Social Justice: Child issues (Child labour, Child marriage & Juvenile delinquency)

IAS Notes December 24, 2022
Vulnerable Sections: Child issues

"The true character of a Society is revealed in how it treats its children"
Nelson Mandela
1.   Child & Issues related to Child 
child labour

Child Labour
  • Concept
  • Statistics
  • Efforts
  • Causes
Child Labour - As per ILO, any labour which deprives a child of his potential, dignity and childhood and is harmful for his physical and cognitive development is known as Child labour.

Statistics -
  • According to census, 10.1 Million Children were engaged in labour.
  • Globally, there are 7.3% Child labour.
  • 80% of the Child labour are in rural areas.
  • States with maximum number of Child labours.
    • Uttar Pradesh
    • Bihar
    • Rajasthan
    • Maharashtra
    • Madhya Pradesh
  • 62.8% of Child labours in hazardous work (i.e., out of all child labours in India 62.8% of child workers are working in hazardous work as defined under Factories Act).

Efforts to curb Child Labour -
  1. Constitutional Provisions - 
    • Article 23 (Prohibition of human traffic and forced labour), 
    • Article 24 (Prohibition of Child labour)and 
    • Article 39 (e) - A directive principle for the state so that children are not abused and are not forced by their economic necessity to take up work unsuitable for their age and strength.
  2. Statutory Laws - Child Labour Prohibition Act
  3. Government Schemes -
    • National Child Labour Project (NCLP)
    • National Child Labour Policy (NCL Policy)
    • PENCIL - Platform for effective Enforcement for No ChIld Labour (an online portal by Ministry of Labour & Employment to stop Child Labour)
  4. International Conventions -
    • ILO Convention 139 - Minimum Age Convention
    • ILO Convention 182 - Prohibition & Elimination of the worst form of the Child Labour.
Note - ILO Convention 182 was the first labour standard convention to be universally ratified.


Provisions of the Child Labour Prohibition and Regualtion Act 1986 
  1. Employment of children under the age of 14 years is completely banned except in family enterprise and audio-visual industry including Cinema (except circus).
  2. Children of age group of 14 years to 18 years are known as Adolescents and their employment in hazardous occupation is banned.
  3. Number of hazardous occupation is reduced from 83 to 3 (Mining industry, inflammatory substances and hazardous processes).
  4. It also empowers the union government to add or omit any hazardous occupation from the list.
  5. Act makes child labour a cognizable offence.
    • Employment of child (less than 14 years old) will attract imprisonment of 6 months to 2 years and/or penalty of ₹20,000 to 50,000.
    • And if the offence is repeated the offender will be liable to be imprisoned for 1 years to 3 year and the parents will be fined ₹10,000 for repeated offence.
  6. Government may confer powers on District Magistrate to ensure provisions are properly implemented.
  7. Government is empowered to make periodic inspection of places where employment of child is prohibited.
  8. Act also has provisions for creating rehab fund for the children.

National Child Labour Project
  • It is under the Ministry of Labour & Employment.
  • It is a central sector scheme.
  • Implementation agency - District project societies (under District Magistrate/Collector).
  • Children of age group 9 to 14 years who are found working are withdrawn from the work and put into NCLP Special Training Centres to bridge their education and to provide Vocational training, health care, mid-day meal, etc.
  • Children of age group 5 to 8 years who are found working are directly linked to the formal education system.
  • Funds are directly provided to DPS. 

PENCIL portal 
  • It stands for Platform for effective Enforcement for no Child Labour.
  • It is a dedicated online portal to make NCLP successful and for better monitoring, implementation, timely disposal with transparency of work.

ILO and ILO Conventions 
International Labour Organisation -
  • It is a tripartite UN Agency formed in 1919.
  • It brings together government, employers and workers of its member states to set labour standards, to develop policies and to devise program promoting decent work for all men and women.
  • India is its founding member.
ILO Conventions -
  • There are 8 ILO fundamental conventions.
  • Except ILO Convention no. 87 (freedom of association and protection of right to organise convention) and ILO Convention no. 98 (right to organise and collective bargaining), India has ratified the remaining ILO Conventions.
  • The recent being ILO Convention no. 138 (Minimum age convention) and ILO Convention no. 182 (Worst form of Child labour) ratified by India.
  • The prohibition & elimination of worst form of child labour includes prohibition of all forms of slavery (debt bondage, forced recruitment in armed conflicts, sale & trafficking, prostitution & pornography, illicit activities such as production of drugs and its trafficking. 
  • It also includes any work which is likely to harm their health, safety or morals.
  • It was adopted in a meeting in Geneva in 1999.

