45 Percent of Fewer Children Exploited as Workers

By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 21 December 2011, 17:33 IST
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Bangalore: A decline of 45 percent in the use of children as workers in the age group 5 to 14 is shown in a survey conducted by National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). This was made possible with the help of the mid-day meal scheme and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) which brought down the number of working children in India by almost half in five years.

The number of child laborers has been on a declining trend. The census figures in 2001 showed 12.6 million child laborers and 11.3 million child laborers in 1991. This increase has not been attributed to increase in child laborers, but due to the increase in the total child population which went up from 20 million to 250 million.

The NSSO has categorized its data under four heads:  rural male, rural female, urban male and urban female. Uttar Pradesh was the worst performing state in all the categories. The total number of child labor in Uttar Pradesh is about 18, 00,000. Followed by West Bengal with 5, 50,000 and Rajasthan with 4, 00,000.

Gujrat has a total population of child labor of 3, 90,000 with the highest worker population ratio.  Gujarat has 240 child workers for every 1,000 workers.

More than 85 per cent of the total child workers are put to work in the fields, thus showing the highest child worker employment in rural India. According to the data 2.5 million male children and 1.7 million female children work as laborers in rural India. Whereas around 5, 82,000 male children and 186,000 female children are employed in urban areas.