Rights of the child

LAW AND MENACE OF CHILD LABOUR: Sunil Deshta, Jurab Deshta; Anmol Publications, 4374/ 4B, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002. Rs. 400.

INDIA HAS ratified the noble Convention on the Rights of the Child and is therefore under an obligation to implement the articles therein. Unfortunately, India is an "ancient" country growing "young" but incorrigibly tortures its paedo-sector of humanity.

The Constitution contains provisions regarding children and for their development. The Supreme Court has repeatedly stressed that we cannot neglect the younger generation if the country is to have a future at all. The United Nations Convention adopted in November 1989 preceded by a Declaration (1959) has not been implemented by the Government of India or Parliament.

Therefore, sharp mobilisation of public opinion becomes necessary to awaken a slumbering regime in its duty to the child generation. What is most poignant is the diehard persistence of child labour. The latest ILO Report gives us ghastly figures of child labour.

India, unfortunately, is terribly guilty in keeping children in bondage although, theoretically, there are about 300 Central and State statutes concerning children. This means that Articles 45 and 21 notwithstanding, the Republic of India is indifferent to their implementation.

Every book effectively produced on the menace of child labour is therefore welcome in conscientising the people. Does not every child, forced to work, cry "if we are the future and we are dying, there is no future". Many books have come up on the subject but among the best is the one made meaningful by facts and figures by the present authors.

Every evil has a history and the genesis of child labour in India from ancient days to the post-Independence era covers a whole chapter of the book.

It is significant that the legislative safeguards against child labour in the developed and developing countries have been covered by the authors and that is a special feature.

Naturally, more emphasis has been given to the poor legal protection which pains every sensitive Indian.

I hope that this book will put pressure on the Government and the legislatures, particularly Parliament, to take effective action so that the country's commitment to the world community by acceding to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and contributing to the development of the full personality of the child in every dimension may becaome a reality.

The tryst with destiny that India made when it awoke to freedom is never redeemed until the tears of the last child, the lost child and the labouring child are wiped.

Will the Government, paper-logged, and politically battling against one another, and the bureaucracy with its pre-occupation with files, remember the misfortunes of the little girls and the little boys who have no voice or vote?

The Court is the haven but juvenile justice is too vast and grave for courts to cope.

A Children's Charter and Commission with a complete Code is necessary. A draft of it has been presented to the Prime Minister by the group headed by me and appointed by the UNICEF in Delhi.

Yes, the Prime Minister responded by the promise of legislature action. But behold the neglect of the child as a ground reality and the dereliction of duty as a phatological perennial!

The authors of the book sum up: "It is unfortunate to highlight here that India has the largest child labour force in the world. The problem of employment of children is not a problem in or by itself but it is a part of the larger problem of child welfare.

Child labour is one of the serious mode of human exploitation of child. Though each and every society is advancing an unmeasurable pace in almost every field, yet it is a very sad experience to witness that the child labour has now become a universal problem. They have been exploited more or less in all periods of time, though varied in its nature and dimension, depending on the existing socio-economic structures of society.

In other words they have been exploited for business, domestic, agriculture and industrial work to supplement the resources of the poverty-ridden families. The history unhesitatingly unfolds the bitter truth that children were required to do some kind of work either at homes or in the fields along with their parents from ancient times.

The study of Kautilya and Sir Henry Maine reveals that child slave could be purchased and sold like commodity.

Today, child labour and child abuse and child sale are still rampant and disguise like adoption have a commercial dimension. Slowly, from the British days to the millennial global activism with several laws and judicial pressure changes are seen in the distant dawn Five Year Plans are fine phrases but puerile projects in practice. Judicial directives are flashes in the pan with the stream of child slavery surviving the ILO and the Court's writ.

The wisest suggestions of the authors are in the last page of the brief book, which I excerpt and close: "There is a deep felt need to have statutory provision for a composite nation-wide machinery to functions as a Child Labour Ombudsman. The Child Labour Ombudsman should be a person of high calibre and acknowledged stature. He should be accorded the status of a member of Planning Commission. He should present an Annual Report to Central Advisory Board which should be required to submit it to Parliament so that relevant legislations are made from time to time in tune with the need of the society. It will ultimately help to review and update the child welfare legislations. There is an imperative need to integrate all Child Labour Laws together and create a comprehensive Child Labour Code of India so that the dream of eradication of Child Labour is accomplished on uniform basis throughout the length and breadth of our country."

What is the paediatric prognosis in the context of the economic syndrome, which grips, under guise of "growth" dear Free India.

Maybe, the sound of a summons to another swaraj struggle to liberate the child is being heard by a sensitive Bharat.

V.R. KRISHNA IYER

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