Implementation a worry as Centre bans child labour from tomorrow

New Delhi, Oct 9 (UNI) The ban on employment of children between 5 and 14 years of age in roadside dhabas, tea shops, restaurants and resorts as well as in homes as domestic servants takes effect from tomorrow but activists say the implementation plan is suspect.

Imposed under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, the ban follows a three-month mandatory notice given to employers. Those employing children are now liable for prosecution and other penal action.

''This is a very important step taken by the government, which was due for a long time but the implementation part is not clear,'' said J John of the Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL), an umbrella organisation of NGOs working to end employment of children in any form of work.

Rights organisations have been fighting against exploitation of working children for several years taking up cases, sometimes even of bonded labour, in many hazardous and non-hazardous industries.

Child rights activists say it is not clear what the government is going to do to rehabilitate the children released from the prohibited sectors. According to many activists, through the present notification, the government was ''regulating child labour in the non-hazardous sectors.

They say the government could face an uphill task in putting released children in schools run under the National Child Labour Programme because dhabas, hotels and resorts are scattered across the country without a proper concentration in any one place.

''It is easy to set up schools in Ludhiana for child labour released from its football manufacturing factories, in Tirupur's garment factories or the bangle industry in Uttar Pradesh,'' says Mr John.

According to him, the Labour Department in Delhi, which released around 580 children from sardosi embellishment work in garment factories in Salimpur, Ghonda and Welcome Colony in the capital, did not know where to take the children. ''In the absence of any machinery either to keep them or give them education, the Labour Department had to turn the children away after their release,'' says Mr John, who was involved in the campaign by the Bandhua Mukti Morcha two months ago. ''Probably, the children went back to their work,'' he adds.

According to National Family Health Survey statistics, states like Delhi, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Asom and West Bengal have the highest number of children engaged in ''household work''.

The Census 2001 figures say there are 185,000 children employed as domestic servants and another 71,000 in dhabas.

''There is no machinery to implement the ban. We must develop a system,'' says Subhash Bhatnagar of the Delhi-based Domestic Workers' Union.

Tribal domestic workers from Jharkhand will celebrate the ban tomorrow at a function organised by Mr Bhatnagar's organisation in the capital.

The Labour and Employment Ministry says the ban will act as a ''deterrence'' and also create awareness about the need to free children from work.

''The civil society has a bigger role to play in implementing the ban,'' says Ministry spokesman M L Dhar. ''Prominent NGOs have joined us in fighting child labour and so also are trade unions.'' The Labour Ministry has sought support from state governments in enforcing the ban. The Ministry, which wrote to all Chief Ministers and organised a meeting of Chief Secretaries and State Labour Secretaries, has also roped in central ministries like Women and Child Development, Rural Development, Tribal Welfare and Social Justice and Empowerment to help in the implementation phase.

A toll-free helpline (1098) will be active from tomorrow in 70 cities to receive distress calls about employing children in the banned sectors.

UNI FZ PA KN2018