A brief glimpse, backwards...

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A brief glimpse, backwards...
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• India, a founder member of the ILO, was a
  signatory to the First Convention on the
  Prohibition of Child Employment in 1919
• Since then large number of Acts, including the
  Employment of Labour Act, 1938 and Apprenticeship
  Act, 1961 (Amended in 2014) followed
• Historically, the approach was to address child
  labour in specific sectors not viewing the
  child as a whole
• This approach did not change, even with the
  adoption of the Constitution of India

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• 1979 The first ever Parliamentary Committee in
  Independent India on child labour was set up
  under the chairpersonship of Sri. M.S.
  Gurupadaswamy as a result of the question raised
  by Nandana Reddy, a founder member of CWC in
  Parliament through Mr. George Fernandes.

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• The Committee observed that as long as poverty
  continued, it would be difficult to totally
  eliminate child labour and hence, any attempt to
  abolish it through only legal measures would not
  be a practical proposition.

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• The Committee suggested the ban of child labour
  in hazardous areas and regulation and
  amelioration of conditions of work in other
  areas.
• It recommended that a multi-pronged policy
  approach was required in dealing with the
  problems of working children. 

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• 1984 Minister Jeevaraj Alva and Michael
  Fernandes, MLA took part in a working childrens
  meeting at Town Hall organised by the Bangalore
  Labour Union.
• Following discussions with working children about
  the existing law and how it fails to address the
  real requirements of working children, the child
  workers said Then, change the Law

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• In discussions with working children the Child
  Labour (Employment, Regulation, Training and
  Development) Bill, 1985 as drafted by Nandana
  Reddy, B.R Patil, Harikrishna Holla and S.
  Sreevatsa (CWC got registered as an organisation
  in 1985)
• The Bill was presented to the Chief Minister
  Mr.Ramakrishna Hegde, who recommended that it be
  presented at the national government.

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• Following the presentation of the Child Labour
  Bill to the Chief Minister, the State government
  assisted working children and CWC to attend the
  National Meeting of State Labour Ministers in
  Delhi.
• Shashidhar Adappa developed a Street Play with
  Working Children to present their Bill. A slide
  show illustrating the salient points of the Bill
  was created by Nandana Reddy and Deepa Dhanaraj
  with photographs by Navroze Contractor
• Working children, facilitated by CWC made their
  presentation at the State Labour Ministerss
  conference. T. Anjayya was the Central Labour
  Minister in 1985

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• Childrens presentation was a huge success and
  resulted in the setting up of a drafting
  committee to prepare the Government Bill on Child
  labour.
• National Working Group on Child Labour was set up
  by CWC which provided inputs to Ministry of
  Labour, HRD, Law and Parliamentary affairs and
  Senior Constitutional Lawyers to draft the
  Government Bill on Child Labour.
• This GOI Bill was tabled in the parliament
  during the tenure of P.A Sangama as the Central
  Labour Minister.

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Inception of the child labour law

• The Bill, with drastic amendments, was legislated
  as the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation)
  Act, 1986
• Cabinet removed the development and
  unionisation component, making it a
  conventional piece of legislation that lacks the
  teeth to effectively address the problem.

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• Statement of objects and reasons
• Prohibits 18 occupations and 65 processes for
  undr 14s.
• Regulate working environment where required.
• Lay down penalties for violation of Act.
• Bring uniformity in definition of child.
• The list of hazardous occupations and processes
  was progressively expanded on the recommendation
  of Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee
  constituted under the Act.
•  

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• A Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee was
  constituted to identify hazardous processes and
  industries
• A National Policy on Child Labour was formulated
  in 1987. The Policy seeks to adopt a gradual and
  sequential approach with a focus on
  rehabilitation of children working in hazardous
  occupations processes in the first instance.
• This approach was totally missing in action.

