The size of the Indian population between the ages of 15 to 60, at around 700 million, is the second largest amongst all countries in the world (in 2011). If you add the world's largest population of children in the age bracket of 5 to 14 as potential workers, around 200 million, then what you have is a serious distortion to an already large aggregate supply of labour. According to the 2001 Census - the last time the Indian Government officially calculated the employment of children in the labour market - there were around 12 million child labourers. This was an absolute increase of over 1 million from the previous Census (1991) figures. According to child-rights organisations working in this sector and the calculations offered by other independent NGOs, this is a conservative estimate with the actual figures being around 5-6 times higher due to the definitional limitations. While creating a severe downward pressure on wages in the labour market, child labour also causes a disruption in education which is often permanent and difficult to rectify thereafter. Indeed, labour market reform is critically dependent on the eradication of child labour. The continuing problems that plague the Indian workers and worker's rights would remain as long as they are unable to ensure that child labour is fully eliminated from Indian labour markets.
Doing away with this grave injustice towards children should be among the top priorities of Indian labour law reformers. Yet, infamously, India is one of only 9 countries in the world to not have ratified the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention No. 182 – regarding the 'Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour'. Due to the variations in the definition of child labour across the world, this particular Convention was created by the ILO to prohibit children from working in the most dangerous and hazardous professions. Of the 183 countries that are members of the ILO, 174 have ratified this Convention. In this regard, India is now in the company of countries such as Somalia and Myanmar who are yet to ratify this particular ILO Convention (as on September, 2011). This is a glaring lapse for a country that wishes to be counted amongst the leading economic powers. This Convention prohibits children from being used in “slavery, armed conflict, prostitution, production of pornography, drug trafficking and work which by its nature or circumstances - is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children” (ILO, 1999). These are the worst occupations that any child may be deployed in and its prevention in all societies should be a priority. It is, therefore, surprising that India has accorded little attention to this and continues to neglect a legal focus on this.
EDUCATION IN INDIA AND CHILD LABOUR
India has been attempting to provide free and compulsory education for all its children since its independence in 1947. The Constitution of India, published in 1950, decreed in Article 45 of the Directive Principles of State Policy, that the Indian State should provide free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen. The State was advised to do this compulsorily for the the next 10 years - in the hope that the entire next generation of chlidren would be fully educated. This was not to be! Sixty years after the country's founders' attempts and after the partial successes of the multitude of schemes and policies, the Indian Government passed the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act in April, 2010.
Nearly three decades back, the failure to provide free education to all children and the prevailing magnitude of child labour had prompted the Government to form the 'Gurupadswamy Committee' in 1979, whose report and recommendations led to the passing of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986. The committee's report clearly stated that it saw little option other than to ban child labour in hazardous areas of work due to the continuing problems of poverty in India. The Government of India (GOI) has since identified 18 occupations and 65 processes that are classified as hazardous and bans the employment of children in these identified areas. It must be noted that children are defined as those below 14 as per this law. The contradiction with most other Indian laws - where minors are defined as those below the age of 18 - must not be missed. To complicate matters, the Child Labour Act seeks to ban children only from the occupations listed in this law. This often creates loop-holes in the nature of jobs being done, which unscrupulous employers wilfully exploit and consequently law-enforcement becomes problematic.
Though there have been a number of positive moves in the direction of improving the condition of child labourers, India is still very far from achieving a complete elimination of this malaise. The Government launched the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) in 1988 to rehabilitate child labourers. The rescued children are placed in the specially formulated NCLP schools where informal education and vocational training, leading to their mainstreaming, is imparted while also providing supplementary nutrition and health-care services. This was a targeted initiative – where the districts with the most number of child labourers were first identified and NCLP schools opened in these districts. From 12 districts in 1988 to 100 districts in 2001, the scheme has expanded to cover 300 districts and around 9,500 schools.
