No Child Labour in Domestic Work

Abstract

Over the decades Kashmir has been in conflict; the first & foremost affects have been its children. The children become orphans. They fall into the traps of orphanages that to satiate the proprietors greed exploit them and isolate them socially. They end up as domestic helps or in the occupations in open-air locations such as the street, the market, the shops, the motels; on remote farms and orchards; in guest-houses and hotels; in private households; and in back-room workshops. Even in certain cases they are being exploited - both by the interstate and intrastate agencies, mainstream politicians as well as the off-stream groups to serve their designs in terms of victims to Indian armed security personnel or militants. All these are outside the normal reach of labour controls.

It is perceptible that the problem of child labour does not have any ready-made solution, either through legal instruments or through universal education.

A human rights perspective is necessary for a fuller understanding of child labour, as it focuses on discrimination and exclusion as contributing factors. The United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children in 2002 endorsed a mainstreaming approach - placing child labour on the development agenda. This implied that a new ambition had to be set for the worldwide movement against child labour.