World Day Against Child Labour 2025 : Theme, Significance, and UPSC Relevance

• Despite global economic progress, over 160 million children are still trapped in child labour globally — 1 in 10 worldwide.
• Child labour is not just a moral failure but a multidimensional crisis involving poverty, lack of access to education, informal economy pressures, and governance gaps.
• Every year on June 12, the World Day Against Child Labour reminds nations to recommit to ending this injustice, especially in the Global South.

Theme for 2025:

• “Let’s Act on Our Commitments: End Child Labour Now!”
• The 2025 theme reinforces the need to transition from promises to action, especially after the setbacks from COVID-19 and economic downturns.
• It aligns with the UN SDG Target 8.7, which aims to end child labour in all its forms by 2025.

A Global Snapshot:

• Africa has the highest child labour rates (1 in 5 children).
• Asia and the Pacific follow, but with slower progress.
• The ILO reports that if trends continue, child labour will not be eliminated by 2025, especially in agriculture, mining, and informal services.

Key Causes of Child Labour in Developing Countries

• Poverty & Debt Trap: Families in distress rely on children as income generators, often pushing them into informal or hazardous sectors.
• Education Deficit: Lack of accessible, affordable, and quality education forces children into work. According to UNESCO, around 8 crore children remain out of school in South Asia.
• Informal Economy & Exploitation: In countries like India, over 90% of the workforce is informal, making regulation of child labour difficult.
• Social Norms & Caste-Gender Bias: In many rural belts, Dalit, Adivasi, and Muslim children, especially girls, are disproportionately pushed into domestic or bonded work.
• Conflicts and Displacement: Refugee and conflict-affected regions often see spikes in child labour as basic structures collapse.

Sectors Where Child Labour is Prevalent

• Agriculture (70%): Children often work in farms, tea plantations, or livestock rearing.
• Construction & Mining: Hazardous, informal, and often invisible to regulators.
• Textiles & Fireworks (India): Especially in clusters like Sivakasi and Surat.
• Domestic Work & Street Vending: Hidden within urban homes and informal city spaces.
• Online Gig Economy (Emerging): Child labour is now shifting into digital packaging, online assembly work, and couriering.

Constitutional Provisions

• Article 24: Prohibits employment of children below 14 years in hazardous jobs.
• Article 21A: Right to free and compulsory education (ages 6–14).
• Article 39(e) & (f): Directive Principles promote protection from exploitation and ensure opportunities for development.

Legislative Safeguards

• Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016: Prohibits employment of children below 14 years in all occupations and adolescents (14–18 years) in hazardous processes.
• Right to Education Act (2009): Makes education a legal right and discourages child labour.
• Juvenile Justice Act, 2015: Treats child labour as a form of cruelty and exploitation.
• National Child Labour Project (NCLP): A central scheme offering transitional education centres and rehabilitation for rescued child labourers.

Gaps Between Law and Reality

• Despite legal prohibition, over 1 crore children are still engaged in child labour in India, especially in informal rural economies.
• Data invisibility and poor reporting mechanisms hide the true scale of the problem.
• Weak enforcement: Low conviction rates under child labour laws; inspections are irregular.
• Economic pressures post-COVID have reversed gains made during the 2010s.

Social-Cultural Resistance

• In some regions, community acceptance of child labour persists — especially in family trades, agriculture, and home-based crafts.
• Children often support their families, making removal without alternate social security unsustainable.

Rehabilitation Issues

• Many National Child Labour Project schools lack funding or qualified teachers, turning rescued children into dropouts.
• Lack of psycho-social support, vocational skilling, and reintegration programs weakens the rescue-to-rehab continuum.

International Frameworks

• ILO Convention 138 & 182: India is a signatory — focuses on minimum age and worst forms of child labour.
• SDG Goal 8.7: Calls for immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery, and child labour.
• Alliance 8.7: A global multi-stakeholder platform to coordinate global efforts.
• UNICEF-ILO joint reports have helped map risk sectors and suggest multi-tiered action.

Successful Country Models

• Brazil’s Bolsa Família: Conditional cash transfers reduced child labour by keeping children in schools.
• Ghana’s Child Labour Monitoring Systems: Localized, tech-enabled community surveillance systems helped identify and rehabilitate at-risk children.
• Philippines’ Barangay Council for the Protection of Children: Empowered local units to enforce child rights laws.

• Strengthen Implementation of Laws: Ensure rigorous on-ground enforcement of child labour laws through better funding, trained inspectors, and fast-track justice mechanisms.
• Universal Social Protection for Families: Expand cash transfer programs, food security, and job guarantees for vulnerable households to reduce their dependency on child income.
• Education-First Approach: Make schools more inclusive with remedial support, digital access, midday meals, and bridge programs for rescued children.
• Community-Led Monitoring: Empower local governance institutions, women’s groups, and youth collectives to act as grassroots watchdogs and advocates.
• Public-Private Collaboration: Industries, especially in informal and supply chain-heavy sectors, must adopt zero child labour policies and ethical sourcing standards.
• Use of Technology & Data: Develop real-time child tracking systems, geotagged rescue databases, and AI-based risk prediction tools for proactive prevention.
• Global South-South Cooperation: Share success models and collaborate on common frameworks among countries facing similar challenges like India, Bangladesh, and Nigeria.

• Ending child labour is not just a legal requirement, but a civilisational imperative.
• India must build systems that are preventive, rehabilitative, and empowering — moving beyond token awareness to concrete, grassroots change.
• With less than a year to meet SDG 8.7 targets, 2025 must become a year of reckoning — where action matches ambition, and every child is guaranteed their right to dream, learn, and live free.