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Inception of the child labour law, 1986

• In 1987, the Government set up two Task Forces.
  One to recommend the institutions and the
  mechanisms necessary for implementing the Act and
  the Legal Action Plan contained in the National
  Child Labour Policy
• The other to recommend measures to proper
  conceptualisation of the projects, their
  planning, implementation and monitoring

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• A Central Advisory Board on child labour was
  constituted. Nandana was a member of the
  committee (1985-1994)
• In 1988, the National Child Labour Project (NCLP)
  Scheme was launched in 9 districts of high child
  labour endemicity in the country. The Scheme
  envisaged running of special schools for child
  labour withdrawn from work. The NCLP programmes
  were reviewed and found ineffective.

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• 1990 A National Working Group was initiated by
  CWC to review UN CRC and to discuss Indias. A
  strong case made regarding the indivisibility of
  rights of children and for the voices of
  children to be heard
• ILO-IPEC programme started in India, 1992
• India ratified the CRC in December 1992
• Globally, ILO gained momentum as the
  international agency to address Child Labour, and
  its Conventions gained precedence over the
  UNCRCs Childrens Rights Frame Work
• Child Labour also became deeply linked to Trade
  and boycott of products made by children became
  the SOP of the Northern Countries , supported
  by several Civil society groups in the South
•  
•  

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• The International Working Group on Child Labour
  was set up (1990-1997) by the Defence of Children
  International and the International Society for
  Child Abuse and Neglect for designing strategies
  to address the issue of Child Labour Globally
  with Nandana as its Chairperson.
• It monitored research in 36 countries, developed
  Strategies, enabled the First International
  Meeting of Working Childrens Movements and
  enabled their participation in the International
  Arena.

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Quote National Movement of Working Children,
2003
We want, first of all, to be recognised as
working children. This is the first step towards
solving our problems. If our identity as working
children is denied, then nothing will be done to
solve the real problems that force us to work.
We want to participate actively in solving
these problems so that we no longer need to work.
We want to build a new world where children are
not exploited and there is justice for all.
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2013 National Policy for Children

• Continuation from 1974 Policy to affirm the
  Governments commitment to the rights based
  approach in addressing the continuing and
  emerging challenges in the situation of
  children.
• 'Preamble' and 'Guiding Principles' - more
  nuanced language and understanding of child
  rights in cognisance with the UNCRC.
• Key priority areas Survival, health, nutrition,
  development, education, protection and
  participation are the undeniable rights of every
  child and are the key priorities of this Policy.
• Provided a more comprehensive commitment of the
  state to holisitic support, progressive
  jurisprudence and mechanisms, utilisation of
  technology, evidence based approaches etc.

