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DELHI, INDIA, May 7, 2002: Ten years after India ratified a UN convention pledging to protect children’s rights, the country continues to be home to the world’s largest number of child laborers. It is believed there are up to 100 million children working in homes, factories, shops, fields, brothels and on the streets of rural and urban India. Both government officials and activists agree that one of the root causes for the prevalence of child labor is excruciating poverty. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated that 40% of India’s citizens were living in abject poverty in the mid-1990s and most believe that figure has not changed. Many aid agencies are critical of what they consider the government’s overemphasis on the link between poverty and child labor and say it is, rather, an example of the lack of political will to implement a host of laws that are already in place to prevent and regulate the employment of children. India is a signatory to more than 120 ILO conventions, all of which seek to eliminate child labor. According to a leading non-governmental organization called Campaign Against Child Labor, current legislation suffers from too many loopholes. The group said the legislation’s distinction between hazardous and non-hazardous occupations was arbitrary and the law overlooks up to 85% of child labor working in areas outside registered establishments. Many activists say that what is far more important than laws banning child labor is a political commitment to primary education. They say the solution lies in the government working closely with aid agencies in the field to help combat child labor with literacy programs.

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