When Modi promised #Achche Din for industries in India, especially for the cottage industries sector, nobody presumed that he meant child labour. Yet sadly that is exactly what he has done. In one of the most controversial labour reforms so far, the government plans to push through an amendment to the Child Labour Prohibition Act in the current session of Parliament, which will allow children below the age of 14 to work in select family enterprises if it doesn’t hamper their education.
A draft provision in the Child Labour Prohibition Act says the prohibition will not apply if children are helping the family in fields, forests and home-based work after school hours or during vacations, or while attending technical institutions. The new norm will also apply to the entertainment industry and sports except the circus, a proposal by the labour ministry says.
Bandaru Dattatreya, India’s minister of labour and employment says that the objective of these amendments, is to help children nurture a spirit of entrepreneurship. They will particularly help children of families currently living at subsistence levels, the ministry claims.
This is a clear indication of a government not in touch with ground realities. India is not a wealthy European country where children work to augment their pocket money. It is after a decade of awareness and rehabilitation programs and primarily the introduction of the Right to Education Act, that child labour dropped from 12.6 million in 2001 to 4.3 million in 2014.
It’s all very easy to say that the new norm will only apply to specific areas of work that don’t constitute hard labour. But who in the government is going to keep tabs at the grassroots level to see that this norm is not misused? And we all know very well the extent of the government’s reach at the ground level.
The government claims to boost entrepreneurship among children with this move. But then, for people owning family businesses, their children already help them out with it after school, thus learning the skills of the trade without hampering their education. The main purpose in banning child labour was to provide education for children from those really poor families with meagre sources of income through hard labour. They are the ones who are forced to send their children to firecracker factories, metal workshops and other cottage industries.
With this new norm, it becomes even easier for nefarious employers to hire child labour. All they have to do is ensure minimum attendance for the children at school and they can easily put the children to work in their factories. Is there anybody in a government school who will check on these children and track down their whereabouts?
The amendment talks about children being allowed to work in ‘select family entreprises’. Doesn’t the Labour ministry know that it’s an euphemism for all manner of cottage industries like beedi rolling, carpet-weaving, gem-polishing, lock-making and matchbox-making – industries which are notorious for hiring child labour at dirt cheap prices?
Child activists are close to pressing the panic button, thanks to this amendment. They contend, and rightly so, that this new norm would undo all the good work done in the past decades. With a single stroke of the pen, the Modi government is sending millions of kids back into exploitative labour.
Image Courtesy: Reuters
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