International Journal of Education and Science Research
Review
Volume-1, Issue-3
www.ijesrr.org
June- 2014
E-ISSN 2348-6457
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Crisis of Child Labour in Small Scale Industries in India
Sinu Pegu
Research Scholar
Sunrise University,Alwar, Rajasthan
Dr.Sahab Singh
Supervisor
Sunrise University,Alwar,Rajasthan
ABSTRACT:
The paper reviews the impact of the financial and econo mic crisis on child workers in India. The economic
crisis has imposed a tremendous burden on househo lds. But aside fro m the very evident rise in numbers o f
street children, much of the cost of adjust ment among children has been hidden from public scrut iny. While
many children have been displaced from wage emplo yment, many have found jobs in agriculture and the
informal sector. The effects of the crisis have been superimposed, moreover, on a structure of child work that
was already quite different from the stereotypes o ften associated with explo itation o f young workers. It is the
small and medium scale sector rather than in large-scale factories where the most abuse of child labour
occurs.
KEY WORDS: economic crisis, child work, small and medium scale sector.
INTRODUCTION:
If one desires to know a nation, he should look for it into its children. Children are the bloo ming flowers o f
the garden of the societ y. It is therefore, a duty on the part of the member of societ y to protect these flowers
fro m the damaging effects of excessive exposure to heat, cold and rains and also not to pluck them to satisfy
their mo mentary whims. Child is not only the future of a nat ion and its aspirat ions but also, and mainly it s
strength in reserve. The future of nat ion is best insured if its children are healt hy and act ive, educated and
informed disciplined and trained, as well as free fro m social prejudices, having a scient ific outlook. It is,
therefore a duty cast on the, societ y at large to protect this crop of nat ion fro m the damaging effects o f
excessive exposure to vagaries of climate, as well as, fro m social oppressio n and injust ice.
Taking all the aspects as a who le the child-hood is the most significant period of one's life. It is considered,
and right ly so, to be the very foundat ion o f life on which depends the ent ire structure the who le personalit y
as such. Child-the father of man is the natural future leader o f the nat ion in every walk o f life, may it be
industry, education, polit ics, social services, administration, defence, civil services or anything else. It is
during this format ive period of mo lding that the life begins to acquire shape and substance, and the attitudes,
behaviours, manners and emotions do get developed. The pract ice of child labour is more prevalent in poor
countries o f Asia and Africa. This is due to poverty, unemplo yment, educational, backwardness, high rate of
populat ion growth etc. In many parts of the world child labour is preferred as it is cheaper, and unorganised
child labour is an economic practice and a social evil wit h serious consequences and implicatio ns for
children, their parents and families. It is problemat ic because it interferes, obstructs and clashes with the
fulfulment of the basic needs o f working children, both material and cultural and the development of their
basic skills and capabilit ies which are so vital for being productive and efficient. Child labour denies
educational opportunit ies, reduces chances for vocational training, stuns or retards physical and mental
growth and hampers intellectual development. The child workers generally remain unskilled, underpaid and
under-privileged throughout life, restricts physic al and social mo bilit y and strengthens the vicious and
cummulat ive cycle of poverty, ill healt h and under emplo yment and unemplo yment.
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The problem o f child labour apparently may seen to be a product of such factors as custom, tradit iona l
attitude, urbanisat ion, industrialisat ion, migration, lack of schooling facilit ies, etc. But it is the poverty o f the
parents which co mpels the children to enter some vocations. The proverty may be due to prolonged illness,
physical incapacit y, under-emplo yment, bad habit s.- like drinking and gambling o f the adults bread earner.
The untimely death of the father also drives children to take up work. Due to ignorance and tradit iona l
outlook the parents often fail to appreciate the importance and usefulness of educat ion for their children.
Large proportions of child labour are actively working in different areas o f the econo my-primary, secondary,
and tertiary sector both in rural and urban areas. In rural areas they work in various agricultural operations,
househo ld duties, performing, domest ic work and cattle tending. In urban areas they are concentrated in
hotel, industry, transport, trade, commerce, househo ld work and other areas. Since the publicat ion o f the
report of the Ro yal commissio n on labour in 1931 which exposed the shocking condit io ns o f child workers
much improvement has been reported in this regard. However, there is still an extensive use o f child workers
in small industries such as carpet making, match and fire work, glass industry, sports industry scissor
industries, slate making etc.
Though it was mainly in this context that the problem o f child labour and its explo itation had long been the
subject of sporadic concern, it has been only recent ly that the probable extent and incidence o f this lo ng
standing pheno mena could be brought to the full view of the general public.
