Government Measures to Prevent Child Labour

Legal Measures against Child Labour

In the very constitution of India provisions are made to protect the interests of children. Article 24 of the Constitution states that children below 14 years shall not be employed any factory or in any hazardous unit.

The first Act to regulate the employment of children was the Factory Act of 1881, which forbids the appointment of children below 7 years. Second was the Indian Merchant Shipping act, 1923 which prevents appointing children below 14 in ships. A Commission was established in 1929 to fix the minimum age of child employment, on whose recommendation, the Child Labour Act 1933 was passed prohibiting employment of children below 14 years of age and no children can be pledged for rhe purpose of getting loan nor for repaying loan.

The Factory Act of 1948 provided some safeguards to child labourers in form of forbidding appointment of children below 14 years for work and fixes the duration of work at 4and half per day. Though these legislation were undertaken during the British rule, they were not properly enforced. The plantation labour act, 1951 which forbids appointment of children below 12 years for plantation work. The mines act, 1952 which prevents the appointment of children below 15 years from working in deep mines. In 1986, the Parliament enacted the Child Labour Act (Regulation and Prohibition), The Act prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 years in 16 occupations and 65 processes that are hazardous to the children's lives and health. These occupations and processes are listed in the Schedule to the Act. In October 2006, the Government has included children working in the domestic sector as well as roadside eateries and motels under the prohibited list of hazardous occupations. More recently, in September 2008 diving as well as process involving excessive heat (e.g. working near a furnace) and cold; mechanical fishing; food processing; beverage industry; timber handling and loading; mechanical lumbering; warehousing; and processes involving exposure to free silica such as slate, pencil industry, stone grinding, slate stone mining, stone quarries as well as the agate industry were added to the list of prohibited occupations and processes;

With the intention of removing the practice of child labour in total especially in the hazardous industries by the end of the 20 th century, the central government constituted a “National Authority” on 2 nd October 1993. The government decided to spend nearly Rs. 850 crores for the benefit of at least 2 million children out of a total of 17 million child workers. This institute intended to rehabilitate the child workers in at least 15000 schools spread over the whole nation. The institutions plan to give compensation to the families whose children are taken for hazardous work.