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India bans employment of children as domestic help
from 10th October 2006. The Indian government is to ban employment of children below the age of 14 as domestic help and in wayside eateries, restaurants, resorts, spas and other recreational centers. This is being done after government assessed that children employed in homes of the rich, cafes, hotels and recreational centres were frequently subjected to physical violence and sexual abuse resulting in psychological trauma.
The technical Advisory Committee on Child Labour recommended the ban
on the grounds that children are subjected to violence, and, at
times, even sexual abuses.
The step has been taken in the wake of India emerging as a major hub for paedophiles in recent years. There have been reports that Indians coastal resorts have become major centers of child trafficking.
But with official records admitting that more than 12.6 million
children below the age of 14 are currently working in various industries, India is fighting a losing battle against preventing child
labour. In 1979 a law was enacted to ban employment of children below 14 in certain hazardous occupations. The list of hazardous occupations has been expanded at times in the past
years and the latest additions are part of the same process. Government has also expanded the category of
Hazardous works and the new rules devised, bar employers from employing children in works like: fire cracker production, glass production, hospital, household and so on.
At present, there are 60 million child labors in India.
According to the Child Labour Protection Act, 1986, a child
abourer is defined as someone between 5 and 15 who is made to work -
paid or unpaid, within or outside the family.
India is one of the worst offenders. A UNICEF report states
that in India, 17 per cent child workers are under 15 and girls aged
12-15 are preferred by 90 per cent households as servants.
India has committed itself to work against child labour:
Article 24 of the constitution states "no child below the age
of fourteen yers shall be employed to work in any factory or mines
or employed in any hazardous employment". The government also
prohibited employment of children in abattoirs/slaughter houses,
printing, cashew nut descaling and processing, and soldering.
Activists against child labor says that this new law would affect
those children which come from very poor families.
Because some families are so poor that they had no other choice but to send their
Childs to work to get some money to buy foods. After the ban comes into effect-
it is very difficult to earn their livelihood. Government proposed
no alternative plans to earn their livelihood.
Children are regularly employed in hazardous industries including in the highly-lucrative firecracker industry where accidents are frequent. Even if the police raid industrial units employing children, punishment is farcical – the employer faces imprisonment of a term between three months and one year and / or
a fine of up to Rs. 20,000 or both. To protect the childhood and the
exploitations of Indian child, the decision of Indian Government's ban
on Child Labor is in right direction.
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