No child labour in Gurugram? Visit these roadside dhabas, stalls

GURUGRAM: A spot check by TOI to test the veracity of the district labour department’s claim that no child had been found working in the past one year revealed that several children in the age group of 10 to 15 years are employed in various small and medium commercial establishments.
Last month, the department claimed in a report that about 109 shops and other spots were inspected between 2017-18 and 2018-19 and no case of child labour had come to its notice.
However, several children were found working as helpers in stores, roadside dhabas, auto shops and apparel stores in areas like Sheetla Mata Mandir road, railway station, MG Road in Sukhraili area, Old Gurugram road, among others.
As children worked openly on the roadside at Mahavir Chowk, a police officer sitting nearby remained oblivious. When asked, the cop refused to accept that they were below the age of 14. “Now government allows children above 14 to work and all of them are above that age. They have the habit of reporting a lesser age,” he told TOI. He further said that he could not verify the children’s age as he would need orders from his seniors, based on a complaint, to be able to do that.

Child rights activists and policy researchers have raised serious concerns over the department’s report. They said either the shops in the 109 spots had received prior information before the inspection, or there is something that doesn’t meet the eye.
“From a person getting these children into factories or dhabas to labour inspectors, there’s a chain that ensures that cheap labour in the form of children isn’t compromised. As a result, we see such bizarre reports claiming no child labour has been found,” a child right activist, who claims to have worked closely with the department in several states, told TOI requesting anonymity.
Ravi Kant of Shakti Vahini pointed out that many such reports are based on the raids conducted only in factories, leaving out dhabas and tea stalls. He further noted that there’s no fear of the law because of the laxity in cracking down on child labour.
However, the district labour department maintained that the report’s findings are genuine and accurate. “We conducted the raids on multiple locations that included industries, factories, shops and other commercial ventures. Based on that we prepared the report,” a senior official in the department said.
The official, however, admitted that despite frequent enforcement drives, child labour is a perennial problem in a city like Gurugram that sees a huge influx of migrants who come here in search of jobs. He further blamed people for not reporting such cases.

According to Ritu Mishra of Terre Des Hommes, a Germany-based child rights organisation working in several states in India, the amendment in the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986 has created several loopholes and made the crackdown on child labour more difficult.
“Under the new rules, the age of children allowed to work has been brought down to 14 from 18. This is great injustice. Further, now children are allowed to work in family-based ventures. This is a great loophole. An owner of a dhaba who employs a child from a different state can show and claim that he’s a distant uncle. This is because the meaning of ‘family’ has not been defined in the act,” Mishra argued.
She further contested that the new law that allows children from economically backward classes to help their families. This has given free run to people to employ children. “For instance, government claims (there is) no child labour in the carpet industry but we have found several children working there. The work is sub-let by the contractor to a family and a child is just helping. This is the case everywhere,” she said.
“Moreover, the new amendment has slashed the (number of) hazardous occupations where children can’t be employed from 83 to just three. This has made the fight against child labour much more challenging now as it has opened several loopholes that are being exploited,” she added.
Experts have argued that the change in laws has given escape routes to multiple agencies, including the labour department. They urge the government to revisit its definition of child labour and fix systemic flaws that lead to it. Furthermore, they say, a strong narrative needs to be built around it that creates fear of law among people.