Four Cases From a Ward-Level Child Rights Survey
A Class VIII social science teacher in a government middle school in Saharsa runs a ward-level survey on child rights as a project. Four cases are recorded:
- A: A 12-year-old girl threads bangles in a private unit six days a week, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- B: A 15-year-old boy works at a roadside cycle-repair shop from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. for ₹3,500 a month.
- C: A 9-year-old boy helps his parents at their own small kirana shop for two hours after school and on holidays.
- D: A 10-year-old girl acts in a local television serial four days a week; her mother has signed the contract on her behalf.
The students draft four conclusions to display on the project chart: (i) all four are illegal child labour; (ii) only A is illegal; (iii) A is prohibited, B falls outside the child-labour prohibition because he is over 14, C is permitted, and D can be permitted only with safeguards; (iv) nothing can be done in any case unless the police register an FIR.
The teacher must choose one conclusion and decide what the school itself will do about each child, including whether they can be brought into school.
1. Which draft conclusion should the class adopt, and why are the other three wrong?
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Conclusion (iii) is the defensible one.
- A: below 14, in a commercial unit, not a family enterprise - barred. Article 24 of the Constitution covers employment of children below 14 in factories, mines and hazardous work, and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016 extends the prohibition to all occupations and processes for children below 14, with narrow exceptions.
- B: at 15 he is an adolescent, not a child, under that Act. The Act bars adolescents from hazardous occupations and processes, not from all work; a repair shop is not in the hazardous schedule. So the prohibition does not automatically catch him - but his 13-hour day and his being out of school are separate concerns, addressed below.
- C: the family-enterprise exemption applies - it is the parents' own shop, the hours are outside school, and the work is not hazardous. Permitted.
- D: the 2016 Act permits a child to work in audio-visual entertainment and sports, but only under safeguards (hours, schooling, rest, no hazardous conditions); a parent's signature is not a blanket licence.
(i) is wrong because it flattens C and D into offences. (ii) is wrong because it treats the conditions attached to D as irrelevant and B as a non-issue. (iv) is wrong because the police are not the only route: the Child Welfare Committee and the District Child Protection Unit act on referrals, and the school can act directly on admission.
2. For cases A and B, what should the school do concretely - which authority, which provision, and what is the school's own duty?
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Case A (12-year-old, bangle unit). Two duties run in parallel.
- Protection: report to Childline 1098 or directly to the District Child Protection Unit, which places the matter before the Child Welfare Committee under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015; the labour department is informed for action against the employer under the 2016 Act.
- Education: she is 12, so she is squarely inside the Right to Education Act's 6–14 age band. Section 4 requires that a child above six who has not been admitted, or has dropped out, be admitted to a class appropriate to her age and given special training to bring her up to level. Refusal on grounds of 'no documents' or 'mid-year' is not available.
Case B (15-year-old, repair shop). He is outside the RTE age band, so the school cannot simply enrol him in Class VIII. But it is not powerless: refer him to the open schooling or state equivalency route for secondary level, and refer the working conditions to the Child Welfare Committee, since a 13-hour working day alongside no schooling is a child-in-need-of-care-and-protection question rather than a child-labour prosecution. Record the referral.
Both cases: the school's own duty is to keep the children's names and details confidential, to name one staff member as the referral point, and to note the action taken in the project file instead of displaying the children's identities on a chart. A project that exposes the children it studies has defeated its purpose.
3. A parent objects: 'Our own shop is our family business; the government has no business telling us what our child does.' How far is that objection legally correct?
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Correct in part. The 2016 Act does exempt family enterprises from the prohibition on employing children below 14. The parent is not committing an offence merely by having the child help in the shop, and the school should not present it as one. Case C, as recorded, falls inside that exemption.
Incorrect in part, on three counts.
- The exemption is conditional, not absolute. It does not survive if the work becomes hazardous, or if it is carried on during school hours, or if it deprives the child of education. Helping for two hours after school is one thing; keeping him home during a school day is another.
- There is a constitutional mandate. Article 21A makes free and compulsory education a fundamental right for children aged 6–14, and Article 24 bars hazardous employment below 14. The state is not a busybody here; it is enforcing a right held by the child, which the child's own family cannot waive.
- The parent's framing treats the child as an object of family choice. The legal position is the reverse: the child is the rights-holder and the parent is the guardian of those rights.
The answer to give the parent, in plain terms: your shop is yours, and your child's help there is allowed - but his school hours and his safety are not yours to trade away. That is why the school asks about hours and attendance, and does not ask him to stop helping altogether.