The curious case of ‘nowhere’ children

In order to align with the provisions as contained in The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 (RTE, 2009), the Union Cabinet in May, 2015, gave its approval for moving official amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2012. This Bill proposes to ban employment of all children below 14 years “in all occupations and processes”.

However, the Bill does not say explicitly whether the “nowhere” children will be put in the category of child labour or not. But, firstly, who are the “nowhere children”?

In India, for the purpose of the System of National Accounts (SNA), any person engaged in any “economic activity” is termed a labour. Economic activity here encompasses activities that result in the production of goods and services that add value to the national product.

The definition of child labour also emanates from the SNA. Any children, below 14 years of age, engaged in any economic activity are considered as ‘child labour’ for the purpose of SNA. But, The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act (CLPRA), 1986, is the all-important Act which governs the issue of child labour in India.

According to this Act, children engaged in “certain specified occupations and processes mentioned in the Act” are child labourers in the legal sense. As of now, there are only 18 occupations and 65 processes in which children below 14 years have been prohibited from working.

However, if the children are engaged in household enterprises, even if the work is hazardous, it is not deemed as child labour.

In addition, agriculture and allied occupations and domestic and related works do not come under the purview of this Act. Apart from the children engaged in economic and non-economic activities, the literature also mentions “nowhere children”. “It is a measure of children who are neither in school and nor at work.” The table shows the status of children engaged in different activities during 2011-12.

The 2011-12 figures show that 3.91 million children were engaged in economic activities, but legally speaking, only 0.81 million could be termed as child labourers as per the CLPRA, 1986, (only 0.3 per cent of total child population in the 5-14 age group) as most of the children were engaged in household enterprises (2.73 million), mainly in agricultural and allied activities (1.98 million). Over 3 million, mostly girls, were engaged in domestic and related works.

But a whopping 17.5 million children were “nowhere”, and they constitute over 6.6 per cent of total children in the age group of 5-14 years, a majority of them in the rural areas.

Are these children, “nowhere” in the real sense of the term, or are they employed in disguise in economic or non-economic activities, or are they not on the lookout for work? No definite answers could be given because of the paucity of information about them.

By letting these millions of children stray, or letting them work in disguised forms, both the parents and the state are depriving the children of capability formation.

There is a very high probability that once they grow up to be adults, less educated and with no or very low life-earning skills, this category of children will be a menace not only to the families they belong to, but also to the society, the community and the nation.

The proposed amendments to the CLPRA assume significant importance given the large number of children engaged in the agriculture sector and also in domestic and related works.

Once the Bill is enacted as a law, the children employed in either economic activities or in domestic or other works will be treated as child labourers.

But this Bill has not clarified its stand on “nowhere” children. The Right to Education Act (RTE, 2009) makes it “compulsory” for the state to provide free elementary education to every child and to ensure compulsory admission, attendance and completion of elementary education by every child. Elementary education means from class I through class VIII.

Thus, going by this precept, “nowhere children” should also be categorised as child labour, and if the children do not attend school and complete elementary education, then the “state” is responsible for it.

The state cannot blame parents if they don’t send their children to school and engage them in work (either in economic activities or in non-economic activities or the children ends up “nowhere”), the onus lies on them.

To avoid this conceptual confusion, “nowhere” children should also be included in the category of child labour and every effort should be made by the state so that they complete at least elementary education and also learn important skills so that they don’t go astray or end up in a state of poverty.

Giri is a research scholar in the department of humanities and social sciences, IIT-Roorkee. Singh is a professor in the same department

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