To,

The Honourable President of India, 

After the Rajya Sabha, the Lok Sabha too has failed working children: Allowing for Regressive Amendments to Child Labour Act – a momentous opportunity to Repeal and Re-enact a fundamentally faulty Act has been lost.

We sincerely appeal to you to apply your constitutional mandate to withhold assent and refer the Child Labour (Prohibition and Amendment) Bill, 2015  passed in the Lok Sabha with un-unanimous vote to a Special Select Committee and uphold the rights of children.

 Since its first tabling, four years ago, the State should have critically reviewed why child labour has remained rampant in the country despite enactments of legislation and how a plethora of state policies and failures were directly contributing to the increasing number of communities eking out a survival in severe poverty and deprivation, compelling more children to enter child labour. Instead, now the State abdicates its duty with just a sweeping ban of labour of children under 14, without a single safety net or rehabilitative process in place. Without viable alternatives, it is commonsense that children will be further criminalised and will be forced to resort to invisible and hence, even more exploitative labour. It is also to be noted the Cabinet Minister for Women and Child Development was absent during the debate in both houses, which reflects upon the flawed perspective on Child Labour being seen as a Labour issue when  it is a Child Rights issue.

The Amendment Bill bans all forms of work by children under the age of 14 years, but makes an exception which allows children under the age of 14 years to work in family based enterprises, and in the audio – visual and entertainment industry. (Part A; Section 3); an extremely retrograde step as it perpetuates work in family based enterprises – which is where labour of children will be outsourced to insidiously – if a ban is in place and no other alternatives are readily available to children.  They will be impossible to monitor and may well provide the cheap labour for the ‘make in India’ production houses – where children will be totally unprotected.

The Bill introduces a new category of ‘adolescent’, defining them as those aged between 14 and 18 years, and prohibits their employment in hazardous processes (Part A; Section 2 of the Principal Act; Clause (ia)). The Bill fails to make any provisions for this newly created category of ‘adolescents’ nor does it specify the reason for creating this new category. The so called ‘Hazardous processes’ are only determined by the Factories Act that governs adults and leaves open doors for violations of rights of adolescents – more cheap labour – provided on a platter to the Industry.

It also makes provisions for increased penalty of parents whose children are employed, further victimising them and criminalising them for their circumstances of poverty.

It has been almost 30 years since the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986, was enacted yet the issue of child labour still remains unresolved. While the Government Census figures seem to indicate a decline, this has been contested by several prominent child rights organisations, some even predicting that the real figures relating to child labour are three times what the Census claims. In fact, recent reports suggest that child labour in urban India has gone up and considering the current response, it will take India another 100 years to truly address harmful work undertaken by children! 

To keep the ban in place, its primary tool is a poorly funded and trained set of inspectors who use 'raid and rescue' to remove children from situations of dangerous work. The process of 'raid and rescue', as the docu-drama 'Banned Aid' shows, has often been deeply traumatising for the children.

The failure of the current method has also been acknowledged by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour which scrutinised the Child Labour Amendment Bill, 2012. While, in conversation with the Labour Department, it made several clarifications regarding:

a) Many types of vulnerable children not being supported through the current act such as those on the street;

b) The finer details of rescue and rehabilitation;

c) Prevention of child labour;

d) Capacities of the Department in terms of handling this issue.

The response of the Ministry of Labour and Employment was seen as casual and inadequate. In fact, after its one year long deliberations, the Committee's final word was 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”.

The Labour minister defending the Bill in both houses claimed it is a historic – how can minor tinkering of a radically faulty approach which simply does not address the causes nor seek to mitigate the reasons why children work stand to this claim? Both the Act and its flagship, the National Child Labour Programme [NCLP] ignore the larger socio-economic environment in which child labour is embedded, turning a blind eye to poverty and thereby failing to respond to the urgent needs of impoverished and marginalized children, their families and communities.

The Gurupadaswamy Committee on child labour formed in 1979, recognised the complexity of the issue of child labour even back then and pointedly said that a 'multiple policy approach' would be required for a holistic response. Decades down the line, this is still missing.

On behalf of our children who are toiling and faced with unjust situations, we reject this Bill and request the Honourable President to take cognisance.

We urge the Honourable President to refer the Bill to a Special Select Committee to arrive at a holistic approach that incorporates the synergy of all concerned departments such as Education, Labour, DWCD, Health, Social Welfare, Police, RDPR, Urban Administration, Housing as opposed to the current fragmented and simplistic ban approach.

A holistic and comprehensive approach will ensure not just reduction in child labour but also address the equally serious issue of trafficking of children, and facilitate shift from a punitive and criminalising approach towards a more supportive, rehabilitative, enabling and empowering approach set within the framework of Child Rights.

 Yours sincerely,