India’s new child labour law fails to tackle the problem, say experts

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  Women and young girls shell prawns at Sassoon Docks. A mother says she and her two daughters can earn up to Dh549.5 a month. Rebecca Bundhun / National

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  Women trade in a wide variety of fish at Sassoon Docks. Subhendu Sarkar / Getty Images

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  Men bring fish on a vessel at at Sassoon Docks. Built in 1875 by the banking and mercantile company David Sassoon & Co, it was the first commercial wet dock in western India. Subhendu Sarkar / Getty Images

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  Women sell fish at Sassoon Docks market in Mumbai. Subhendu Sarkar / Getty Images)

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  Men collect ice at Sassoon Docks. The dock is one of the oldest docks in Mumbai and helped to establish the cotton trade. Subhendu Sarkar / Getty Images

Mumbai // The Sassoon Docks in south Mumbai are a hive of activity, as colourful boats line the jetty and the fishermen bring their catch to shore.

A pungent smell pervades the air. The ground is covered with slimy, dirty water and remnants of fish. And groups of women and children are industriously at work, sitting in circles shelling huge piles of prawns.

Among the workers is Menuka Rathod. She is 10 years old and is shelling prawns with impressive dexterity alongside her mother and 13-year-old sister.

Every day after school, Men­uka works at the dock for several hours.

Her mother says the three of them bring in 10,000 rupees (Dh549) a month, while Men­uka’s father, who works on one of the fishing boats, earns 6,000 to 7,000 rupees a month. The children’s labour is vital to the family’s livelihood, she says.

“We’re poor,” Mrs Rathod says. “We have to work because the cost of living is very high.”

And under a controversial new bill, passed by India’s parliament recently, it is perfectly legal for Menuka to toil at the dock ­after school.

The bill states that children under the age of 14 are permitted to work in family businesses after school and during holidays.

The bill, which was approved by the upper and lower houses of parliament last month, still needs to be approved by the country’s president before it officially becomes law.

On the surface, the law appears to be designed to reduce child labour, which is widespread in India largely because of poverty and a prevalence of the informal economy in the country. It places a general ban on employing children under the age of 14. Previously, a law introduced three decades ago only restricted children from working in what were described as hazardous industries.

And there are concerns the new law is unlikely to solve the country’s problem of child labour, because it condones the practise in some forms, it is unclear what constitutes a family business and the fact that this clause can potentially be exploited by unscrupulous employers. It could also have implications for multinational companies, which could unknowingly end up indirectly employing children in their production chain.

“How do you monitor whether the children are in family enterprises, or if they are employed by others,” says Kumar Nilendu, the programme head for the western region at Child Rights and You (Cry), a non governmental organisation in India. “In the interiors, where there are a huge number of children, would the government have a set-up to monitor this?”

There are significant ambiguities surrounding the law.

It is unclear how the family is defined, and whether this extends to working for other relatives.

“There is also an issue of contracting and sub-contracting,” Mr Nilendu says. “The work can get contracted and further sub-contracted to the families. The family might get the child to give a hand supporting the enterprise because poverty is widespread, particularly in the interiors of the country, and education becomes secondary. The first thing the family tries to survive by is having more work.”

This can all too easily result in the child dropping out of school completely.

Mr Nilendu says the record for convicting those who illegally employ child labour to stop the practise is poor.

“This needs to be greatly improved and the government needs to review the act and do away with lacunas.”

Children are often seen selling goods ranging from flowers to umbrellas at traffic signals, and are found working in small restaurants. There is also a great deal of child labour that is less visible, usually working in mines, factories and as domestic help.

Under the new law, there are stiffer penalties for employment of children: prison sentences have been doubled to up to two years and a fine of up to 50,000 rupees has replaced a 20,000 ­rupee penalty.

Children are permitted to work in the sports and entertainment sectors under the new law.

There are about 10.2 million children working in India, according to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef).

Unicef says the provision to allow children to work for their families “raises serious concerns… and could further disadvantage children from poor families”.

It recommends the complete removal of the clause that allows children to work within the family.

“Under the new child labour act, some forms of child labour may become invisible and the most vulnerable and marginalised children may end up with irregular school attendance and could be forced to drop out of school,” says Euphrates Gobina, Unicef India’s chief of education.

Work that is conducted within the family or at home is often harmful to children, such as working in cotton fields and ­other farming activities, and carpet weaving and metal work.

Unicef says it is “concerned that the amended bill substantially reduces the list of professions considered hazardous, which could potentially lead to more children working in unregulated conditions”.

It says it recommends that “an exhaustive list of hazardous occupations be included” as unacceptable in the law.

Kailash Satyarthi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and activist against child labour in New Delhi, says the new law could ultimately harm India’s economy.

“For ‘Make in India’ [the government’s flagship plan to become a manufacturing hub], we have to have a skilled workforce required in the global market economy, which is well edu­cated, and the new law becomes a big obstacle.”

Mr Satyarthi says the law could expose major companies to indirect child labour in the supply chain, “and that could become a big image issue for many of the big brands and companies if the media or social organisations expose child labour in their production and supply chains”.

Companies will have to ensure they are complying with regulations.

“All multinational companies will have to study the new law to evaluate whether a child has been engaged in their activities directly or indirectly in non compliance of the new law, since there are accountabilities under the new law with the management,” says Zameer Nathani, a corporate lawyer and the legal head at Raymond, a luxury clothing brand in India.

Mr Nilendu says India needs to introduce other measures, such as increasing subsidies, providing employment and improving incomes for families, as longer-term solutions to reducing employment of children.

While Menuka works away on the dock, Arti Latur, 16, is also performing the monotonous task of shelling prawns nearby, among a different group of women.

She says she works for 12 hours every day to earn about 200 to 300 rupees a month. She has been doing the same work for the past five years. Arti says she has never been to school and she believes she is likely to do the same work for the rest of her life.

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