Child labour in India

Child labour in India is the practice where children engage in economic activity, on part-time or full-time basis. The practice deprives children of their childhood, and is harmful to their physical and mental development. Poverty, lack of good schools and growth of informal economy are considered as the important causes of child labour in India. The 2001 national census of India estimated the total number of child labour, aged 5-14, to be at 12.6 million.
Conventionally, a child labour is defined as a child in the range of 5 to 14 years, who is doing labour, either paid or unpaid. The term ‘child labour’ is generally used to refer to any work by children that interferes with their full physical development curtailing the opportunities for education and the needed recreation. Despite a number of efforts made for the eradication of child labour, the situation remains still grave.
The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 The Act prohibits employment of children in certain specified hazardous occupations and regulates the working conditions in the jobs that it permitted, and put greater emphasis on health and safety


Children are future citizens of the Nation and their adequate development is utmost priority of the country. Unfortunately, child labor engulfs children across the world. The world is home to 1.2 billion individuals aged 10-19 years. However, despite its menace in various forms, the data shows variation in prevalence of child labor across the globe and the statistical figures about child labor are very alarming. There are an estimated 186 million child laborers worldwide. The 2001 national census of India estimated total number of child labor aged 5–14 to be at 12.6 million. Small-scale and community-based studies have found estimated prevalence of 12.6 million children engaged in hazardous occupations. Many children are “hidden workers” working in homes or in the underground economy. Although the Constitution of India guarantees free and compulsory education to children between the age of 6 to 14 and prohibits employment of children younger than 14 in 18 hazardous occupations, child labor is still prevalent in the informal sectors of the Indian economy. Child labor violates human rights, and is in contravention of the International Labor Organization (Article 32, Convention Rights of the Child). About one-third of children of the developing world are failing to complete even 4 years of education. Indian population has more than 17.5 million working children in different industries, and incidentally maximum are in agricultural sector, leather industry, mining and match-making industries, etc.

The term “child labor” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical-mental development. It refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children, and interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school, obliging them to leave school prematurely or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work. The statistical figures about child workers in the world have variation because of the differences in defining categories of age group and engagement of children in formal and informal sector.