“We are forced to be wage labourers though we want to be full-time students,” says Monica, a girl child who came to participate in the Child Labour Rally on 19 May 2006 in New Delhi on the issue of the Education Bill pending in Parliament. “We cannot be full-time students because we have to struggle for our existence and survival,” she adds.

About 200 children assembled at Jantar Mantar at 12 noon and marched towards the Parliament raising slogans against child labour as well as for the right to education. Later, the children submitted a memorandum to the Minister for Human Resources.

Addressing the children, Syed Azeez Pasha, MP Rajya Sabha, stated that all forms of child labour are hazardous for children. Children are not supposed to do repetitive work for long hours; instead, they should do innovative actions at their will. He emphasised the need for making basic changes in the child labour law and promised to take up the issue of the right to education in Parliament in this session. 

Swami Agnivesh addressed the children and reiterated that these child labourers coming from various slums of Delhi will be holding chairs in Parliament in the coming years. He also opined that laws for the total eradication of child labour would come into existence only if one among them became the Prime Minister of the country.

“The onus to educate children must be on the state and not on the children or their parents,” emphasised Jitendra Singh, Convener, Delhi chapter of Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL). He criticised the government by saying that the draft bill on Right to Education does not reflect this constitutional obligation. According to him, unless the implementing agencies are made accountable, this bill cannot be made effective. Further, it is this accountability of the state to guarantee the right to education to all children that will also go a long way to ensuring adequate financial allocation for the same.

Ashok Singh Jha, coordinator of Dr Baliga Memorial Trust, said that on the one hand this Bill proposes very low-quality education for poor children on the other it comes up with an entirely different kind of high quality education for those who are not poor. The Bill is not covering private schools because they are wrongly recognised as non-aided schools. The government must not classify and categorise children in the name of availability of resources.

Social activist Mr. Shailendra said, in the year 1992, the government of India ratified the upper age limit of a child as 18. Accordingly, the age was raised from 16 to 18 in the Juvenile Justice Act recently. Hence, in the changed circumstances, the upper age limit of a child should be raised from 14 to 18 in the Free and Compulsory Education Bill and in Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act, 1986.

Ali Anwar, MP Lok Sabha, National Coordinator, while addressing the rally, said that Article 24 of the Constitution validates the system of child labour because it does not prohibit child labour in hazardous sectors. Now, 56 years after the promulgation of the Constitution, the need of the hour is its reassessment. Policy-makers should realise that any work that is done repetitively by children is hazardous. Therefore, Article 24 of the Constitution should be amended to prohibit labour in all sectors of work by children up to the age of 18.