Nobel peace prize winner, Kailash Satyarthi today urged the Government to bring in amendments to the Child Labour Act, 1986 during the current Budget session of Parliament and pass them.
The Act should ensure that all forms of child labour are banned up to 14. At present, it allows employment of child labour in hazardous areas, which constitutes significant number, he told newspersons during an interaction at the Press Club of Hyderabad.
India has brought in two new progressive laws subsequent to 1986 Act. These are the Right to Education and Juvenile Justice. As per the Right to Education, all children up to 14 are entitled to education. This is contradictory to the child labour act provisions, Satyarthi argued.
Both the present BJP led NDA Government and the previous Congress led UPA Government had agreed to these contradictions. There the time was ripe to bring in the necessary changes. The triangle of child labour-lack of education-poverty were totally inter-linked, the child rights activist, who shared the Nobel prize with Malala Yousufzain, the teenaged Pakistani girl, who stood up to terrorists, said.
He said there were 168 million kids across the world that fell under the category of child labour. At least 85 million of them are victims of the worst atrocities. There are 20 crore jobless youth, which makes the entire situation very paradoxical.