2. What are the problems of child Labour?
Child labour interferes with schooling and
long-term development—the worst forms
include slavery, trafficking, sexual
exploitation and hazardous work that put
children at risk of death, injury or disease.
Child labour is work that deprives children
of their childhood, their potential and their
dignity.
3. What is the age limit for child Labour?
The Child and Adolescent Labour
(Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986:
As per the Child Labour (Prohibition and
Regulation) Act, 1986, amended in 2016
("CLPR Act"), a "Child" is defined as any
person below the age of 14 and the CLPR
Act prohibits employment of a Child in any
employment including as a domestic help .
4. How many hours a day do child Labourers work?
Often such children are as young as six or seven
years old. Often their hours of labour are 12 to 16
hours a day. Often their place of work is the
sweatshop, the mine, the refuse heap, or the street.
Often the work itself is dull, day-long, repetitive,
low-paid or unpaid.
5. What are the types of child Labour?
• Child labour in agriculture.
• Child labour and armed conflict.
• Commercial sexual exploitation of children.
• Child labour and domestic work.
• Mining and quarrying.
• Safe work for youth.
• Trafficking in children.( the act of buying or
selling goods illegally: arms/drug trafficking)
6. What is the punishment for child Labour?
The penalty for employing a child will now
be imprisonment between six months and
two years (from three months to one year)
or a fine of R 20,000 to R 50,000 (from R
10,000-20,000) or both. The second time
offence will attract imprisonment of one
year to three years, the Act says.(Aug 1,
2016).
7. In July 2016, the Parliament has passed the Child
Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill,
2016. This act amends the Child Labour (prohibits
employment of children below 14 years in 83 hazardous
occupations and processes.
Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation)
Amendment Act, 2016
8. Salient provisions
The act has completely banned employment of children below
14 in all occupations and enterprises, except those run by his or
her own family, provided that education does not hampered. The
1986 act prohibited the employment of children under 14 years
in certain occupations like bidi-making, mines, domestic work,
power looms, automobile workshops, carpet weaving etc.
Addition of a new category of persons called “adolescent”. It
defines children between 14 to 18 years as adolescents and bars
their employment in any hazardous occupations.
9. The act makes child labour a cognizable offence.
Employing children below 14 years will attract a jail
term between 6 months to two years (earlier 3 months to
1 year) or a penalty between twenty-thousand to fifty
thousand rupees or both for the first time. Repeat
offenders will attract imprisonment between 1 year to 3
years (6 months to 2 years). In case, the offender is a
parent, it provides a relaxed penal provision and
proposes a fine of Rs.10,000 for repeat offence
committed by parent.
10. The act has a provision of creating Rehabilitation Fund for
the rehabilitation of children.
The number of hazardous occupations has been brought
down from 83 to 3. The three occupations are mining,
inflammable substances, and hazardous process under the
Factories Act. It empowers Union Government to add or omit
any hazardous occupation from the list included in the act.
Empowers the government to make periodic inspection of
places at which employment of children and adolescents are
prohibited.
Government may confer powers on a District Magistrate
(DM) to ensure that the provisions of the law are properly
carried out and implemented.
