11 June : Tomorrow is the World Day Against Child Labour. The Ministry of Labour and Employment is undertaking a campaign to generate awareness against the child labour in the country. Elimination of Child Labour is an area of great concern and considering the magnitude and nature of problem, the Government has adopted Sequential approach to withdraw and rehabilitate working children beginning with those working in hazardous occupation / process.
· As per the 2001 Census, there are 1.26 crore working children in the country in the age group of 5-14 years. This occupation includes children working in the hazardous and non-hazardous. The total working children in the age group of 5-14 years is only 5% of total population of children.
· The enforcement of the provisions of Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 is being regularly taken up with the States at various levels in the Ministry of Labour. During 1997-98 to 2006-07 27.69 lakh inspections were conducted and 218451 violations were identified, prosecutions were launched in 77617 cases resulting in 22657 convictions.
· The National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme was started to rehabilitate the Child Labour. The Scheme was launched in 12 child labour endemic districts in 1988. The number of districts covered under the Scheme has been substantially enhanced to 271 districts under the current Plan.
· Under the NCLP Scheme, children found working in hazardous occupations are withdrawn from work and put into special school for preparing them to join mainstream educational system
· The Special Schools/Rehabilitation Centre provides formal/non-formal education, vocational training, and supplementary nutrition @ Rs.5 /- per child, stipend @Rs.100 /- per month to children withdrawn from employment and health care facilities.
· Under the NCLP Scheme 9800 special schools have been sanctioned in the districts with sanctioned strength of 4.75 lakh children. About 5.21 lakh children have been mainstreamed into formal system so far.
· Convergence: Considering poverty and illiteracy are the root cause for child labour, Government is following a multi-pronged strategy to tackle this problem. Educational rehabilitation of these children has to be supplemented with economic rehabilitation of their families so that they are not compelled by the economic circumstances to send their children to work. Ministry is taking various proactive measures towards convergence between the schemes of different Ministries like Ministries of Human Resource Development, Women & Child Development, Urban Housing & Rural Poverty Alleviation, Rural Development, Panchayati Raj institutions etc. so that child labour and their families get covered under the benefits of the schemes of these Ministries also.
· Tracking & Monitoring: The Ministry had set up a Working Group on Tracking and Monitoring of child labour to recommend an appropriate tracking and monitoring system for child labour covered under the NCLP Scheme.
· Protocol on Migration & Trafficking of children for labour: Ministry is taking number of steps for rescue, safe repatriation and rehabilitation of migrant and trafficked child labour. Towards this end, a Protocol on Prevention, Rescue, Repatriation and Rehabilitation of trafficked child labour has been issued to the state Governments to facilitate the rehabilitation of such children.
· A comprehensive exercise to evaluate the NCLPs in the country was conducted in 2007 by the independent agencies and was coordinated by the V.V. Giri National Labour Institute.
· The Ministry is also implementing the scheme of Grants-in-aid to Voluntary Organisations under which voluntary agencies are given financial assistance on the recommendation of the State Government to the extent of 75% of the project cost for the rehabilitation of working children.
· Consistent with the Constitutional provisions, the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act was enacted in 1986. According to the Act, ‘Child’ means a person who has not completed his fourteenth year of age. Presently, 16 hazardous occupations and 65 processes are listed under the Act, where the employment of children is prohibited.
· Any person who employ any child is liable for punishment with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than three months but which may extend to one year or with fine which shall not be less than Rs.10,000 but which may extend to Rs.20,000 or both.
· The Government has issued a notification prohibiting employment of children w.e.f. 10th October 2006 as domestic workers or servants; in dhabas (road-side eateries), restaurants, hotels, motels, tea-shops, resorts, spas or other recreational centers.