Causes of the Child Labour 

Push Factory (Supply) 

"Till the time poverty is persisting in India, Child labour can never be eradicated"
Gurupad Swami Committee (1979)
  1. Poverty
  2. Unemployment of the parents
  3. High fertility rate
  4. Lack of formal schooling infrastructure to absorb child
  5. Patriarchy nature of the society and the socialisation of girl child for domestic work
  6. Lack of awareness with respect to negative implications of Child labour
  7. Lack of qualitative child care centres (with respect to orphan, abandoned, surrendered child)
  8. Intergenerational bonded labours
  9. High school dropout due to lack of relevant content (absent of vocational training and job securing training)
Till Class 8, no vocational training is given so he/she is not able to get any employment opportunity and for further studies more money is required as it is not free, which results into high school dropouts.

NEP 2020 (New Education Policy 2020) came up Vocational training for class 6-8 std. students)

Pull Factor (Demand) 
  1. Cheap Labour & Low bargaining power
  2. Easy to hire and fire
  3. No guaranteed labour law protection
  4. Emergence of new middle class → increase demand of cheap domestic labour
  5. Few industries require labour of child.
    • For Example - Cotton plucking, Carpet weaving, Diamond cutting, etc.
  6. Few industries do not require skilled labour, hence prefer cheap labour.
    • For example - Bidi making, Packing industry, etc.

Lacunaes wrt Child Labour 
  1. Lack of credible data and poor identification of beneficieries.
  2. Lack of judicial implementations of existing provisions due to limited administrative capacity.
  3. Lack of Survey
  4. Lack of Identification
  5. Lack of Withdrawal and Rehabilitation
  6. Lack of availability, accessibility and affordability of qualitative education which can guarantee decent employment opportunity.
  7. One size fit all approach
  8. Dependence of many MSMEs on labour of Child (any effort to eradicate complete child labour might lead to making them financially unviable).
  9. Failure of government employment opportunity for adults.
  10. Large informal economy which aggravates exploitation of children.
  11. Failure to address the perception: "More children means more number of working hands which means more money", which results into high fertility rate.

Way forward 
  1. Create employment opportunity for adults in family.
  2. Strict implementation of laws, ensuring certinty.
  3. Community mobilisation and sensitisation with respect to menace of Child labour through media or charismatic leaders.
  4. Adequate budget allocation for successful implementation of NCLP.
  5. Creating robust educational infrastructure with respect to 4A's of Education.
  6. Removing ambiguity with respect to definition of child labour.
  7. Proper survey for better identification and implementation of policy.

Impact of Covid-19 on Child Labour 
One of the negative impact of Covid 19 is the increase in Child labour due to the following reasons -
  1. Growing poverty due to the loss of jobs, disruption of supply chain in agriculture, etc.
  2. Food insecurity
  3. Economic vulnerability and trap of debt bondage
  4. Dilution of labour laws to mitigate the impact of Covid-19.
  5. Increase in self-employment works which are conducive for child labour.
  6. High rate of school dropouts due to -
    • Declining remittances
    • Discontinuation of mid-day meal
    • Digitization of education
    • Temporary closure of schools
    • Reduction in household income, etc.
  7. Budget constraints
  8. Health shocks (Mortality among the family especially if the there is a death of earning member → forced the kid to work in labour market.

Question for practice 
Briefly discuss the impact of Covid-19 on the problems of Child Labour.

child marriage

Child Marriage

"Supporting child marriage is nothing but supporting child abuse"
  • Statistics
  • Causes
  • Child Marriage Prohibition Act
  • Way forward

Statistics 
  • According to the census 2011, 30.2% of married women were married before the age of 18 years.
  • According to SBI, mean marriage age in India is 22.3 years.

