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New Delhi: Rescued child workers should be treated as bonded labour for better rehabilitation and a better tomorrow, says Shantha Sinha, chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) .
Calling the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act "weak" because it does not guarantee rehabilitation, Sinha said the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, would provide a stronger framework.
"The Bonded Labour System [Abolition] Act, 1976, ensures statutory benefits; it provides rehabilitative benefits of Rs20,000 [Dh1,666] to the family of the rescued labourer. Rescued child labourers should therefore be treated under this rather than under the Child Labour [Prohibition and Regulation] Act," Sinha said in an interview.
Although the government puts the number of child labourers in the country at 12.6 million, child rights activists estimate that the number is around 60 million. As against this, in the eight years between 1997-98 and 2005-06, there were just 670,000 violations of the law detected and only 22,588 convictions, according to the labour ministry's annual report 2007-08.
Agreeing that the low conviction rate under the child labour act had failed to be a deterrent for people who violate the law, Sinha said the NCPCR had urged the labour ministry for strong and continuous enforcement of the law until it started discouraging people.
Highlighting a major lacuna in the law, Sinha, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Ramon Magsaysay award in 2003, said the commission had asked labour ministry to introduce agriculture under "hazardous occupations".
"The law says that children under the age of 14 should not be employed in any hazardous occupations. Agriculture, however, doesn't feature anywhere in the list of harmful occupations - despite the fact that 70-80 per cent child labourers are in the agriculture sector."
See also Page 29
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