The Indian Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoL) points out in its Results Framework Document (RFD), that since child labour is an off-shoot of poverty, the welfare schemes of other Ministries such as the Rural Development, Urban Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Railways, Women and Child Development are all converged to strike at the root of the problem of child labour (MoL – RFD, 2010-11). This belief that the poverty-alleviation programmes implemented by other Ministries will solve the child labour problem - is displayed in the RFD, where the least number of initiatives are under Objective 3, the section regarding child labour. The responsibilties for tackling child labour are specifically shared by the MoL with the Ministry of Women and Child Development. Consequently, this leads to a situation where neither Ministry assumes full responsibility. Ideally, the interaction of children with the labour market and places of work should be monitored, regulated and the enforcement done by the MoL, while the subsequent holistic education of children in schools and homes should fall under the purview of Ministry of Women and Child Development. The MoL is currently running several thousand primary schools which is obviously beyond its areas of expertise and should be avoided.
The Government of India has recently taken other positive steps like passing the RTE Act in 2010. The Act requires that the Government ensure that all children have a schooling for at least 8 years. Coming somewhat belatedly, the RTE Act has been welcomed and criticised in equal measure. The Act guarantees that all children have the fundamental right to access education for free. It must be pointed out that the success of this law would be directly proportional to the elimination of child labour. Children in working conditions are in a poor position to make choices regarding their schooling. It is in this regard that the widening of the Child Labour Act to include all occupations must be considered - which could then pave the way for India to ratify the ILO Core Convention No. - 138 – the broader Core convention regarding the minimum working age.
CHILD LABOUR ECONOMICS
Child labour is one of the major factors that causes the inter-generational transmission of poverty. One of the main reasons for the failure of the poverty-elimination approach is that child labour and poverty are often inextricably inter-linked. While poverty could be the initial cause forcing a child to earn for their family, it is the very same children that then go on to become the next generation of the poor due to their inability to upgrade their knowledge and skills. This leads to a vicious cycle of poverty which becomes extremely difficult to break. For example, a family that is below the poverty line may be forced to send its children out to work – before they complete their education - to earn a supplemental income. Since the child can no longer complete their education, they get forced to do the low-paid unskilled work which causes them to remain poor throughout the remainder of their working life, like their parents would have. There is a strong negative effect of child labour on school attendance rates and a significant correlation is found between the levels of economic activity of children aged 7-14 years and youth literacy rates in the 15-24 age bracket (Allais and Hagemann, 2008). Child labour therefore significantly affects the quality of the workforce.
The economic discourse has overwhelmingly been in the consensus that poverty is the primary reason for the supply of child labour (Van and Basu,1998; Grootaert and Kanbur, 1995; UNICEF, 1986). The data in a recent report however, contradicts this position. Education, as a variable, shows a stronger effect on the decrease in child labour since a significant number of the richer households are also seen sending their children to work. The report finds that around 20% of working children belong to families in the richest and second richest quintiles of the population (VVGNLI, 2010). But more critically, it found that over 95% of the child labourers come from families where the head of the household has managed less than 10 years of education. In fact, 75% of all child labourers in India are from families where the head of the household is either illiterate or has only managed to complete primary education (ibid 21).
Most studies, however, search for the relationship between economic growth or the effect of trade on child labor participation rates – completely missing the link and the beneficial effects of education. It is a widely held belief that with economic growth would come an increase in wages and therefore a decline in child labour. The prominent focus, it would appear, on economics and trade linkages has obfuscated other approaches which could be faster and more effective. Another little known area is the nature of demand for child labour - which should logically grow along with increases in adult wages. Some studies have shown that economic growth increases the demand for child labor. Without government intervention, a labour market becomes receptive to child labor (Swaminathan, 1998).
FURTHER ACTIONS AND DIRECTIONS
It is imperative that the elimination of child labour combined with the provisioning of education is given a sustained focus amongst the poverty alleviation programmes. This is the best way to ensure that the cycle of poverty and illiteracy is broken and that there is a skilled and qualified workforce that can fully leverage India's demographic comparative advantages. While the actions taken by other Ministries are important to reduce poverty, it is only in conjunction with the removal of child labour that this goal of poverty elimination and universal education can possibly be achieved.
