New Delhi: A sample survey by the Telangana labour department has found between 80-90% of child labourers in the state belong to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities.
According to The News Minute, the first phase of the survey across 10 districts in 56 mandals identified 9,724 child labourers. Most of these children do not go to school and are predominantly from marginalised communities, the survey found.
The pan-state survey is being conducted in association with the Centre for Economic and Social Studies. The labour department will release complete findings by the end of April.
A labour department official told The News Minute said the fact that between 80-90% of the child labourers are from SC/ST communities is a “shocking find”. “This is just a sample survey, the numbers would go up if this was a comprehensive study. This also raises many questions on why only children from SC/ST communities are involved in child labour, it’s not like upper castes don’t have poor people but their children are not engaged in child labour,” the official said.
Among the 10 districts surveyed, Vikarabad had the highest number of child labourers. Over 644 child labourers between the ages of 9 and 14 were found in the district. There are more than 3,077 adolescents (14-18 years old) employed as child labourers.
In 2016, the Child Labour Act was amended to categorise children above the age of 14 and up to 18 as “adolescents”. The amendment allowed adolescent children to be employed in non-hazardous industries. Officials told The News Minute that this amendment could be the reason why 8,105 adolescent child labourers between the ages of 15 to 18 identified by the survey did not go to school.
After the amendments were passed in the Rajya Sabha, the United Nations said the move would disadvantage tribal and lower caste children. UNICEF said child labour rates are highest among tribal and lower caste communities, at almost 7% and 4% respectively. The amendments would have an adverse impact on marginalised and impoverished communities, it said.
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“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, lower levels of learning and could be forced to drop out of school,” UNICEF India’s chief of education Euphrates Gobina said.
Activists and anti-trafficking experts suggested that the amendments could restrict children from marginalised communities to caste-based occupations and could promote inter-generational debt bondage.
Studies by the Centre have also found that the rate of child labour is higher among Scheduled Tribe, Scheduled Caste and Other Backward Class households than the median average. India is estimated to have about 33 million child labourers.