Causes 
  1. Girl is associated with honour of the family and in the absence of safety and security, she is perceived as Social burden.
  2. Girl child is perceived as economic liability.
  3. Younger the bride, lower the dowry.
  4. In poor household, girl child is also treated as source of income (Skewed Sex Ration → Bride Price).
  5. Lack of formal educational infrastructure, hence only alternative left for girl child is to get married.
  6. Due to patriarchy, prime purpose of women is assumed to be 'bear and beget' a male child, hence they are married off early.
  7. Patrilocal nature of the marriage (easy to digest/adjust in early years).
  8. Traditional practice (any straying away might lead to social exclusion).
"Practice of Child Marriage has its root in tradition, culture and religion. However, it is sustained by poor economic conditions"

Demand to increase the minimum age of marriage for women - from 18 years to 21 years
  • A task force headed by Jaya Jaitley is established to examine the correlation of age of marriage and motherhood with health, well being, nutrition, IMP, CMR, MMR, etc.

Argument in favour of demand -
  1. Early marriage limits the opportunity for education.
  2. It might lead to poor access to health care due to limited knowledge.
  3. It acts as a hurdle for effective labour force participation.
  4. It limits the opportunity to realise their full potential.
  5. Generational impact → Negatively impacted the health and nutritional status of the child.
  6. It also limits the opportunity to act as an agency of social change.
Argument against the demand -
  1. Child marriage is a social and economical issue and despite PCMA Act 2006, it is still persisting.
  2. To increase marriage age, girl will have no say in their personal matters until 21 years.
  3. Age of marriage does not affect much the nutrition level as it is more related to education, wealth, awareness, etc.
  4. Mean age of marriage has already increased over the year.
  5. Increasing marriage age may deny many young women from experiencing pregnancy at safest age as mortality experienced during 20 to 24 years is lowest.

Child Marriage Prohibition Act, 2006 
  • It defines the child marriage as the marriage of boy and girl below the age of 21 years and 18 years respectively.
  • The marriage is valid but voidable.
  • It allows the minors to repudiate/nullified marriage up till two years of attaining maturity.
  • No legal validity of marriage in case of trafficking, enfacement, fraud, deceit, etc.
  • Girl to be provided safe home/maintenance till her remarriage (court can order).
  • The child born will be considered legitimate.
  • Guardians, parents and those who are performing and participating in the marriage can be punished.
  • Offenders can be punished for upto 2 years and/or 1 lakh fine.
  • Child marriage prohibition officers are responsible for implementation.
    • They are appointed by the State government.
    • They are invested with the powers of police officers.
    • DM can be given additional power in this regard.
  • Functions of Child Marriage Prohibition Officers -
    • Prevention of Child marriage
    • Collection of evidences
    • Creating awareness
    • Counseling
    • Sensitising community
    • Maintaining statistics
 
Way forward 
  1. Proper law enforcement (under PCMA, marriage should be declared void ab initio).
    • Karnataka has implemented it, however, it has been criticised as even after declaring the marriage void, the girl remain the de facto wife.
  2. Girl empowerment with respect to life skills and protection skills.
  3. Community mobilisation through media, IEC campaign, etc.
  4. Investment in education, welfare and opportunities for women.
  5. Incentivising and enabling girl education alleast upto 12th standard.
  6. Mandatory registration of marriages.
  7. Treat child marriage as human right violation (which is a threat to domestic violence, early pregnancy, increasing MMR, etc).
  8. 18th Law Commission report 2008 - It suggested to reduce the age of marriage of both boys and girls to the age of 18 years.
  9. Age of consent should be reduced to 16 years (Justice Verma Committee), which is currently 18 years.
  10. CEDAW (Convention of elimination of discrimination against women) suggested the marriage age to be 18 years.

Question for practice 
Briefly discuss the implications of Child marriage in India. Suggest some measures to tackle this social evil.


Juvenile Delinquency
"No one is born a criminal, it is the social circumstances which transform one into a criminal"
Aashish Nandi
  • Statistics
  • Concept
  • Causes
  • Juvenile justice act
  • Way forward

Juvenile Delinquency - It refers to variety of disapproved behaviours for which some kind of punishment is justified in public interest (i.e., participation of minors in illegal crimes).


Statistics 
  • According to NCRB, approx. 4% of crimes are committed by Juveniles (children less than 18 years of age).