In recent time, the pheno menon of child labour draws the attention of social scient ists at the internat iona l
level as it is considered to be a serious social problem in the third world countries. It also exist in developed
countries but in a lesser extent. It may be, therefore, viewed as a universal problem challenging the huma n
rights. It may be stated that the chances of child worker to becomes full-fledged cit izens seems to be bleak.
They have every like hood to beco me physically or mentally depressed in the year to come. Hence, in the
present social context, it is important to understand the nature, intensit y, types and consequences of child
labour in India. So, an empirical study in this area is the need of the hour.
MEANING OF CHILD LABOUR:
Work experience has a direct bearing on a child's learning and his capabilit y to cope with diverse sit uations.
Work is a part of socializat ion, however work that is repet itive, mechanical, physically arduous and done for
lo ng hours is termed labour and is often injurious to a child's development and in extreme circumstance is
explo itat ive and enslaving. Thus child labour is recognised by the socio logists, development workers and
medical professionals as hazardous and injurious to the child both physically and mentally. Since all work is
not considered bad for children, the definit io n o f child labour beco mes crucial. The two major indicators
considered are explo itat ion and age. Explo itat ion as a means o f ident ifying child labour is a problemat ic
concept. In general however, explo itation refers to economic explo itation (low wages) and physica l
explo itat ion such as lo ng hours of work, hazardous working condit io ns denial of schooling and recreation
facilit ies etc. keeping these criteria in mind, it becomes clear why a single definit io n of child labour is not
easy to obtain. The Operation Research Group in India defines a working child as “........” a child falling
within the 5-15 age bracket and who is at remunerative work, may be paid or unpaid and busy at any hour of
the day wit hin or outside the family....” (Rehman, 2012). Homer Fo lks, the chairman of the United States
National child labour committee defined child labour as “any work of children that interferes wit h their full
physical development their opportunit y for a desirable minimum of educat ion a their needed recreation.”
V.V. Giri has dist inguished two sense of the term “Child labour's” : “The term ‘child labour’ is commo nly
interpreted in two different ways: first, as an econo mic pract ice and secondly, as a social evil. In the first
context it signifies emplo yment of children in gainful occupations with a view to adding to the labour income
of the family. It is in the second context that the term child labour is now more generally used. In assessing
the nature and extent of the social evil, it is necessary to take into account the character of the jobs on whic h
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the children are engaged, the dangers to which they are exposed and the opportunit ies of development which
they have been denied.”
CHILD LABOUR IN VARIOUS SECTORS IN INDIA :
In agriculture, children are emplo yed not only in agricultural operations but in non agricultural operation
also. They are emplo yed in such diverse agricultural operations as sloughing, sowing, transplant ing,
weeding, harvest ing threshing, and guarding the crops etc. In plantations, child labour is a part of family
labour. They assist their parents in plucking of leaves and coffee, barrier, or collect ing of latex, or they do
some secondary jo bs, such as weeding, spreading of fertilizers, the care of nurseries, digging o f drains, etc.
They are also emplo yed to pick out stalks and coarse leaves o f tea spread over the green leaves in the
shadow.
Children in cit ies perform much larger variet ies of act ivit ies than those in villages because o f the extensively
diversified structure of urban economics. Often, children are emplo yed for packing, labeling, etc, in the
factories. Other industries in which children are engaged are match factories, bidi manufacturing, mica,
cutting wood and cork, furniture and fixture, printing, publishing and allied trades, leather products, rubber
and rubber products, machinery, transport equipment, lock factories, gem cutting and polishing, potteries,
glass bangle industries brass work, carpet industries and personal services like laundries, dyeing and
cleaning.
Sivakasi in Tamilnaidu is famous for match and fireworks industries For match industry there are two
sectors: viz handmade and machine made. WIMCO is the large unit in the mechanised sectors. The “youngpersons” have been emplo yed in the industry but they have been emplo yed according to the factories Act,
1948. In the unmechanised sector or handmade sector out of total labourers 30 to 35% are children and the
girls have outnumbered the bo ys. In Sivakasi match factories, children are put to work at frame filling, box
filling and bundle ro lling operations and at times work is carried at home. Similarly, in bidi industries,
children help the adults in cutting and cleaning o f the leaves, and when bidies are rolled up children do the
work of binding and closing of the ends o f the bidies. Some children are also engaged to do the rolling work
with their nimble fingers.
