This Child Works- Beyond Hope, Beyond Despair

After long years (twenty years) the Child Labour Act was promulgated, a blanket ban has been imposed on the employment of children as domestic help or servants in roadside kiosks from 10 October. The challenge is daunting and the govrnment’s response might appear to be almost touching on the face of it. The ministry of labour would be loathe to concede as much, but this is an indirect admission of the fact that the 1986 legislation has been a colossal failure.

The reality is much too chilling and reflects the appallingly dismal state of child welfare, indeed the quality of life. It would be no exaggeration to suggest that children now constitute a huge workforce in the unorganised sector. To make a piece of legislation more stringent is not an end in itself; its effectiveness hinges entirely on the implementation at the Central and state levels. And in contemporary metro India, thattask appears to rank awfullylow in the list of priorities of the establishment irrespective of the political affiliation. While a survey can perhaps be made of the childrenemployed in the eateries, keeping tabs on those working as domestic help acrossthe country may be next to impossible as their number shall always remain indeterminate. At any rate, the taks is much too formidable for the government to accomplish with its own devices; welfare organisations, perhaps even the unicef if that doesn’t hurt the sarkari ego.

The striking feature of child labour is that it is a malaise that afflicts both town and country. In families that have to contend with grinding poverty and privation, a child is regarded as an additional earning member. It is the nation’s tragedy if the attractions of the sweatshop-it translates to additional income-are irresistible, even profitable to hundreds of thousands of families. If the hand-pulled rickshaw is an icon of dehumanised labour, the child worker is no less a disgrace.