Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2000, published 89th ILC session (2001)

Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) - India (Ratification: 1954)

1.  The Committee notes the information provided orally by the Government to the Conference Committee on the Application of Standards at its 88th (June 2000) Session, following its previous comments, though it regrets the Government has not communicated a written report for examination at its present session in response to the long discussion in the Conference Committee. It hopes the Government will shortly submit a written report, which will provide detailed information in response to the following comments.

Bonded labour

2.  The Committee recalls that it has referred on many occasions to the urgent need to compile accurate statistics of the number of persons who continue to suffer under bonded labour, using a valid statistical methodology, with a view to identification and release of these persons. It recalled that estimates vary between the 280,340 identified by the Government as of 31 March 1999, and some ten million estimated still to exist by non-governmental organizations. Other official information generated within India has referred in the past to much higher numbers than those cited recently by the Government, for instance the survey conducted by the Ghandi Peace Foundation and the National Labour Institute in 1978-79 which cited a number of 2.6 million. Noting the reluctance of state governments within the country to participate in such efforts, the Committee again urges the Government to take effective measures to ensure that they will participate in an early and concerted effort to do so. It notes, for instance, offers recently made by the central Government to states to provide funding to identify districts where bonded labour still exists, examining the reasons for its continued existence and examining ways to abolish the practice; and the slowness or absence of responses to this proposal. The Committee also notes that the Conference Committee urged the Government to undertake a comprehensive and authoritative survey.

3.  The Government has referred once again to the technical difficulty of identifying bonded labourers. The Committee notes the reference by the Government during the Conference Committee discussion to a recent Supreme Court decision which ruled that when a labourer supplies labour free, it may be presumed that he or she was obliged to do so due to a loan or some other exploitative economic arrangement. The Government representative stated that this judgement had been communicated to the districts and subdivisions, and that it was hoped it would facilitate the release of bonded labourers. The Committee requests the Government to provide the text of the judgement, and to indicate whether it has been put into effect at the state level in helping to identify bonded labourers.

4.  In the absence of a written report, the Committee has no information available in response to its previous requests for information on further action, including release of bonded labourers in several states during 1998-99 referred to in the previous report; a proposal that was being processed in consultation with the Ministry of Finance to provide funds to all released bonded labourers; deputizing senior officials to visit certain areas to review and monitor progress made in implementing the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act, 1976; review meetings held between the Ministry of Labour and state governments, et al. The Committee therefore repeats the request it made in its previous observation for written information on the progress achieved on all these matters.

5.  The Committee also hopes that an ILO project developed as a direct response to the recently adopted Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182), and the recent ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, will be of assistance to the Government in combating bonded labour. The project is for an initial period of three years, and is designed to induce existing microfinance institutions to develop, test and offer tailor-made savings and loan products to vulnerable families on the verge of becoming bonded, or already bonded, or, after their release, to support rehabilitation.

Child labour

6.  The Committee recalls that in its previous observation it raised a number of questions concerning efforts to eliminate child labour falling under the present Convention (i.e. in conditions which are sufficiently hazardous or arduous that the work concerned cannot be counted as voluntary). The Committee had before it observations from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions on this and other points, to which the Government had not replied. It notes the assurances given at the Conference Committee in June 2000 concerning the efforts being made by the Government to address this issue, but it again requests the Government to provide replies to the various points put in that observation, which read in relevant part as follows:

8.  As regards child labour, the Committee notes ... information from the International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) on the matter, and the Government’s report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (document CRC/C/28/Add.10, 7 July 1997).

…

11.  The Committee notes the indication in the Anti-Slavery International communication [Note: received from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, and therefore receivable by the Committee] that many small production units - with fewer than ten persons where no electric power is in use, or fewer than 20 where electric power is used - are not subject to inspections under the Factories Act, 1948. Such units, for instance in "pappad" (appalam) production or in certain tanneries, employ children, directly or indirectly, and also as bonded labourers.

12.  The Committee asks the Government to:

-  comment on the abovementioned Anti-Slavery International communication and also to indicate what measures have been taken to address child labour in the unorganized sectors, i.e. in small-scale units not covered by the Factories Act, in cottage industries, particularly in such occupations as are hazardous to the child;

-  report on an assessment of the impact of the Notification of 27 January 1999 extending the list of hazardous occupations and processes of the Schedule of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986;

-  communicate copies of reports by the National Authority on Elimination of Child Labour, on actions taken to eliminate child labour, particularly child bonded labour;

-  provide information on how effect is being given to the directions of the Supreme Court in its judgement referred to above.

7.  In addition, the Committee notes the Concluding Observations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) following its examination of the report of the Government of India on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN doc. CRC/C/15/Add.15, 23 February 2000). That Committee notes, inter alia, that it "remains concerned at the large numbers of children involved in child labour, including bonded labour, especially in the informal sector, household enterprises, as domestic servants, and in agriculture, many of whom are working in hazardous conditions. The Committee is concerned that minimum age standards for employment are rarely enforced and appropriate penalties and sanctions are not imposed to ensure that employers comply with the law". The Committee on the Rights of the Child makes a number of recommendations, which the present Committee can only share: that the 1986 Child Labour Act 1986 be amended so that household enterprises and government schools and training centres are no longer exempt from prohibitions on employing children; that the Factories Act, 1948 be amended to cover all factories or workshops employing child labour; and that the Beedi Act be amended so that exemptions for household-based production are eliminated. The CRC goes on to make other recommendations, including that India ratify ILO Conventions Nos. 138 and 182.

8.  The Committee requests the Government to provide detailed information on all these matters.

Prostitution and sexual exploitation

9.  In its previous comments the Committee posed a series of questions and requested detailed information in reply. While the Government did not submit a written report, the Government representative at the Conference Committee in June 2000 expressed the opinion that Indian legislation was fully in accordance with Convention No. 29, but indicated that the general level of poverty and unemployment in the country might result in the exploitation of children despite these legal measures. He indicated that it was therefore necessary to strengthen enforcement mechanisms so that all complaints would be properly investigated and all offences punished. He also referred to a survey conducted by the Central Social Welfare Board in six cities, which had found that there were 70,000-100,000 prostitutes in India and that 30 per cent of this number were under 20 years of age. He spoke of a strategy to improve the economic resources of families and to conduct an awareness-raising campaign to alert the public to this problem. Finally, he noted that the Provincial Government of Uttar Pradesh had commissioned a study on child prostitution and stated that the study would be made available to the ILO once it was completed.

10.  The Committee once expresses the firm hope that the Government will take firm measures on an urgent basis to combat the various kinds of forced labour still extant in the country, and that it will continue to submit written as well as oral reports to the ILO on these efforts. It remains particularly important to mobilize both central and provincial governments in this effort, and to mobilize both the financial and political resources necessary to accomplish the work that needs to be done.

[The Government is asked to report in detail in 2001.]