In pencil industries, children work amidst hazardous slate dust that condemns them to early disabilit y and
death fro m lung diseases. Similarly, in gem cutting and polishing industries of Jaipur, children are exposed to
explo itat ion. The stone po lishing industry of Jaipur emplo ys 10,000 children. During the first year of their
entrance in the gem cutting and po lishing, they work as helpers, learn cutting o f gems on abrasive wheels
and also do such jobs as cleaning of the premises, etc. After one year they learn now to shape stones by
grinding facets on them. They take about four or five years to learn cutting, shaping and drum-po lishing o f
uncut or unshaped stones. Then they learn polishing of facetted stones on finer grinding wheels. Within next
two or three years, their output is co mparable to that of average adult s. Mostly they work on job basis in
unhealt hy environment and there is abso lutely no securit y of job.
Children in the age group 8-15 years are also employed in zari-making and embro idery industry in Lucknow.
They sit and work for long hours in over-crowded dingy rooms with poor light ing and ventilat ion. Many o f
them, therefore, suffer fro m eye diseases. Lastly we may say though there are various Labour legislation but
its implementation is not proper. But the Problem is if the laws are enforced properly the societ y will suffer
because the children are emplo yed to earn something for their family. If it is stopped they may be the street
begger or lumpen. Therefore, it requires the eradication o f povert y first and then the implementation of laws
properly.
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CHILD LABOUR PROBLEM IN ASSAM:
For trial o f industrial disputes, Government of Assam has set up two industrial tribunals one for upper Assa m
with headquarters at Dibrugarh and the other for lower Assam including Cachar with headquarters at
Guwahati. Their funct ions are to adjudicate the disputes referred to them by the Government under
provisio ns o f industrial Disputes Acts. Further, it may be mentioned here that under the Five Year Plans the
Government of Assam had undertaken the establishment of communit y centres for plantation labour in
concentrated tea areas with a view to ameliorating the condit io n o f labour and training up in cultural, social,
economic, educat ional and similar other activit ies.
The State Labour Department has also established a number of welfare centres for urban industrial labour in
Assam and also arranges training of departmental o fficers in the subjects relating to labour welfare. The
enactment of Plantation Labour Act in 1951 has brought about improvement in the working condit ion of the
plantation workers in Assam. It is a co mprehensive place o f legislat ion and had put emplo yers under
obligat ion to all tea, coffee, rubber, cinchona plantations with an area o f 25 acres or more and emplo ying 30
on more persons. It can be extended to other plantations by the State Government. It provides for creation o f
inspecting staff by the State Government and imposit ion o f penalt ies for contravention of provisio ns of the
Act. Under this Act the emplo yers are required to provide drinking water, sufficient latrines and urinals for
men and wo men, canteens in every plantation where 150 or more workers are emplo yed and creches where
50 or more women are emplo yed. Emplo yers are also to make arrangements for proper medical and
educational facilit ies for the workers and their children. Providing standard t ype housing acco mmodations
for the workers and their families is also the responsibilit y o f the emplo yer. Besides maternit y and sickness
benefits,the workers are allowed leave wit h wages. Children below 12 years are not to work in plantatio n and
night work between 7 P.M. and 6 A.M. is prohibit ed for women and adolescents. Welfare Officers are to be
appointed in every plantation where 300 or more workers are emplo yed. In accordance with that Act, free
education upto the lower primary standard is provided by the management on most of the tea estates of
Assam. Besides, to provide medical facilit ies, the management of the tea estates has established hospitals
and dispensaries within their estates. In tea plantation areas, houses are provided free o f charge. In the early
thirties and forties. 90% of the houses in the tea plantations of Assam were Kacha houses made of mud walls
and thatched roofs. These houses were devo id of sanitary provisio ns. There were no latrine, window or
verandha in any house. Labourers were required to get their houses repaired themselves. Even access to
labourers' quarters was prohibited to all except worker's friends and relat ives on grounds o f right to private
property. The Ro yal Commissio n in 1929 objected to this recommended that all the plantation areas should
be thrown open to the public and there should be Boards of Health and Welfare to determine minimu m
requirements of housing.
The problem o f providing improved housing accommodat ion came up for discussio n at the first Tripart ite
Plantation Conference which held in New Delhi in January,1947. Later on, it was discussed at the second
session o f the Industrial Plantation Co mmittee's meet ing held in September,1949 and November,1950. The
Indian Tea Associat ion drew up certain minimum housing specificat ion which were accepted by the
Government of Assam. Wit h the enact ment of the Plantation Labour Act,1951,responsibilit y for making
necessary houses for the workers and their families ,now rests with the emplo yers o f respect ive tea estates.
