How the modified child labour law will lead to more inequality and poverty

In another move against our children, the Union cabinet cleared amendments to the child labour law on May 13, allowing children below the age of 14 to work in select “non hazardous work in fields or home based work.” This goes against the recommendation of the Parliamentary Standing Committee, which said:

"The ministry is itself providing loopholes by inserting this proviso since it would be very difficult to make out whether children are merely helping their parents or are working to supplement the family income. Further, allowing children to work after school is detrimental to their health as rest and recreation is important for their physical and cognitive development."

The committee recommended that this proviso be deleted and the amended section be reframed to prohibit employment in all occupations where there is subordinate relationship of work and labour.

The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Bill, 2012, introduced in Rajya Sabha, recommended a complete ban on child labour until the age of 14, or when they finish elementary education, bringing in it in line with the Right To Education legislation. This bill also introduced a new category of adolescents – 14 to 18 years – who were banned from hazardous industries but allowed to work in some other sectors.

While there need to be clearer provisions made for the regulation of work for adolescents, including conditions of work and wages, this was a welcome addition for it had been a long struggle to try and ensure that there was a total ban on all forms of child labour at least until the age of 14, so that ALL children go to school and get the same possibility of opportunity that education and schooling should offer them, to enable them to be able to be what they want to be, rather than the only choice for them being to do what  their fathers or mothers have done for generations before them.

Changing the social fabric

The changes were re-examined by the new government due to apprehensions of misuse and fears that they could upset the social fabric of the country.

Is this the social fabric that the government says it does not want to disturb? To keep caste-based occupation? That the child of a farmer should be a farmer; an artisan's an artisan, and so on. One of the main reasons for girls not being sent to school was families keeping them at home to look after their younger siblings. This amendment will now allow families to continue to keep girls at home and not send them to school.

Learning traditional skills

If it is learning that the government wants to ensure by including this proviso, then surely this learning, and these skills, can be embedded into schooling and the curriculum.

This, in fact, would be a very welcome move, so that all children learn about sound agricultural practices, that subjects such as environmental studies cover the local environment and build on traditional knowledge; that crafts are introduced into an art programme in school and indeed give children a knowledge about their culture and history, and if they should so choose, a useful professional skill in later life.

Indeed, if it was brought into the gamut of schooling, it would give more pride to the work of families of artisans or farmers rather than children going to school thinking that as they are in school they should all become doctors or engineers or government servants.

The point of education is that it should enable children to have a choice, and is the only way for children to break out of the vicious circle of poverty and deprivation.

And this is why yesterday seemed such a bleak day for those of us working on children’s rights, because this one seemingly small provision that the government has introduced, in a situation where there is more and more unorganised labour, could keep poor and illiterate families exactly where they are for a further generation – poor and illiterate.

The Bill will now go to Parliament and it is our fervent hope that all parliamentarians who care about children, and who want to truly bring progress to India and ensure the poorest partake and contribute in this progress, will ensure that this provision is deleted.  For it will only benefit those who seek to profit and gain from children and their families, and consequently, harm children immensely.