Over 60 million child laborers in India

India, an IT giant and the world's second-fastest growing major economy, has millions of Rajus: all under 14 years of age, some as young as 4 or 5, and all toiling hard just to get a square meal to keep body and soul from parting company. Child labor is a  dagger through India's soul. The country has the dubious distinction of being home to the largest child labor force in the world, with an estimated 30 percent of the world's working kids living here. A study conducted by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, says there are as many as 60 million children working in India's agricultural and commercial sectors. The condition of these kids is awfully appalling, they are paid mere Rs 300 to Rs 500 a month; sometimes they are given food to survive and no money at all.

Child labor is a dagger through India's soul. The country has the dubious distinction of being home to the largest child labor force in the world, with an estimated 30 percent of the world's working kids living here. These kids are forced to work to help their poor families, but this robs them of their right to childhood and all its associated joys. Child labor also crushes their right to normal physical and mental development, to education and thus to a healthy, prosperous life. Seven days a week, these children toil as hard as their tender bodies can allow them to, working in inhuman conditions in cramped, dim rooms, breathing toxic fumes, and every now and then being subjected to verbal and physical violence by their employers. These young children work for hours on end, suffering from constant fatigue.

Government statistics say that there are 2 crore (20 million) child laborers in India, a country that has ambitions of becoming a global superpower in a few years. Non-governmental agencies assert that the figure is more than 6 crore (60 million) including agricultural workers; some claim that the number could be 100 million, if one were to define all children out of school as child laborers. The International Labor Organization estimates that 218 million children ages 5-17 are engaged in child labor the world over. An estimated 14 percent of children in India between the ages of 5 and 14 are engaged in child labor activities, including carpet production. It would cost $760 billion over a 20-year period to end child labor. The estimated benefit in terms of better education and health is about six times that — over $4 trillion in economies where child laborers are found. Some children are forced to work up to 18 hours a day, often never leaving the confines of the factory or loom shed. Children trafficked into one form of labor may be later sold into another, as with girls from rural Nepal, who are recruited to work in carpet factories but are then trafficked into the sex industry over the border in India.

Child labor in India is mostly practiced in restaurants, roadside stalls; matches, fireworks and explosives industry; glass and bangles factories; beedi-making; carpet-making; lock-making; brassware; export-oriented garment units; gem polishing export industry; slate mines and manufacturing units; leather units; diamond industry; building and construction industry; brick kilns, helpers to mechanics, masons, carpenters, painters, plumbers, cooks, etc.

Thousands of affluent Indians hire youngsters for household chores and to look after their own kids, under the pretext of providing some money to the parents of the child laborers and of offering a better life than he/she would normally have had. 

The Indian Constitution says that child labor is a wrong practice and standards should be set by law to eliminate it. The Child Labor Act of 1986 implemented by the government of India makes child labor illegal in many regions and sets the minimum age of employment at 14 years. No wonder the barely 10-year-old Raju at the dhaba said he was 14. Exploiters threaten kids in many ways and the child has no way out but to lie to keep his “job.” Due to economic factors, many of the law's goals are difficult to meet. The law, for example, does nothing to protect children who perform domestic or unreported labor. In almost all Indian industries girls are unrecognized laborers because they are seen as helpers and not workers. Girls are thus not protected by the law.