After independence Child labour is a major problem in India. The major determinate child labour is Poverty. Even though children are paid less then adults, what ever income they earn is of benefit to poor families.

India has the largest number of children employed than any other country in the world. According to the statistics provided by the Govt. of India around 90 million out of 179 million children in the six to 14 age groups do not go to school and are engaged in some occupation or other works. This means 50% of children are deprived of their right to a free and happy childhood.

Unofficially, this figure exceeds 100 million but the fact that a large number of children are works without wages in field or in cottage alongside their parents, unreported by census, makes it very difficult to estimate accurately. However, it is estimated that if there working children constituted a country it would be the 11^th largest country in the world.

A large number of children work in a cottage industries, matches, firecrackers, bidis, brassware, diamond, aluminum industries, glass, hosiery, hand loomed cloth, embroidery, leather goods, plastic bangles, mica mines, coal mines, hotels, rickshaw puller, local liquor industry, auto shop, vegetable shop Brick in and sporting goods. The highest numbers of children are found in agricultural sector.

Poverty has often been cited as the reason for child labour problem in India while it is true that the poorest, most disadvantaged sector of Indian Society supply the vast majority of child labourers, child labour actually creates an perpetuates poverty as it displaces adults from their jobs and also condemns the child to a life of unskilled badly paid work.

Child Labour and India Law

Passing laws is obviously not the solution, as they need to be enforced, in which our country has a poor track record. Multiple factors of child labour like i.e. Unemployment Low wages, Poor living standard, illiteracy and social attitudes.

Poor would rather have children who work to supplement the income. There are many cases where the parents (mother or father) sell their children as bonded labour for a petty sum of money.

Banning the child labour is not solution. 80 % of Indian child labours are working in hazardous condition or Industries. According to Articles 24 of The Indian Constitution and section 67 of Factories Act explicitly direct that children below the age 14 years are not to work in factories. Multiple Law and act forbid the employment of children in specified hazardous industries. They are as follows.

o Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, 1933

o Employment of Children Act, 1938

o Child Labour-Prohibition and Regulation Act

o The Indian factories Act, 1948

o Plantations Labour Act, 1951

o The Mines Act, 1952

o Merchant Shipping Act, 1958

o The Apprentice Act, 1961

o The Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961

o The Atomic Energy Act, 1962

o Bidi and Cigar workers (condition of Employment) Act, 1966

o States Shop and Establishments Act

Problem Identification and Solution

GENEVA (ILO News) – The annual World Day Against Child Labour will be marked by events in scores of countries around the world on 12 June amid growing concerns over the impact of the economic crisis on child labour, and in particular girls.

For the World Day, the ILO will release a new report entitled “Give Girls a Chance: Tackling child labour, a key to the future,” highlighting the exploitation of girls in child labour and warning that the crisis could force more girls out of education and into child labour.

The report by the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) of the International Labour Office (ILO) will provide latest estimates on the number of girls in child labour and detail the exploitative forms of child labour facing them.

This year’s World Day also marks the tenth anniversary of the adoption of ILO Convention No. 182 on the elimination of the worst forms of child labour.

JF conduct many educational Programs and Vocational Training, awareness Camp, workshop and socio-economic survey in multiple Urban and tribes district of Jharkhand then we’ve felt Child labour is a major problem in Jharkhand developed district like i.e. Dhanbad and Bokaro. Both are economically developed district in Jharkhand multiple Industries (Govt. and Private Sector) and mines are exist here unofficially child labour are between 20,000 to 50,000 working in small industry, hard coke industries and coal mines also in closed coal mines by ECL or BCCL in Hazardous condition.

JF have a program for over all development of child labour with our effort at grassroots or cluster level. Our main activity would be

1. Identification of child labour,

2. Registered their Name and address,

3. Awareness and counseling among the guardians of target group.

4. Group Discussion with targeted group

5. Admitted in our training Program