Child Labour Issues and Challenges for India

Abstract

Abstract newlineThe present study is an attempt to have a parallel picture of status of child newlinelabour in global scenario, in Indian context and in west Bengal context. Sustainable newlineDevelopment Goal target 8.7 aims to eradicate child labour in all its forms by 2025. newlineBut still at this point of time before five years from the stipulated period, the journey newlineis long and full of hardships to reach the designated destination. The present study is newlinetheoretical and analytical one in nature. In this study, a comprehensive coverage has newlinebeen made on the magnitude of the child labour problem which includes the newlinelegislative, administrative and constitutional/judicial safeguards provided to India s newlinechildren and the efforts made by UN and its system of Organizations at global level to newlinemitigate/eradicate this problem. Thus, a part from studying the child labour as a newlineglobal concern, the present work covers the conditions of child labour in India based newlineon secondary data available through authentic sources. A special analysis of child newlinelabour in the context of West Bengal has drawn attention. Govt. Reports of various newlinecommittees/ govt. Agencies, NGOs, international organisation such as IMF, World newlineBank, ILO, UNESCO, etc. help us supplying secondary data on child labour. The newlinecollected data from various sources have been organised and analysed taking the newlineobjective of the study into consideration. Some descriptive statistics have also been newlineused wherever it is required. newlineIt is found that, globally, significant progress has been made in reducing child newlinelabour in the past two decades (ILO and UNICEF 2021). The number of children in newlinechild labour declined by 85.5 million between 2000 and 2020, from 16% to 9.6%. But newlinethe 2020 global child labour estimates reconfirm what we have long known. newlineAccording to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) newlineand UNICEF, The number of children in child labour has risen to 160 million newlineworldwide. Child labour increased by 8.4 million in the last four years. Millions of newlinechildren are at risk due to the impact