In pursuance of this Act, some progress, no doubt, has been made but still much remain to be done
especially in unecono mic and small tea gardens.
The introduction of the Assam Tea Plantation Provident Fund and Pensio n Fund Scheme Act, 1955 has
ushered in a new era of socio-economic uplift of the plantation workers in the State of Assam. It extends the
statutory guarantee of social justice and social security to the working class engaged in the plantation in the
estates. The scheme o f provident fund under the Act is applicable to (a)Plantations having 25 or more acres
of land under tea wit h productions o f more than 200 kgs. Of tea per acre, and (b)Plantation having 50 or
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more acres under tea irrespect ive of the rate of production. In pursuance of the provision o f the Assam Tea
Plantation Fund Scheme (Amendment) Act,1958,some small and unecono mic plantations have been
exempted form its purview. The benefits o f the Contributory Provident Fund are co mpulsory extended to
all categories of emplo yees barring personnels of managerial and execut ive cadres and other emplo yees
whose total (cash) emo luments exceed Rs.1000/- per month per head. The emplo yees o f the tea gardens are
classified into three broad categories, viz., adult labour, adolescent and children but the Fund recognises no
such classification for this membership. The rate of contribut ion to the provident funds has been raised fro m
61/2% to8% of the wages of the workers both from the emplo yees.
CAUSES OF CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA:
Child labour is a socio-economic pheno menon. It is generally conceded that illiteracy ignorance, low wages,
unemplo yment, poor standard of living, stark poverty, deep social prejudices and appallings backwardness o f
the country side are all, severally and co llect ively, the root cause of child labour. It has been officially stated
that, ``child labour is no longer, a medium o f economic explo itat ion but is necessilated by economic
necessit y o f the parents and in many cases that of the child himself''. Prof. Gangrade believes that child
labour is a product of factors such as customs, tradit ional attitude, lack of school or reluctance o f parents to
send their children to school, urbanizat ion, industrializat ion migration and so on. Amo ng the various causes
of child-labour in India, the fo llowing are most important—
POVERTY:
Widespread poverty is one of the major causes of child labour. In India, which is a developing country,
poverty forces the parents to send their children to seek emplo yment because augmentation of their income is
essent ial for the survival of the family, including the children themselves. Illness and other contingencies
demand extra money in hand and the emplo yment of children is resorted to as a quick and easily accessible
way to get it.
MAGNITUDE OF THE PROBLEM:
The history o f child labour is not new. It is as old as the civilisat ion itself. In the primit ive age too, child
labour existed as well, but their area was limit ed to ho me or in the fields. The pract ice gradually took a shape
of an evil, certainly after industrial revolut ion took place. Child labour may be seen every where in the
world, be it USA, UK, Italy or Germany. The accurate and precise est imate of the overall magnitude of child
labour, either fro m a qualitat ive or quant itative po int of view, is virtually not possible due to the
predominance o f informal and unorganised nature of the labour market. The problem o f estimat ing the child
labour force beco mes all the more co mplicated and co mplex on account of the mult iplicit y o f concepts,
modes of measurement, methods of research and the sources of information for data collection.
A report published by the Director General o f International Labour Organisat ion in 2014 says: ``Children
and youth make up a fifth, or a fourth or even a third of the total labour force in many of the industrialis ing
countries. Young people between 15 to 19 make up 20% of the labour force of the Eguptian Regio n o f the
united Arab Republic and a higher percentage in many o f the less developed Asian and African countries;
and it should be noted that in mo st of the less developed areas the great bulk of children seek to enter the
labour force by the time they are 12, 13, or 14, if they have not begun to work, at a much earlier age. ''
REVIEW OF LITERATURE:
At the world for children summit held on 30 September 2014, it was agreed to end the practice of child
labour. The Summit also focused its attention on the welfare o f the children pussing legit imate employment.
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It further recommended various strategies to deal with the problem o f child labour in general and healthy
uppringing o f children in particulars.
The nat ion of child labour seems to have its base in orthodox thinking. As an illustration o f this, one may
refer to the belief found in the development countries, for many parents in working class families, more
children implies addit io nal working hands to support the family inco me, This belief is, whether justified or
not a tradit ion-oriented, handed down for generation to generation. In the view o f Elias Memdelieviceh.
``This idea stems not so much fro m povert y as from the traditional belief that there is no point in making any
plans beyo nd those for statisfying the family's immediate basic needs''. The parents are, therefore, not
interested in building a bright future for their children, but in explo it ing them for immediate present. As a
result, the children beco me an integral part of the househo ld econo my, which happens to be a curse in their
life.
