Eleven-year-old Lachimi has no time to play with friends, enjoy leisure, study or even do homework. Her childhood has been snatched as she does all the domestic chores and goes hungry to school every day. “Where is the time to eat before going to school?” she says. She returns from school to start embroidery work until late in the evening which is gravely affecting her health by ruining her eyesight and her back. She cannot concentrate in the classroom anymore and is branded a slow learner. Unable to straddle school and work, her chances of continuing in school are limited. This is the story of hundreds and thousands of girls and boys who work in home-based units on beedi-rolling, chikan work, bindi and bangle production, agarbatti and papad-making, packing and sticking labels, chappal-making, handicrafts and several other products. Sooner than later they drop out of school and are drawn into labour force as casual labour and daily wage earners. Without education, their fate is sealed.
The amendment to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, which is to be introduced in the current session of the Parliament seeks to abolish all forms of child labour up to 14 years to bring it in harmony with the Right to Education. While this is a step in the right direction, it introduces a proviso that children are allowed to work “where the child helps his family after his school hours or helps his family in fields, home-based work, forest gathering or attends technical institutions during vacations for the purpose of learning”. This is a seemingly benign proviso about which apparently there need not be any disagreement. In all families, rich and poor children do help and are encouraged to help in the daily chores. In this instance, however, helping the family is not the usual routine kind of family work, but an exploitation of millions of children like Lachimi, defeating the very purpose of the amendment of the CLPRA, 1986.
The government justifies this proviso of allowing children to work before and after school hours as children learn the basics of their family occupations like agriculture, artisanship while they help their parents. This also strikes a balance “between the need for education for a child and the reality of the socio-economic condition and social fabric in the country”.
It is well-founded that poor parents do not want to maintain the existing “social fabric” and be bound by their socio-economic conditions. The bridge course programmes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the non-governmental organisations across the country have shown how much the poorest of poor parents aspire to educate their children. Even those parents who initially resisted the idea of their children being withdrawn from work have made enormous sacrifices in support of their children’s education. They see education as the only means of breaking the existing cycle of poverty and backwardness.
There is a tendency to romanticise the whole issue of children learning traditional crafts. The fallacy in this approach lies in the fact that rural society is replete with examples of individuals belonging to artisan families rising to very high levels outside their family profession, who in all probability, would have been misfits had they not changed their profession. The true nature of education is that it equips a person to make a calculated choice at the right time. It is the opportunity to decide his/her own future that we take away from the child when we deny him/her education in the name of maintaining traditional occupations.
Also, this proviso that children are to be allowed to work is often advocated by those who themselves would never think twice before sending their own children to school and giving them all support to pursue education and co-curricular activities. Why the double standards? Those who can afford to wait for their children to equip themselves before they face the challenges of adulthood seem to be imposing another set of standards for those who supposedly need to put their children to work as soon as possible to fit well into the social fabric of the society.
Indeed legalising exploitation of children in family-based work is certainly not in the interest of several lakhs of children who labour and toil in informal and agricultural sector from deprived and marginalised communities such as Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, Backward Classes and the minorities. Condoning child labour in this manner would only contribute towards maintenance of status quo, caste hierarchies fostering inequalities and discriminatory practices in society. It contravenes the equitable right of all children to childhood and their entitlements to live a life with dignity as guaranteed by the Constitution of India, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to which India is a signatory.
Where does this resistance to totally withdrawing children from work, before and after school hours actually come from? Is it from the employers and contractors who make their profits over home-based units in the informal sector? Work rendered at home comes cheap and is based on exploitation of all the members in the family including the five-year old child. Or is it the mindset of our policymakers who doublespeak and have no sensitivity to children and their rights?
The legislators have to heed to the recommendation of the 40th parliamentary standing committee that stated, “There is no need to insert a provision to expressly allow some obvious things in the Indian context, such as children helping their parents in domestic chores. The committee recommends that this proviso may be deleted and the amended section be reframed to prohibit employment in all occupations where there is subordinate relationship of work and labour”.
By incorporating the said clause of allowing children to work before and after school hours, children of India would once again lose their battle for living a life with dignity and freedom. Indeed, India loses an opportunity to show that it cares for its children and not for the interests of all other stakeholders. Hopefully, the parliamentarians will rise to the occasion and contribute vastly to ending child labour once and for all and make child labour part of India’s history.
The writer is former chairperson, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights
