Child Labour and the Law: Myth and Reality of Welfare Measures

The problem of child labour in underdeveloped and developing countries is quite high and abnormal. It is estimated that by 2000 A.D. 25 per cent of the world’s population will be children and 40 per cent of the entire global labour force will be below the age of 15 years. International Labour Organization in a study concluded that in Asian countries 70 to 80 per cent of children are either working or "simply wasting their lives away." Thus employment of children has continued to be a problem. Similarly, the problem of child labour is also quite alarming in India. Though child labour in India is punishable yet socio-economic and other conditions have turned India into the "largest concentration of child labour in the world." It is quite unfortunate to pin-point here that every fourth child in the age group of 5-15 is employed. An estimate by International Labour Organization put the number of child workers in India at 44 million. But an un-official survey estimates the number of working children at around 100 million. There is hardly any product in India that has no child labour behind it. Locks, carpets, bangles, bricks, match-boxes, crackers, wool carvingors and other products have the invisible stamp of the toil put in by children caught in the web of poverty and exploitative social system. It is quite amazing to note that though more than 300 central and state statutes concerning children have been enacted to protect and safeguard the interest of the child workers yet the truth remains that they have badly failed to cherish the goal of child welfare in its true perspective. Keeping this in view the present study brings forth some of the legal aspects of this multidimensional problem and gives some suggestions for mitigating the acuteness and gravity of this evil.