Case Study: Child Labour In India
“In the poverty-stricken village of Basuara, situated in the district of Darbhanga, Bihar, a boy named Aakash was born into a world of endless toil. His father spent his days in tobacco fields labouring for the Zamindar, earning barely enough to keep hunger at bay. His mother though a homemaker by name, worked as a maid in the neighbouring homes, to stretch their merger income. Despite the adverse conditions, Akash’s parents sent him to the village school hoping education might offer him a path out of their harsh reality. A couple years down the line as Aakash entered his teenage years, the weight of poverty bore down on him as his father asked him to come along to the fields. Soon classroom and schoolbooks were set aside and Aakash found himself labouring in scorching heat on the tobacco fields. It wasn’t said but felt that — a choice between survival and dreams. This how child labour leaches into the lives of poverty-stricken families, and they find themselves trapped in a cycle of poverty, while their dreams slip far away from their reach.”
India is at the 113th position in the index, which evaluates the countries on the well-being of nations children, shedding light upon the significant number of Indian children who are engaged in child labour. As per the Kailash Satyarthi Foundation Report in the year 2023 the number of child labourers between the ages of 5yr-14yr stands at 7.8million. In comparison, this is a sizeable decline in child labour statistics from the previous 10.1 million children engaged in child labour in 2011. States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh constitute around 55 per cent of the total child labourers in India. Around 71% of children engaged in child labour, work in the agriculture industry including farming, aquaculture and livestock. In the next section of the case study, we will be diving deep into the sector employing the majority of child labourers.
Back in the day, children used to assist their parents in basic chores in agriculture and taking take of livestock. As time passed India witnessed the Industrial Revolution, and subsequent agricultural commercialisation, and the demands of production increased significantly. Along with the boom, inflation crept along driving up the living expenses while wages lagged, intensifying the economic hardships faced by rural families. These economic factors led to the promotion of child labour in poverty-stricken rural households. Children like Aakash lost their beautiful childhoods and entered into the world of relentless labour. Among these child labourers in the agriculture industry, 57% are boys and 43% are girls. The majority of these child labourers are found in rural areas, where agriculture is the primary livelihood, and alternative employment opportunities are limited. Child labourers in the agriculture industry are involved in various physically demanding and hazardous tasks. They participate in sowing and planting seeds, weeding and fertilising crops, and managing irrigation. In addition to crop-related work, many children care for livestock, including feeding and milking animals. Some are involved in applying pesticides and handling chemical fertilisers, often without proper protective gear. All these activities expose children to dangerous chemicals and machinery and force them to undergo strenuous tasks for long periods in extreme temperatures. Child labour hampers the future growth prospects of children by trapping them in a vicious cycle of poverty that is difficult to escape. When children are forced into labour they often have to drop out of school or struggle to attend regularly which could bring better opportunities for them. Without proper education these children lack the knowledge to pursue higher paying jobs, skilled jobs. They end up remaining confined to the same low-paying, unskilled labour that their parents often perform, perpetuating the cycle of poverty from one generation to the next.
A major question posed before us is “Aren’t there laws protecting children against child labour?”. Contrary to the opinion, India has a strong legal framework to combat child labour, some of the major laws include: 1) The Child Labour Act, 1986 — This legislation prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 in hazardous occupations and processes, and outlines penalties for violations), 2) The Child Labour Amendment Act, 2016 — It enhanced the 1986 Act, by broadening the scope of protection to adolescents (14–18), while bringing in exemption for children enrolled in their family businesses provided that education isn’t disturbed and raising fines, longer jail times for violations of the Act. The government has also launched initiatives like the National Child Labour Project (NCLP), which rescues child labourers aiding them to get a better condition via vocational training and nutrition. Several more laws and schemes have been put in place to address the concerning issue of child labour but the success of this framework largely depends on robust enforcement, awareness campaigns, and the provision of educational and economic alternatives to families at risk.
Lastly, the primary reason that inflicts child labour in our society is the socio-economic conditions of families whether in villages or urban cities. Such conditions aren’t the result of a single event but rather a series of events in the past that bring us to today, where families have to engage their tender children in child labour only to survive at bay. Survival refers to being able to rent a house in the slums or a hut with leaking roofs in villages and two meals a day. As a society, we should be appalled by what we’ve collectively done, where children like Aakash don’t even get a fair shot at making their lives into something meaningful. Government laws or NGO interventions alone cannot solve this issue since it requires deep penetration at a wide scale touching every rural area spreading awareness and mass vocational training helping parents to get additional income allowing them to send their children to school. This will take time but with the collective efforts of every citizen, it’s feasible.
