Let's Talk - "CHILD LABOUR"

 Not all work done by children should be classified as child labour that is to be targeted for elimination. Children’s or adolescents’ participation in work that does not affect their health and personal development or interfere with their schooling, is generally regarded as being something positive. This includes activities such as helping their parents around the home, assisting in a family business or earning pocket money outside school hours and during school holidays. These kinds of activities contribute to children’s development and to the welfare of their families; they provide them with skills and experience, and help to prepare them to be productive members of society during their adult life.

 

Whether or not particular forms of “work” can be called “child labour” depends on the child’s age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries. The answer varies from country to country, as well as among sectors within countries. 

 

Child Labour 

 

Child labour is any work performed by children that is dangerous or harmful to them and affects their physical and mental development. This form of work deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and interferes with a child’s ability to attend and participate in school fully by obligating them to leave school prematurely. 

 

 The child labour law in India, classifies children below the age of 18 into 2 categories – child (below 14 years) and adolescents (between 14-18 years). The work which is allowed under the law depends on which age category the child falls in.

It is illegal for any person to employ or allow children under the age of 14 in any form of occupation except as a child artist, or in a family business.

In cases of artistic performances which do not fall under the categories given above, children, with the help of the parents, can take permission of the respective State Government and participate in such shows.

A child below the age of 14 as well as adolescents are allowed to work in a family business to support the family, but only after school hours and during vacations. A family business is any work or business which is done or run by the members of the family. The business could belong to or be run by an immediate family (mother, father, brother or sister) or extended family (father’s sister and brother, or mother’s sister and brother).

  

What is the punishment for child labour?

 

Under the child labour law in India known as the Child Labour Amendment (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 2016 any person who employs a child or an adolescent in any illegal labour work will be punished.

 

Punishment for employing a child (Below 14 years of age)

The punishment for employing a child is imprisonment between six months and two years and/or a fine between Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 50,000. For instance, employing a 12 year old child in a matchstick factory is illegal and punishable under the law. However, the Court will decide if only jail time is sufficient or if a fine needs to be paid as well.

 

Punishment for employing an adolescent (14-18 years of age)

The punishment for employing an adolescent in any illegal occupation, is imprisonment for a period between six months and two years and/or fine between Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 50,000 and imprisonment between one to three years if a person continues with child labour after having been punished once. For example, employing a 16-year-old boy in a mine is punishable both under the child labour law as well as the The Mines Act, 1952. Under the Mines Act, if a person below eighteen years of age is employed in a mine, the owner, agent or manager of such mine shall be punished with a fine which may extend to five hundred rupees.

 

Punishment for parents

Parents who force their children to work in family businesses or as child artists (without letting them go to school) or any prohibited occupations under the law can be punished. The law punishes them the first time with a warning but if the child is made to work again illegally then they can be punished with a fine of up to Rs 10,000.

 

 

 

Against Child Labour  

 

1. Child Rights And You(CRY)
2.  CHILDLINEIndiaFoundation
3.  SaveTheChildrenIndia
4. SOSChilden'sVillages,India
5.  BachpanBachaoAndolan
6.  UdayFoundation
7.  PrathamEducationFoundation

 

 

 Slogans

• • A child is meant to learn, not to earn.
    

  • Children have their whole lives to work a job; they have only a few years to be a child.

    •  Let them earn knowledge, not money.
     

   

 

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