It saddens us to see how government efforts to end child labour continue to be limited mostly to observing special days, arranging seminars and such gestures, while the plight of working children remains unaddressed. The World Day Against Child Labour, observed on June 12 each year, offers us a chance to revisit this issue and renew our commitment. There are about 3.45 million child workers in the country, according to an estimate. Of them, 1.75 million fall under child labour category. Most of them are engaged in hazardous jobs, while a significant minority of them are in highly hazardous jobs.

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Shedding light on child labour in educational institutions

The question is, why is the situation so bad even though we have so many national policies and laws to eradicate child labour? How can underage children still be employed in hazardous jobs when the Labour Act 2006 specifies that the minimum age of employment is 14 and a number of sectors – steel rolling mills, plastic and metal factories, etc. – have been declared as hazardous for children? A joint survey conducted by the ILO and UNICEF on 709 factories has found that 41.5 percent of their total workers were children, between 10 and 12 years of age. So, what have we exactly achieved after being a signatory to a number of international instruments that aim to protect the rights of children? Clearly, very little.

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Children belong in schools, not factories

While the government has been very keen in enacting laws, it appeared little interested in implementing them. In recent years, the number of child labourers has been on the rise mostly due to the impact of the pandemic – many students from poor households have since dropped out of schools – but we have not seen any sustained and well-thought-out measures to reverse this trend. Such inaction is unacceptable. If the government is really sincere about ending child labour, it must change its laissez-faire approach to this issue. The government reportedly has a target of eliminating child labour by 2025. If that is the case, it must double down on existing efforts to achieve that goal.