
inadequate and affecting the physical facilities like drinking
water, nutrition content, electricity, play grounds, uniform,
footwear etc. These are very basic needs of school going
children particularly poorer sections. The NCLP children may
also be given.

 The Executive Committee meetings have to be conducted at

least once in six months followed by awareness generation,
identification and enrollment.
State project implementation unit is required to review the
performance of each district periodically to rectify the
problems. District Collectors / Joint Collectors may be asked
to attend the state level review meetings compulsory at
least once in a year.
Salaries of staff in NCLP society at district level are required
to rationalize to suit for minimum needs or minimum wage
at least that of like MGNREGS.
Selection of NGOs for management of NCLP schools may be
made based on the performance but not on political
pressures. NGOs are being assigned NCLP schools with
political pressure.
It is essential that the PDs are appointed with committed
persons having good social work background. Similarly, field
staff should also be drawn from social workers with track
record.
There is no proper mechanism in some of the NCLP societies
for tracking of mainstreamed children except in Khammam
district.

CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSION

Continued poverty; illiteracy and ignorance of poor parents;

increase in population; inadequate family income; large families;
indebtedness; absence of social security schemes; and lack of
strict enforcement of the provisions for compulsory education;
migration from rural areas to urban areas; the cheap costs of child
domestic labour all contribute to child domestic labour. Further,

families plagued by dysfunction, abandonment, violence, alcohol,

drug abuse can push children early into work. Economic transition
both in and out side the home can contribute to the rise in child
domestic labour. When adults are struck by life threatening
diseases like HIV/AIDS children are forced to carry the burden of
extra household work and or go out to work. Poverty is both
causative and consequential to the problem of child domestic
labour. Child workers can perpetuate poverty because child
domestic labourers, deprived of education or healthy physical
development, are likely to become adults with low earning
capacity.

Poverty

is

most

often

intertwined

with

gender

inequalities. Not only are women more vulnerable to poverty, but

in families where males occupy dominant roles, genderdefined
roles carry low expectations for girls and women.
Unless the gender dimensions of poverty are addressed, law
reform on domestic labour will have very little avail. The CEDAW
provisions in Articles 2 and 3 which call for equal protection both
in laws and practice must guide the reform of laws in this area.
The unequal and disproportionate impact of facially neutral laws
must be critically examined in this effort. Most empirical studies

show that girls are traditionally overrepresented in the domestic

work world and other informal service sector jobs. This is shaped
by the socially constructed role that girls are traditionally meant
to occupy. The low status given to the girl child and the poor
bargaining power of the girl child also makes her a more
attractive employee. This observation is not meant to advocate
for greater employment of boys in domestic work outside of their
own homes. Rather, it has not been possible within the scope of
this paper to address the myriad differences between child
domestic labour in the home and in third party households. Those
distinctions carry many implications for the type of laws and
programmes which should be implemented as well as their
efficacy and are greatly deserving of further research. The
devaluation of the girl child, the pressures of early marriage and
the need for a dowry in certain cultures drive girls to work as
domestic workers. In cultures where daughters are responsible for
household chores, the opportunity costs of a daughters schooling
maybe higher than a sons. The fact that the work domestic
workers perform are viewed as an extension of housework makes
domestic work invisible. Law reform must be guided by Article 5

of the CEDAW and address the cultural factors that result in the
devaluation of girls and women. Further, law reform must be
guided ay Article 4 of the CEDAW which call for special temporary
measures in law and practice to achieve equality of result. Girls
are also discriminated against in the kind of work they engage in.
Girls engage in work which fall in line with her gender roles and
this work is not always considered work. Girls are also assigned
roles and placed in work that define and restrict their mobility.
Although their economic participation is largely unrecognized,
young girls are open to work-related hazards and exploitation,
especially sexual advances and physical and verbal abuse. The
work engaged in by girls, open the way to sexual abuse.
The girl childs education will have numerous implications
including on the health. Gender inequality in education also has a
correlation with reductions in GDP per-capita as well as other
indicators of development such as life expectancy and infant
mortality. 70 Education concerning child domestic labour should
target young boys and men in relation to gender identities, male
attitudes and discriminatory behaviour towards girls. Law reform
must take into consideration the interrelatedness of issues and

draft laws that strengthen the alternatives to child work as well as

take into account the social, economic and health ramifications of
child domestic work. Finally, it is important to create a holistic
rights- based legal framework emphasizing the universality,
interdependence,

indivisibility

and

justiciability

of

political,

economic, social and cultural rights of children in order to address

domestic work by children. An understanding that gender
discrimination is a leading cause of child domestic labour is
critical to protect child workers and to prevent and eliminate child
domestic labour. It is equally important to examine domestic work
for the role it plays in reinforcing and perpetrating gender
stereotypes that subordinate women. This cause and effect
relationship between domestic child work and gender bias has in
some

situations

created

an

inter-generational

cycle

of

discrimination which needs to be addressed. Several countries are

increasingly looking at laws and legal reform for realizing
childrens rights. Over the past years, new laws have been passed
or initiated and good practice developed. Despite a strong
commitment to equal rights lawmaking, there is a gap in the
implementation

of

those

laws.