The child labour is equally a social problem in the sense that millio ns o f children in the world are
economically explo ited by their families that are supposed to provide them with securit y and lo ve. This
explo it io n is an act of social injust ice. The owners of small-scale and cottage industries find the child labour
a source of immense, profitabilit y, consequent ly, they emplo y a large number of children for a meage wage.
Moreover, the parents expect their econo mic pursuits. But, they fail to realise that certain forms of work
would bring harmful effects on their children to the extent of turning them into frail men in the years to
come.
Mostly poverty-stricken families, especially the families o f harijans and low caste people, force the parents
to put their children to work as, early as possible instead of sending them to school. Comment ing on the
pit iable predicament of the parents Gangrade observes : ``For them, uneducated children are an asset, and the
desire to educate them beco mes a double liabilit y because of, first, the loss o f earning of the child who does
not work, and second the expenditure invo lved in educat ion, however low it may be'' (i) Especially in the
developing countries, it is o ften taken for granted that children have to get into the workforce instead o f
getting them educated. They have to shoulder the responsibilit y wit hin this distorted frame work in order to
support their old, unemplo yed and unhealt hy parents.
Inspite o f the child labour (prohibit io n and regulat ion) Act of 1986 which aims at banning the work of
children in so me industries and regulat ion its condit ions in others, India has the largest child labour forced
invo lved in most ly hazardous jobs. The situat ion is eqully serious in other part of the third world too. One of
the main reasons for the prevalent of this problem in India is the enadequate enforcement of this Act.
STUDIES CONDUCTED ON CHILD LABOUR:
Let us discuss the various studies conducted on child labour in India.
Taking into account, the study conducted by on child labour especially in Swakasi (2014) Match factories
and fireworks, it is foundout that 41.2% of the respondents worked in match factories previously where as at
present 24.4% engage themselves in the same work. 86.6% of the respondents work for 7-12 hours a day for
that they are paid Rs. 1500 to 2000 per month. The main reason for going out to work is found out to be to
provide a supplementary inco me to the family. 32.7% of the respondents does so for the past 17-18 mo nths.
It has been found that 49.6% come fro m Illiterate family. Amo ng the working children, 8% of female and
3.1% of male children and making use of the education provided by special schools by NCL. It is clear that
92.2% of the children get minor ailments due to poor working condit io ns, amo ng them 68% fallen sick often
68% of them get treatment from Allopat ic side for which they preferred District hospitals (12.2%). As far as
the aspirat ions o f the working children are concerned 86.5% have no other alternative then the same jo b.
Though so many welfare and rehabilitat ion programmes are undertaken by governmental and nongovernmental agencies, 61.8% of the respondents are unaware o f them on 8.2% take assistance fro m
Rehabilitat ive programmes o f 6.1% seek help from E.S.I. Thus in this study we have made an attempt to find
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out the work life of the working children by interviewing both the children are their parents. It is clear-cut
that the opinio ns o f both of them tally in one way or other. It is also very nice to see the fact the emplo yers
attitude towards working children has improved a lot during the past few years.
Prof. Chickavemkatesaiah (2012) made a study of a few selected villages in North Taluk of Bangalore
district. The Findings are revealing in the sense that the child labour comes primarily form poor scheduled
caste and labour class. It could also be inferred that certain patterns of obligat ions and norms might have
influenctheir children as labour.
Singh and Verma (2009) conducted a study ``Child labour in agriculture'' in 14 villages o f Nainital district
(U.P.). They selected 500 families out of 2886, and noted that child labour co mes fro m the poor families and
poor classes majorit y o f child laboures belo ngs to the age group of 13 to 18 years. Child labour are illiterate
of have studied upto five class : The non-enrolled children are fro m poor class Mostly belo ng to large sized
nuclear families.
UNIVERSE OF THE STUDY:
Child labour is present in various sectors in District Assam. To delineate our universe, we have chosen the
child labour in tradit ional sports industry (Other being scissor Industry). The universe in the present study is
thus composed of child labour emplo yed in sports industry of Assam & different state of India. The universe
is also crucial because state government had declared sports work under hazardous industries.
SAMPLE:
The universe o f the present study consist of child labour emplo yed in industries. It was assumed that most of
these units were emplo ying child labour clandest inely. 48 units were selected by using systematic sampling
method. Sampling interval was nearly 10.
COLLECTION OF DATA:
A structured interview schedule was used for co llection o f data. As far as possible, an attempt was also made
to supplement quant itative and qualitat ive data through the informat ion received by informal interviews as
well as personal observat ion.
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