In an admission of a heart-rending reality that even after all these years India has failed to put an end to the scourge of child labour in India, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Rameswar Teli, informed the Lok Sabha that about 770 cases have been registered under Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 during 2019. This was part of his submission during the ongoing Monsoon Session of the Parliament.

Telangana recorded the highest number of cases under the Child Labour Act at 314, followed by Karnataka at 83, and Assam at 68. Surprisingly, the data from 2019 suggests that as many as 15 States and Union Territories have not reported any case involving child or adolescent labour. Those States/Union Territories are- Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Sikkim, Tripura, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu, Andaman and Nicobar Island, Lakshadweep and Puducherry.

The 770 figure also seems unbelievable against the whopping number of children rescued/ withdrawn from work, rehabilitated and mainstreamed under National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme. Between 2020 to 2021, as many as 58,289 children have been rescued or rehabilitated excluding the states of Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, Nagaland and Uttarakhand. Except Nagaland, all these states have had cases registered under the Prohibition of Child Labour Act up until 2019.

Number of children rescued/withdrawn from work, rehabilitated and mainstreamed under National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme, year wise is as follows:

The written answer dated August 2 may be read here:

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) report titled Measuring Children’s Work in South Asia says that in India, over 12.9 million children between 7 to 17 years old, 5.1 percent of the total, are in employment, primarily working in agriculture and unpaid family work. The employment ratio for children in India more than doubles when they go from 12 to 14 years old, and doubles again when they grow from 14 to 15 years old.

Further, approximately 56.5 percent of 7-to 14-year-olds and 51.6 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds in employment work in agriculture, with manufacturing representing the next largest sector of employment for both age groups. The report also says, “Over 5.7 million children in India in the 5 to 17 years age group are engaged in child labour. More than 2.5 million of 15–17-year-old children are engaged in hazardous labour. Among all 5–17-year-olds, boys are more than three times as likely to be engaged in child labour as girls, and urban children are more likely to be child labourers than rural children.”

The entire report may be read here: 

The findings of the ILO report Child Labour: Global Estimates 2020: Trends and the Road Forward are more haunting that has predicted an additional 9 million children globally, who are at risk of being pushed into child labour by the end of 2022 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This report may be read here: 

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