Child Rights In India- An Overview

  

“Look into their innocent eyes,

Do you see the scars; hear the cries.

The hands that were meant to play,

Might never again, see the light of day.

Their soul is torn, broken and crying,

Rise and see; our future is dying.”  ~ Anon

India has come a long way from 1947 with the abolition of child labor, access to compulsory education for children, abolition of child marriages, juvenile justice act and so on. But unfortunately the fight against the evils of the society was never so easy. India is infamous for having multiple acts but no implementation. In the remote parts of states like Haryana etc, the Khap panchayats make a mockery of the rule of law. In a vast country like India, enforcement was never supposed to be easy, but the complete disregard with which the executive agencies let the law of the land be violated is shocking.  The Right to Education act received a lot of applause initially, but the loopholes in it are glaring. Child Labor Abolition Act, was initially enacted in the year of 1986 but the problem still persists.

It is true that, India has made some significant commitments towards ensuring the basic rights of children. There has been progress in overall indicators: infant mortality rates are down, child survival is up, literacy rates have improved and school dropout rates have fallen. But the issue of child rights in India is still caught between legal and policy commitments to children on the one hand, and the fallout of the process of globalisation on the other. The negative fallout is visible: children are being deprived of even the scarce social benefits once available; they are displaced by forced and economic migration, increasing the number of children subsisting on the streets; more and more children are being trafficked within and across borders; and rising numbers of children are engaged in part- or full-time labour.

Even with the numerous legislations to protect childrens interests the ground realities are staggeringly bad;

Ø  With more than one-third of its population below 18 years, India has the largest young population in the world.

Ø  Only 35% of births are registered, impacting name and nationality.

Ø  One out of 16 children die before they attain the age of 1, and one out of 11 die before they are 5 years old.

Ø  35% of the developing world’s low-birth-weight babies are born in India.

Ø  40% of child malnutrition in the developing world is in India.

Ø  The declining number of girls in the 0-6 age-group is cause for alarm. For every 1,000 boys there are only 927 females -- even less in some places.

Ø  Out of every 100 children, 19 continue to be out of school.

Ø  Of every 100 children who enrol, 70 drop out by the time they reach the secondary level.

Ø  Of every 100 children who drop out of school, 66 are girls.

Ø  65% of girls in India are married by the age of 18 and become mothers soon after.

Ø  India is home to the highest number of child labourers in the world.

Ø  India has the world’s largest number of sexually abused children, with a child below 16 raped every 155th minute, a child below 10 every 13th hour, and at least one in every 10 children sexually abused at any point in time.

Child labour and right to education: A contradiction

India has the highest number of child labourers in the world.

·         Census reports clearly point to an increase in the number of child labourers in the country, from 11.28 million in 1991 to 12.59 million in 2001. (12)

·         Reports from the M V Foundation in Andhra Pradesh reveal that nearly 400,000 children, mostly girls between 7 and 14 years of age, toil for 14-16 hours a day in cotton seed production across the country. Ninety percent of them are employed in Andhra Pradesh alone. (13)

·         According to Yamina de Laet of the International Chemical, Energy and Mine Workers’ federation (ICEM), children aged 6-14 years represent 40% of the labour force in the precious-stone-cutting sector. (14)

·         Rescue operations in Mumbai and Delhi in 2005-2006 highlight the employment of children in zari and embroidery units.

·         Although the number of children employed in the agricultural sector, in domestic work, roadside restaurants, sweetmeat shops, automobile mechanic units, rice mills, Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) outlets and most such sectors considered to be ‘non-hazardous’ is unknown, there is ample evidence to suggest that more and more children are entering the labour force and are being exploited by their employers.

The existing law on child labour that allows children to work in occupations that are not part of the schedule of occupations that are considered harmful to children contradicts the right of every child to free and compulsory education. And yet no attempt is made to resolve this contradiction. How can children be at work and at school at the same time? Surely this means that any attempt to give them access to education will be second-rate, parallel non-formal education?

Census 2001 reports that 2.19 crore (2.13%) of the total population of the country are persons living with disability, and that 1.67% of the total population within the age-group 0-19 years (46,38,26,702) are disabled Of all persons living with disability, 35.9% are children and young adults in the 0-19 age-group. Three out of five disabled children in the age-group 0-9 years are reported to be visually impaired. Movement disability has the highest proportion (33.2%) in the 10-19 age-group. This is largely true of ‘mental’ disability also. (15)

Barely 50% of disabled children reportedly reach adulthood, and no more than 20% survive to cross the fourth decade of life. (16) Although there is very little information regarding the nutritional status of children with disabilities, disabled children living in poverty are among the most deprived in the world. Those who suffer mental disorders are much worse off, as there is still very little recognition of the problem.

Poor enforcement of the Persons With Disabilities Act and the Mental Health Act means that disabled people in India continue to be discriminated against in terms of access to basic services and opportunities. There are few special services for disabled children. Pediatrics wards at government hospitals are incapable of dealing with children with disabilities, particularly in terms of infrastructure and resources.

            It will be completely untrue and baseless to comment that the respective Governments were uninterested or useless when it came to protecting the rights of children. But the fact remains that no Government on its own can complete have a herculean task. The combination of social, political and economic will is required to make sure that the future of India remains bright.

Reference- Alternate Report by Asian Center For Human Rights.

Author- Sourya Banerjee

             Faculty of Law,

             IFHE, Hyderabad

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