Causes of Juvenile Delinquency 

Socio-economic factors 
  1. Poverty and lack of access to resources
  2. Disintegration of joint family 
    • Lack of effective primary socialisation
    • Lack of agency of social control
  3. Dysfunctional families
  4. Autocratic/Permissive parenting (exists power distance between parents and child).
  5. Attention deficit
  6. Corruption of value system due to globalisation (emergence of consumerist culture).
  7. Social media → Social comparison → Relative deprivation
  8. Negative impact of cinema
  9. Radicalisation of youth
  10. Lack of stringent laws and delay in justice
  11. Peer pressure and fear of missing out
  12. Negative reference group
  13. Imbalanced society → more emphasis on goals of material success rather than the legitimate means.
  14. Lack of robust infrastructure vis-a-vis education
  15. Dual career family
  16. Lack of care homes both with respect to quality and quantity
  17. Sub-culture of crime (feeling that you are not doing any wrong while doing crime).
  18. Labelling theory (label some one as criminal because his father/parent is criminal or once some one commits a crime, the label of criminal is attached with him)
Individual factors
  1. Broken window theory (lack of deterrence)
  2. Emotional conflict
  3. Lack of self control
  4. Impulsive behaviour
  5. Lack of psychological deterrence due to broken window theory
  6. Feeling of insecurity
  7. Lack of social/psychological support system (i.e., high degree of isolation)
  8. Misinterpretation of life long understanding of success.

Labelling theory - Once a label of a delinquent gets associated, it becomes a challenge to re-integrate into the society.


Juvenile Justice Act 
It deals with the following -
  1. Crimes committed against Juveniles
  2. Crimes committed by the Juveniles
  3. Child in need of care and protection 
    1. Child Welfare Committee (CWC)
    2. District Child Protection Unit (DCPU)
    3. Child Care Institutions (CCI)
  4. Adoption of legally available child (Orphans, Abandoned and Surrendered child).
    • It was regulated through CARA (Central Adoption Resource Authority), which was a statutory body under JJA.
    • CARING - Central Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System is an online platform for adoption under CARA.
Power is given to the District Magistrate and Addition District Magistrate to approve the adoption. They both supervise the functioning of CWC, DCPU and CCI.

This Act was amended in 2015, and now if a juvenile of age group of 16 years to 18 years committed any heinous offence, then he/she is liable to be punished.

Rationale behind the amendment -
  1. Mostly juveniles are now committing heinous offence. So, this amendment will act as a deterrence.
  2. Many people are using juveniles to commit crimes as juveniles are not penalised for that.
Against the motion -
  1. It goes against the UN Convention for the rights of child.
  2. Only 4% of crimes are committed by juveniles as per NCPB.
  3. If child commit heinous offence, then we should not held the child the only responsible person. So, rather than making it punishable, we must introspect what went wrong with our value system and society (i.e., there is a problem with out social faric and moral sensibility and we need to fix this).
  4. Politicians, Government, Society and Parents are held responsible not the child as they failed to give child the right morale.
  5. Labelling theory - Once a child has been punished, there will always be a label of criminal associated with the child and for their entire life he was labelled as delinquent and has left with no other option but to perform other criminal activities as it was very challenging for him to lead a normal life and be a part of the society, i.e., he got trapped in a vicious cycle.

Way forward 
  1. Inculcation of moral values 
  2. Parental counselling
  3. Proper psychotherapy should be made available
  4. Mental illness needs to be destigmatised
  5. Poverty has to be addressed
  6. Filtered content on internet and social media
  7. Sex education needs to be provided
  8. Value based education
  9. Creation of safe places
  10. State intervention with respect to strengthening of infrastructure

Questions for practice 
  1. The focus of risk factors that appears at a young age and timely intervention is the key to prevent delinquency. Discuss.
  2. Child labour is essentially a soci-economic problem linked to poverty and illiteracy. Comment.


Notes on other subjects 

Ancient History

Medieval History

Modern History

Art & Culture

Polity

Geography

International Relations

Society


Optional Subject 

Public Administration



Note - This is my Vision IAS Notes (Vision IAS Class Notes) and Ashutosh Pandey Sir's Public Administration Class notes. I've also added some of the information on my own. 


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