The Hindu Business Line : Welcome reprieve

The prohibition of employment of children "as domestic servants or servants or in dhabas (roadside eateries), restaurants, hotels, motels, teashops, resorts, spas or in other recreational centres" has come not a day too soon in the interest of the deprived young citizens. If children are the future of the republic, every effort should be made to give them a fair chance to flower into responsible and productive citizens no matter what their social or economic status. Seen from this perspective, the Government should be commended for taking the step it has under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986.

The 1986 legislation — which, in its original form, specifically prohibited employment of children under 14 "in a catering establishment at a railway station, involving the movement of a vendor or any other employee of the establishment from one platform to another or into or out of a moving train" — allowed the government to expand the schedule of banned occupations. This is precisely what has been done now. Of interest, however, is the immediate reason cited by the authorities for banning child labour in the new work areas — the "physical violence, psychological traumas and at times even sexual abuse" which the hapless children have to bear silently as also the "long hours" they are forced to put in, very often in "various hazardous activities (which severely affect) their health and psyche." These are no doubt serious grounds on which child labour should be prohibited, the focus clearly being to prevent children from being employed in hazardous occupations. The disturbing thought, however, lies in the inference that, in terms of the official stand and in the absence of these specific malpractices, the Government would have had no qualms allowing the continuation of such labour which, among other things, knocks the bottom out of the universal principle that young minds should be given a fair opportunity (meaning adequate schooling and generally good health) to prepare themselves for productive citizenship in later years.

In fact, this is the basis of Articles 39f and 45 of the Constitution (on the protection of the dignity of children and the provision of free and compulsory education for children below 14), the much more important issue here clearly being the Government's responsibility to look after the educational and health needs of the young people who will be thrown out of employment following the latest official directive. The subject is not new or the fact that no firm figures are available on child labour in India (Unicef's mid-1990s estimate was 75-90 million for under-14s). What is, however, known for certain is that the money earned by the children has become an important element of Rural India's economics, which is likely to be disturbed at the family-level by the child labour-prohibition measures.

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