Statistics presented at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conference in Geneva recently, reveal that India has 17 million child labourers, (children under the age of 14) the highest in the world. Unofficial estimates by UNICEF place the number at anything between 70 and 80 million, around 12 to 13 million of whom work in hazardous occupations.

This gap between official figures and estimates can be attributed to the fact that most parents and employers are hesitant to include child workers in the census. More important the US in its recent annual state Department Report has placed India in its second worst category of human trafficking and child labour, for the fifth time in a row.

Though in the recent past, several hundreds of child labourers have been “rescued� from small scale units, the ecstasy of NGOs, child rights activists and government authorities can at best be short lived. In the absence of an adequate rehabilitation programme or financial support, after the so called rescue operations the children are often back to square one.

Clearly legal remedies are inadequate to yield the desired results. Sending the rescued children to observation homes, prior to restoring them to their parents does not really help solve the problem. It is imperative that the “rescued� children are properly rehabilitated and are assured of two square meals a day, a decent roof over their head and proper clothing, in order to avail of the benefits of a decent education.

A boy, rescued form one such embroidery unit in a Bombay slum, and now roaming the streets in the vicinity, told an NGO volunteer that in the embroidery unit, at least he was assured of two meals a day. Moreover the embroidery unit meant a roof over his head and protection against the hazardous vagaries of street life.

Most children in the child labour force work in small scale units, cottage industries, brick kilns, hotels or as domestic servants, agricultural labourers, or street vendors. Working conditions are generally sub human and at times even hazardous. Apart from being denied education, they are often subject to different forms of exploitation and abuse.

The Government of India on its part, has always been committed to the elimination of child labour. Article 21A – “Right to Education� in the section of fundamental rights states that the state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children in the age of 6 to 14 years. Article 24 states that no child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed in any factory or mine or any other hazardous employment.

The Government of India also passed the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation Act) 1986. The Acts prohibits the employment of children under 14 years of age in a number of listed occupations. The Act specifies a penalty for employers employing children. In October 2006, the government by law banned the employment of children as domestic helpers or in hotels canteens etc.

However the acts and the laws have remained largely on paper. Enforcement or even a workable machinery to implement the policies seems to be totally lacking in the government’s efforts. For instance it is a well known fact that a large number of children in the age group of 6 to 14 years do not attend school, or drop out in between. The figure is far greater in the rural areas as compared to the urban areas. These are the children who then form part of the child labour force.

A noteworthy point is that very few people have either been booked or prosecuted under the laws. In a discussion on the issue in the Lok Sabha over a Private Member’s Bill introduced by Mr. Iqbal Ahmed Saradgi, it was unanimously agreed that the problem of child labour can not be solved by legislation alone, since it was inextricably linked with poverty and illiteracy. Hence a holistic multi pronged and concerted effort is imperative to tackle this problem. This in turn implies an extensive reform process to strike at the root cause of the problem.

As a first step towards dealing with the problem, the Government, in conjunction with various Child Rights NGOs and the state run schools, should put machinery in place to monitor the implementation of Government policies. A conciliatory rather than disciplinary approach needs to be adopted, using a team of counsellors whose task would be to analyse the cause of the problem, put the children and parents through counselling sessions and then arrive at a practicable solution.

A cardinal cause for the increasing incidence of child labour is parental poverty. Almost all those in question are children of unskilled labourers subsisting on very low family income levels. The parents, who often struggle for long hours in sub human conditions, are unlikely to spend time and money to further the child’s education.

Coupled with this is the problem of large families and consequently more mouths to feed. Hence, a working child means additional income, however marginal. Successful family planning programmes in different parts of the country have shown in many cases that child labour declines as the birth rate drops.

The Government initiated the Sarva Shikshan Abhiyan (Education for All) in sink with Article 21, has remained a non starter. A Government decree announcing free education programme does not exempt parents and guardians from incurring related costs like transport, books, clothing, which they can not afford.

Another deterrent in the success of the Sarva Shikshan Abhiyan is the pathetic state of the quality of education in government run schools. Over crowded classrooms, improper ventilation, indifferent and apathetic teachers are some of the rampant problems that need to be dealt with. Moreover, the drop out rate is very high, up to 50% ion several cases.

Merely establishing schools with brick and mortar in a bid to stamp out illiteracy is definitely not a feasible solution. What the children actually need is motivation and some incentive to attend school regularly. An initiative to be considered is some form of stipendiary or financial support to cover minimum expenses, plus decent meals. Priority should also be given to improving the quality of education and the facilities. Here the corporate sector should be roped in to foster a government – corporate joint initiative to better the quality of education in state run schools so that the maxim of “learning is fun� is adhered to, and the drop out rate minimized.

Further, lack of proper credit facilities often compels the labourers to fall into the debt trap of local moneylenders at exorbitant rates of interest. As a result, a large number of children particularly in the rural areas find themselves forced into bonded labour. Sadly, the Act abolishing bonded labour, passed in 1976, has met the same fate as all other legislations and constitutional safeguards.

One way out of this situation is that various state governments in conjunction with NGOs consider setting up credit societies to reach this stratum of society. Such credit societies if established properly, would in the long run also automatically act as a safeguard against under exploitation of its members.

A major adverse impact of child labour is that it creates a cycle of poverty. The child labourer remains illiterate and can at best be suited for causal labour in his or her adulthood. This ends up in the continuation of the cycle of poverty and child labour to the next generation. It is therefore the responsibility of the government and all the agencies involved to ensure that each succeeding generation is able to rise above the problem.

The priority of the government here is to ensure that the basic needs of the poor are fulfilled before the problem of child labour is directly tackled. If poverty is addressed, the incidence of child labour will automatically decline. Otherwise rescued child labourers will be back on the streets or worse still it could be a return to back breaking work in another part of the country; situations that need to be avoided at all costs.