Social activists say the Centre is opening the floodgates to child trafficking by allowing them to work in the euphemistically defined ‘family enterprises’.

Please sign this petition and appeal to the Government of India to save children from being exploited.

An amendment to the Child Labour Prohibition Act proposed by the Modi government is about to undo the hard-won progress in the area of child labour and condemn millions of children to exploitative employment. The amendment will allow children below the age of 14 to work in “family enterprises”, which is a euphemism for industries such as carpet-weaving, beedi-rolling, gem-polishing, lock-making and matchbox-making. The new norms will also apply to the entertainment industry and sports. The amendment flies in the face of the Right to Education Act, 2009, which guarantees education to every child. After the RTE came in, child labour dropped from 12.6 million in 2001 to 4.3 million in 2014. The amendment will undo much of that progress. It will also be a serious setback to all the work done by activists to rescue children from bonded labour and exploitation.The amendment can also be used to deny education to the girl child, who will be sucked into all manner of housework. According to government statistics, male literacy levels in 2014 stood at about 82% while female literacy levels were as low as 64%. The school drop-out rate for girl children is almost double the rate for boys.