"In the last three years, a mockery has been made out of the law," said Bhuwan Ribhu, national secretary of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, a child rights organisation, which had filed an RTI query with the Union ministry of labour and employment.
"The reply was quite shocking. The ministry has no data whatsoever on the enforcement of the ban for the year 2009," said Ribhu, although estimates suggest there are 30 million children working across sectors.
As per labour ministry, a total of 12,666,377 children were working in various sectors including agriculture.
An estimated 185,595 children are employed as domestic help and in small roadside eateries while most child domestic workers are trafficked by placement agencies operating in poor states like Orissa, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
In October 2006, the government amended the 23-year-old child labour act, bringing two more categories -- children working as domestic helps and those employed in road-side eateries, hotels, restaurants, teashops, spas and other recreation centres -- under the prohibited occupations, thus enforcing a complete ban on employment of children.
The situation on the ground has not changed even three years after the ban that prohibited employment of children aged under 14 years, the child rights activists contend.
The officials, however, asserted that they were doing whatever possible to completely enforce the ban.
"We are doing the best possible and (that too) as per the guidelines issued by the Delhi high court," a senior labour department official said, not wishing to be named. According to him, they were overworked and understaffed.
As per the information obtained, the authorities have carried out only 36,430 inspections across the country between October 2006 and April 2008. Of them 1,700 cases detected and only 138 prosecutions have been filed, Ribhu said.
While 528 children were sent back to their parents without legal formalities, only 145 children were put in shelter homes.
Strangely, there are only 28 families -- 26 in Andhra Pradesh and two in Karnataka -- that received economic benefits for rehabilitation, under the Bonded Labour Act, he added.
"Previously, only the stone-quarries, zari factories, industries and brick kilns, were the culprits. But now, with two additional areas included, the child labour law is being flouted behind every other door," said Ribhu, citing the 2006 amendment to the law. Prabir Basu, National Convenor of Campaign Against Child Labour, another NGO working for children's rights, however, said that the real figure could be much higher.
"As child labour is both traditionally accepted and widely prevalent in India, giving an accurate data is a big challenge," Basu said. But, Ashok Kumar, convenor of CACL Advocacy, said that they believed there were more than 30 million children currently working in various fields across the country.
Speaking about the RTI query filed by Campaign Against Child Trafficking, CACL's Delhi chapter, with Delhi's labour department, Kumar said the reply was quite shocking and the situation in the national capital was pathetic.
As per the information we received, only 128 children have been rescued from from 23 houses and 105 from eateries and dhabas between 2006 and 2008 in Delhi, Kumar said.
The worse part is that the children were not rehabilitated. They were simply sent back to their parents to live in acute poverty, he said.
Only 12 rescued children received compensation in accordance with the Supreme Court guidelines.
But contrary to the specified procedure, no relative of the child labourers was given job. Instead, six families received Rs 5,000 each while six others got Rs 20,000.
Image: A girl child labourer holds a placard. | Photograph: Stringer/Reuters
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