Child Labour Policy

The study found that the educational status of parents whose children were found doing chicken work was very poor. In most cases the mother was totally illiterate. It was also recorded during the course of survey that although parents were totally illiterate, yet they knew the importance of educating their children. But due to economic pressure, they were compelled to send their children out for work.

2.1.6 Laxity in Enforcement of Protection Labour Legislation
On the part of government, it was found that various laws have been programmed with regards to child labour over the years. Prevention and Protection Act-1986 prohibited the employment of children below the age of 14 years in certain industries while specifying their working conditions

A child has no alternative but to take the jobs at the tender age at which they would have gone to school. It is not the children who decide to go for work but it is the society who is not able to provide means of livelihood to people who need it on priority basis. It is not the working children whose life is on risks, but the whole society suffer tremendously because by children employment at an early age.
On the economic parameter, the system of child labour adversely affects the society in two ways. It minimises the employment opportunities to the young population of the society. Forcing many of them to go out of work in the present age of wide spread employment and under employment. It also considerably lowers down the rates of the wages in the society. In fact, child labour is as much of the cause as the consequences of adult unemployment.

2.3 Child Labour Scenario of India
The Committee on Child Labour (1979) has observed that child workers are found in the following occupations:
1) Agriculture
2) Plantation
3) Mining and

The table also shows the trends total no. of child population (5 to 14 years) and child labour with the increase in the total population, the child population has also increased by 27.9% in 1971 and 46.1% in 1981 considering 1961 as the base year which is slightly lower than the increase in total population. Interestingly enough the child labour has decreased by 25.7% 1971 and 22.8% in 1981 with 1961 as the base year. During the period 1961 – 81 the average child population was 22,44,97,302 and the average child labour was 1,21,30,859 which means that the child labour was 5.66% of total labour force in the country and about 2.31% of the total population on an average during the period from 1961 to 1981. The figures expressed that there more children employed in India than any other country in the world. The 1994 Government of India National Sample Survey states that 90 million out of 179 million children in the 6 – 14 age group are outside the school system and are therefore, highly likely to be child labourer. In fact, if these working children in India constituted a country, that country would be the 11th largest country in the world. It has also been investigated that children are found at work in all the sector of the