Who are we kidding?

THE LABOUR Ministry’s notification banning employment of children below 14 years of age as domestic servants or helpers in eating joints is typical of the government’s piecemeal and short-sighted approach to entrenched socio-economic problems. The decision has been taken following a recommendation of the Technical Advisory Committee on Child Labour, which has termed such occupations as ‘hazardous’ to children as they put them at risk for physical and psychological abuse – a fair and laudable stance.

However, the government’s record of monitoring and imposing the ban on industries in which the order is already in force is far from exemplary. To begin with, there is no uniformly accepted age limit to classify someone as a ‘child’ – for Indian labour laws it is 14, for the IPC 16, and for the Ministry of Women and Child Development, 18. Enforcement has been so poor that 20 years after the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act came into force, about 25-30m children remain a part of the workforce, and an estimated 75% of them are employed in hazardous occupations. Despite the government’s avowed aim to provide free and compulsory education to all children up to the age of 14, over 40m children are out of school. Moreover, the Labour Ministry’s rehabilitation scheme under the National Child Labour Project, although well-intentioned, only covers 250 child-labour endemic districts of the country.

No one would deny that child labour is an unhealthy phenomenon – it robs a child of their childhood, exposes them to dangerous situations, and can have long-lasting psychological implications. In an ideal world where all children went to school and got two square meals a day, it would be positively objectionable and undesirable. But what is a child born to destitute parents, with no access to a school or any social security benefit, to do if s/he is even denied the right to earn a living? Until the government is able to provide the supporting infrastructure to ensure that no child needs to work to earn a living, child labour will continue. The present notification, in all likelihood, will lead to a new Inspector Raj, wherein law enforcers will turn a blind eye for the price of a hafta.