Child Labour; the Indian Scenario – A Brief Communication

Abstract

A Child is defined as a every human being below the age of 18 years. Human rights begin with child rights. These rights are : 1. Subsistence rights 2. Development rights 3. Protection rights 4. Participation rights. But, in India, many of these feeble hands, instead of carrying books are often bruise in factories of pan, bidi, cigarettes (21%), construction (17%), domestic workers (15%), spinning & weaving (11%), apart from brick kilns (7%) dhabas (6%) auto workers (4%), paddy-fields and football making etc. Punjab has an alarmingly low under-5 sex ratio(846:1000) and the lowest sex ratio at birth(832:1000). It also has 1,77,268 child laborers. Among all reported feticides, 56% are registered in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Punjab. Crime against children saw a 24% increase; from 26,694 cases in 2010 to 33,098 cases in 2011. Rape cases increased by 30%, feticide by 19%, while buying of girls for prostitution declined by 65%. There is an increase of 10.5% in juvenile crimes from 2010(22,740) to 2011(25,125). As a result of such forced labor, children are often subjected to malnutrition, impaired vision, deformities and easy victims of deadly diseases like Tb, Cancer and AIDS.