Children can now work in family business

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday, gave its approval to move official amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2012, which could seriously impact the state of child rights in the country. While the amendment strictly prohibits employment of children under the age of 14 in all occupations and processes, it makes one crucial exception. Children under 14 can help their "family or family enterprises, which is other than any hazardous occupations or processes set forth in the schedule, after his school hours or during vacations", according to the press note put out by the ministry of labour and employment.

The lack of any clear definition of "family" has child rights activists worried. If the law doesn't clearly define 'family' then the fear is this exception being used as a loophole. Children can be employed by people on the pretense of being related without anyway to confirm.

Said activist Shireen Vakil Miller, formerly with Save the Children, "How do you define family? How will you confirm that it is family that the child is working with? Who will confirm and monitor this?"

Miller pointed out that the Cabinet has given this approval without any consultation with civil society groups, and that there is huge pressure for such a loophole from many lobbies. dna spoke to Virjesh Upadhyay, general secretary of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, India's largest central trade union organisation, who seemed happy with this change. He said that BMS had been fighting for it for many years as, according to him, "if a child helps his parents when they work on the field, serves them water or such, that is not child labour."

There are currently 18 occupations and 65 processes mandated under the current child labour legislation labelled as hazardous.

Bhuvan Ribhu of Bachpan Bachao Andolan also stresses on this need for clear definition of family in the law. Though he speaks with the caveat of only having read the Ministry press note, and not the actual amendment, he says, "The law needs to define family, it needs to define rehabilitation for children and I personally feel that legal processes for these children need to be simplified. Their cases cannot be dragged on in court for years."

Post the Cabinet's approval, the amendments have to go to the Parliament and then the President to become law, but as Miller says, "Since the government has such a majority, one worries what opposition there will be to the Cabinet's approval. This is a shocking step and takes us several years backwards." She points out that child labour is already difficult to contain, as several children work in the unorganised sector. Many will fall through the crack with poor implementation and monitoring.

"There is a social sanction to the employing children. We don't think of it as labour, or of the abuse that is inherent," says Miller. "And now the government is going along with that." Regarding the government's concern for " the country's social fabric and socio-economic conditions", she says, "it's casteist approach to child rights, by not giving them any choice of vocation except what their family does. Why do we want to preserve this social fabric?"

The new amendments do have some reasons to celebrate -- banning employment of children from 14-18 years of age in hazardous occupations and processes, making employment of children in contravention of the Act a cognizable offence, constitution of Child and Adolescent Labour Rehabilitation Fund for rescued children and adolescents. However, as Ribhu says, "the acid test of the law is not only in legislation but also implementation."