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NEW DELHI, 17 July 2008] - The Indian labour ministry, which had come in for criticism for not being serious about implementing the Child Labour Act, has issued a 'protocol on rescue of child labour' on the directions of the Delhi High Court. Labour secretary Sudha Pillai said, she hoped that states would cooperate with the labour ministry in implementing it. Since a large number of rescued child labourers are found to be migrants, a draft protocol was prepared by the ministry some time back. The protocol lay down guidelines on actions to be taken by different departments of state governments, police, children and women commissions, non-government organisations and other stakeholders. Of the 1.2 crore child labourers in the country, the government has succeeded in rescuing only 392,413. As a result, the government has been criticised for not being serious about implementing the Child Labour Act. A National Child Labour Policy was initiated in 1987 with a view to eliminating child labour with a three-pronged endeavour — project based action plan in child labour endemic areas, targeting development of families of child workers and strict enforcement of Child Labour Act. Recently, the government had prohibited employment of children as domestic servants and in the hospitality and recreation sectors. Officials said the labour ministry was making efforts for convergence with other ministries — women and child development, HRD and rural development. It also launched a nationwide enforcement drive against child labour in November 2007. State governments were requested to step up enforcement drives and money was given to states to enhance awareness. Pillai said the National Child Labour Programme had been expanded from 250 districts in the 10th plan to 600 districts. Budget allocation had also been increased from Rs 602 crore to Rs 3,800 crore. Nevertheless, she admitted that the Centre had to depend largely on the cooperation of state governments for stricter implementation of the Child Labour Act. Further information
pdf: http://www.crin.org/docs/DraftProtocolPreventionMigrantChildLabour[1].pdf