The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986
The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986
The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 has been enacted to prohibit the engagement of children in certain employments and to regulate the conditions of work of children in certain other employments. It repealed the Employment of Children Act, 1938 (26 of 1938). As per the Act children are prohibited from being employed or permitted to work in any of the occupations set forth in Part A of the Schedule of the Act or in any workshop wherein any of the processes set forth in Part B of the Schedule of the Act is carried on. Child has been defined under the Act as a person who has not completed his fourteen years of age. Regarding regulating conditions of work of children it is mandated that no child shall be required or permitted to work in any establishment in excess of fixed number of hours. Establishment is defined as including shop, commercial establishment, workshop, farm, residential hotel, restaurant, eating house, theatre or other place of public amusement or entertainment. Again the period of work on each day has to be fixed in such a way that no period shall exceed three hours and that no child shall work for more than three hours before he has had an interval for rest for at least one hour.
The period of work of a child shall be so arranged that inclusive of his interval for rest, it shall not be spread over more than six hours, including the time spent in waiting for work on any day. Any child is also barred from working overtime. Every child employed in an establishment is allowed in each week, a holiday of one whole day, which day has to be specified by the occupier in a notice permanently exhibited in a conspicuous place in the establishment and the day so specified cannot be altered by the occupier more than once in three months.
But anyone employing child or permitting any child to work in contravention of the provisions of this act can be punished with imprisonment for a term can extend to one year or with fine which may extend to twenty thousand rupees or with both. Second offenders can be punished with aggravated sentences and fines.