India is now one of the largest economies in the entire world. The poor economic condition of the country was the excuse given for the existence of child labour. This claim is no longer valid. That child labour persists strongly through the sustained economic growth of the past 15-20 years is an area of serious concern. Child labour can only be reduced through a combination of elementary schooling, a reduction of poverty levels, higher wages for workers along with legal re-enforcement. The Government should therefore strengthen the legislation against child labour along with the other labour-related areas.
There are several steps that the Indian Government can take to ensure progress in this area. When the Child Labour Act was first passed in 1986, it envisaged a fine of Rs 10,000 for the errant employers. However, there has only been a marginal increase in the fine to the current Rs 20,000. The penalties for the employment of children should be raised high enough to be a significant deterrent for unscrupulous employers. The responsibility for the verifications regarding the age of the worker should also rest upon the employer.
Widening the scope of the child labour legislations to include all professions and trades would give little room for unscrupulous employers to evade the law and would be the highly beneficial. Bridging the various ages specified in the labour laws would also go a long way in enhancing the ability of the law-enforcement machinery to identify wrong-doing besides simplifying the related laws on the whole.
Currently, NCLP Schools provide a stipend of Rs 100 per month to rehabilitated children. In contrast, according to the NGOs working in this sector, a child can earn around Rs 50 a day. Therefore, this stipend should be increased to a higher level. This could possibly be widened to include payments for school-going children from 'Below Poverty Line' families. Innovative schemes of this nature were implemented in Brazil as the 'Bolsa Escola' and in Mexico as part of the 'Opportunidades' programmes. Similar schemes, adapted for India, should provide a viable alternative for addressing the possibility that banning child labour would lead children into more hazardous occupations.
CONCLUSION
The ILO has two Core (or Fundamental) Conventions regarding the child labour. India is one of the very few countries that is not a signatory to either of these. One of them (Convention No. 138) deals with restrictions on the working age, while the other, Convention No. 182, deals with employment of children in hazardous occupations. Significantly, it should be noted that China – which is the only other country with a similarly large population - has ratified both of these Conventions. In fact, India is the only major economy to not have ratified either of these two Conventions.
It must be recognised that child labour lies at the core of several of India's major social problems. Not only is it an outgrowth of poverty - it also contributes to future poverty! It has a major impact on literacy and education levels in the country. This in turn, has further implications on the quality of the workforce, employability and the size and health of the population. The success of educational schemes such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and the RTE will be proportional to the ability of the State in keeping children out of the work-force. It is therefore a matter of utmost urgency and one that needs to be addressed with enlightened vigour. Indeed, there are few better areas where labour reforms can be directed.
REFERENCES
Allais, Federico Blanco and Frank Hagemann (2008) - “Child labour and education: Evidence from SIMPOC surveys,” Geneva : Pp (v).
Grootaert, C. and R. Kanbur (1995) - "Child and Labour: An Economic Perspective." International Labour Review, 134(2) : 187-203.
ILO (1999) – Text of the convention C182 - Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, Viewed on October 6, 2011 ( http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/english/index.htm )
Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India : Results Framework Document (RFD) 2010-11 - , Viewed on October 6, 2011 ( http://labour.nic.in/reports/RFD10-11.pdf )
Swaminathan, Madhura (1998) - “Economic Growth and the Persistence of Child Labor: Evidence from an Indian City” World Development, Vol.26, No8 : 1513-1528.
UNICEF (1986) - “Children in especially difficult circumstances: Annexe - Exploitation of working children and street children,” UNICEF, Executive Board, Session, Report E/ICEF/1986/CRP.3. New York.
Van, P. and K. Basu (1998) : “The Economics of Child Labor,” The American Economic Review, Vol.88, No3 : 412-27.
VVGNLI (2010) - V.V.Giri National Labour Institute - Rehabilitation of Child Labour in India, New Delhi : 20-21.
