Thaindian News

By Azera Rahman
New Delhi, Oct 14 (IANS) It’s a familiar sight. A child, wearing clothes too big for his frame, scrubbing pots in a roadside restaurant or serving food. An RTI enquiry has revealed that even three years after a law banning child labour came into effect, the government has carried out no inspection in most states, including Delhi, to check the practice.

In most states, a reply to the right to information (RTI) application revealed, there were no inspections carried out since the implementation of the ban in 2006. Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal are some of them.

In the few states that inspections were carried out to check child labour in eateries and as domestic helps, and cases were detected, the data is over a year old.

No inspection has been carried out anywhere in India by the labour ministry since April 2008.

Three years back, on Oct 10, 2006, the government banned the employment of children as domestic helps and in roadside restaurants. Violators can be jailed for up to two years and fined Rs.20,000.

Bhuwan Ribhu of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), a child rights organisation, filed an RTI application with the union labour ministry for data on the number of child labour cases in the country in August this year. The reply that they received, however, shocked them.

“In the last three years, a mockery has been made of the law. Previously, only the stone quarries, zari factories, industries and brick kilns were the culprits. But now, with two additional areas included, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act is being flouted behind every other door,” Ribhu, a lawyer and national secretary of BBA, told IANS.

According to the labour ministry documents, until April 2008, in the 36,430 inspections carried out, only 1,700 cases were found to be flouting the child labour ban. And among these, only 138 prosecutions have been filed so far.

According to activists, in cases of child labour when a child is not paid, then on being rescued, he is given a release certificate under the Bonded Labour Act, which entitles him to a rehabilitation package of Rs.20,000 and an opportunity to use government schemes like enrolment in a school.

Only 145 children who were rescued were sent to shelter homes, while 528 children were sent back to their parents without legal formalities.

Umesh Gupta, another BBA member said: “Sending back children without any legal formalities would mean sending the children back to the same homes they had fled to escape hunger and disease. It just ensures a vicious cycle.”

In Tamil Nadu, although there were 29,068 inspections carried out, only 159 cases were detected to be flouting the law and 93 prosecutions filed. In Andhra Pradesh, of the 1,460 cases detected, only 26 children were being rehabilitated.

Joint labour commissioner Piyush Sharma told IANS: “We know the law and we are doing our best to set things right. But all said and done, we are really understaffed and overworked.

“Earlier we were supposed to penalise culprits who employ children, but now we have to also rehabilitate the child, send him home and keep track of him thereon.”

According to a 2001 census, an estimated 185,595 children are employed as domestic help and in small roadside eateries. Most child domestic workers in India are trafficked by placement agencies operating in states like Orissa, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

These are also the states where the task force has not reached.

Ribhu said: “Enforcement of the law is the key. Without enforcement, the law is more or less just a piece of paper.”