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The recent Child Labour Amendment Bill, 2012
Introduced in Rajya Sabha by Mallikarjun Kharge
on 4th December 2012, referred to the
Parliamentary Committee by the Speaker, Lok Sabha
in consultation with the Chairman, Rajya Sabha
for examination and report. Statement of objects
and reasons a. It is proposed to prohibit
employment of children in all occupations and
processes to facilitate their enrolment in
schools in view of the Right of Children to Free
and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 b. to
prohibit employment of adolescents (persons who
have completed fourteenth year of age but have
not completed eighteenth year) in hazardous
occupations and processes and to regulate the
conditions of service of adolescents in line with
the ILO Convention 138 and Convention 182,
respectively. Conventions 138 provides that the
minimum age for admission to employment or work
shall not be less than the age of completion of
compulsory schooling. Convention 182 provides
employment of all the children below 18 years
should be prohibited in worst forms of Child
Labour.
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Basic Features
The Bill seeks to prohibit employment of children
below 14 years in all occupations except where
the child helps his family after school hours
(..family in fields, home-based work, forest
gathering or attends technical institutions
during vacations for the purpose of learning, but
does not include any help or attending technical
institutions where there is subordinate
relationship of labour or work which are
outsourced and carried out in home). The Bill
adds a new category of persons called
adolescent. An adolescent means a person
between 14 and 18 years of age. The Bill
prohibits employment of adolescents in hazardous
occupations as specified (mines, inflammable
substance and hazardous processes). Central govt
may add/omit from this list. The Bill enhances
the punishment for employing any child in an
occupation. It also includes penalty for
employing an adolescent in a hazardous
occupation. The penalty for employing a child was
increased to imprisonment between 6 months and
two years (from 3 months-one year) or a fine of
Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000 (from Rs 10,000-20,000) or
both. The penalty for employing an adolescent in
hazardous occupation is imprisonment between 6
months and two years or a fine of Rs 20,000 to Rs
50,000 or both. The government may confer
powers on a District Magistrate to ensure that
the provisions of the law are properly carried
out. The Bill empowers the government to make
periodic inspection of places at which employment
of children and adolescents are prohibited.
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Suggestions of the Standing Committee
The Standing Committee on Labour and Employment
(Chairman Mr. Dara Singh Chauhan) presented its
40th report on the Child Labour (Prohibition and
Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2012 on December 13,
2013. The Committee noted that while one of the
objectives of the Bill is to to regulate the
conditions of services of adolescents, it
contains no provisions towards that purpose. The
Committee suggested that regulation of working
conditions of the adolescents including the
criteria for their wages and settlement of
disputes with regard to age of the child be
included in the Bill. It recommended that the
Bill be amended to take a lenient view of poor
parents and those parents who were unable to
benefit from such initiatives. The Committee
censured the Ministry of Labour and Employment
for its casual reply on the issue of trafficking
and street children. It recommended that that all
concerned ministries should evolve a
comprehensive strategy to solve this
problem. The Committee noted that the Bill
contains no provision for rescue and
rehabilitation of children. It recommended that
instead of entrusting various ministries with
this task, the government should bring a New
Child Labour Policy and the machinery to
implement laws, policies and projects should be
specified therein. 16 June 2014 Invitation for
comments on proposed Amendments by Ministry.
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The recent exceptions
Exceptions added and given Cabinet approval a)
where the child helps his family or family
enterprises, which is other than any hazardous
occupations or processes set forth in the
Schedule, after his school hours or during
vacations  b) where the child works as an artist
in an audio-visual entertainment industry,
including advertisement, films, television
serials or any such other entertainment or sports
activities except the circus, subject to such
conditions and safety measures, as may be
prescribed and provided that such work does not
affect the school education of the child.
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The 30 years of the law

• Outcome of prohibition and regulation under the
  Act
• Studies show that children 'raided and rescued'
  have
• Experienced raids often arbitrary and not
  informed.
• Been traumatised by the experience of the raid
  itself. Felt like criminals being dragged out.
  Often conducted unprofessionally children held
  alongside owners threatened and scared.
• Feel criminalised, hurt and ashamed when parents
  are penalised.
• Long periods of institutionalisation which
  include serious violations of their other basic
  rights.
• Having received no long-term support ended up
  back in worse or similar work (2004 Equations and
  2014 CRY study).
• Reducing number of inspections (2009-2013 66
  drop) and poor conviction rates (2009-15
  2013-under 9) for employers. Anecdotal/
  case-study accounts on how employers manage to
  hide using illegal child work.
• Unused Child Labour Corpus Funds made post 1996
  SC judgment seems only few states had a fund
  and utilisation is extremely poor (Peoples Legal
  Forum - RTIs)

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• RTE Response to marginalised childrens unique
  needs
• Juvenile Justice system linkages
• Recent research on the ban Perverse Consequences
  Of Well-Intentioned Regulation Evidence From
  India's Child Labour Ban by Bharadwaj et al.
  (2013)
• ...the net result of this ban appears to be an
  increase in child labor in some families. We find
  that child wages decrease in response to such
  laws and poor families send out more children
  into the workforce. Due to increased employment,
  affected children are less likely to be in
  school.(...) Our results highlight the importance
  of taking into account weak enforcement and
  behavior at the margin of subsistence when
  formulating important policies in developing
  countries.
• Similar arguments and research emerging from
  other countries like Brazil. Bolivia undertook a
  radically different path last year.

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• Questions to consider for today's group
  discussion
• How do we place the amendment keeping in mind the
  last 30 years of the child labour law? What
  should be our collevtive response?
• Do we require a new child labour policy? If yes,
  what should it be like?
• What should the road ahead be?

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Thank you!