Although

monitoring

and

implementation of equality and anti-discrimination laws should

take the centre stage in addressing child domestic labour, laws
alone will be ineffective unless accompanied by education on the
value of the rights of all children.
In conclusion, gender inequality is the thread that intertwines
most of the major causes of child domestic work and drives more
girls than boys to work as domestic workers. Discrimination
against children occurs not only when there is discrimination
between children and adults but between different groups of
children. Children and families living in rural communities, and
especially girl children, may have less access to essential
resources which may drive them into domestic work. That is why
an anti-discrimination perspective is critical to the examination of
child domestic labour.

REFERENCES
1. International

Labour

Organization,

Constitution

of

the

International Labour Organization, Geneva, 1919.

2. International Labour Organization, Convention Concerning
Minimum Age for Admission to Employment, Convention No.
138, Geneva, 1973.
3. International Labour Organization, Convention Concerning
the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of
the Worst Forms of Child Labour, Convention No. 182,
Geneva, 1999.
4. International

Labour

Organization,

Discrimination

(Employment and Occupation) Convention, Geneva, 1958.

5. International Labour Organization, Global child labor data

review: A gender perspective, Vol. 3, ILO, Geneva, 2004.
6. International Labour Organization, Helping Hands

or

Shackled Lives? Understanding child domestic labour and

responses to it, ILO, Geneva, 2004. Khlaidi, Aziza; Nahhas,
Nayla; Nuwayhid, Iman, Gender, education and child labour
in Lebanon, ILO, Geneva, 2004.
7. V. V Giri National Labour Institute Noida (2001): Child Labour
in India an overview.
8. Mahaveer Jain: Complete Abolition of Child Labour a
Possibility, MANAK publication Ltd.(2006)
9. Mahaveer Jain: Insights on child labour, MANAK Publications
Ltd, New Delhi. (2006)
10.
National Commission for the protection of Child Rights
(Report), New Delhi. (2010)
11.
M.V Foundation: Child Labour Eradication Programmes
in AP. (Report)
12.
Anoop K. Sathyapathi and others: Rehabilitation of Child
Labour in India, V.V Giri National Labour Institute Noida.
(2010)
13.
Planning Commission India: Report of the working group
on child labour for the 11th five year plan, Government of
India, New Delhi

14.

Victoria

Gummarsson:

Changing

Patterns

of

Child

Labour around the world since 1950; World Bank (2005).

15.
UNICEF, http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/
16.
ILO,
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/gems/eeo/dow
nload/
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USAID,http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia_near_east/c
ountries/pakistan/pakistan.html
18.
http://www.populationworld.com

QUESTIONAARE
The problem of child labour in India
a) Human rights organizations dont know anything about rural children who
work.
b) Most children in manufacturing work in poor conditions as bonded labourers.
c) Manufacturing employs older children who know their rights and complain more.
d) Children who work in manufacturing are happier than children in cities.
Choose the true statement

a) Among urban child labourers most children work in cultivation.

b)
c)
d)

The highest percentage of child labourers in cities are working in manufacturing.

24.5% of urban child labourers work in the area of transport.
About 20% of urban children work in mining and quarrying.

Causes of child labour in India & governmental policy dealing with it

a) Children work because they enjoy learning a skill.

b) Parents want their children to work after school.
c) Children work because it is necessary.
d) Parents do not want their children to work even if it necessary.
Choose the true statement

a) Only about 40% of child labourers earn the same amount as adult labourers.
b) Half to one third of people think that children and adults earn the same amount.
c) Children reported that they earn less than the amount adults earn.
d) Employers report that 50% of children earn the same amounts as adults.
Indian Government Policy on Child Labour

a) Since independence the Indian government has encouraged children to work.

b) The Indian government has laws against children working that it does not enforce.
c) Children and parents want the government to make laws against child labour.
d) The Indian government gives children meals and money if they do not work.

Education and its effects on child labour

Poverty forces high dropout rates and so no matter how good schools are,
school competition rates and literacy rates will still remain low.
Why is the authors statement (above) true?
a) Poor people need money more than education.
b) India has the best schools of all the developing countries.
c) Poor people have learning difficulties.
d) The Department of Education needs to enforce education laws.
Compulsory Education

a) India has excellent schooling up to sixth grade.

b) Governments can reduce child labour rates.
c) Kerala and Sir Lanka have high drop out rates.
d) Literacy will go up in the next decade.