End Child Labour in India | BRAC Fight for Protection and Freedom

1. Introduction: The Urgency of Ending Child Labour
In homes, workshops, fields, and streets across India, millions of children work instead of going to school, playing with friends, or simply being children. Child labour—one of the most troubling violations of children’s rights—continues to trap millions of young people in cycles of poverty and harm despite laws meant to protect them. According to the latest rescue data, over 53,651 children were rescued from exploitation across India between April 2024 and March 2025, with nearly 90% of them engaged in the worst forms of child labour.

Each number represents a childhood stolen. A young girl working 14 hours a day in a spinning mill for minimal wages instead of attending school. A boy carrying heavy loads in a brick kiln, his small body strained beyond capacity. Children as young as five years working in homes as domestic help, invisible and vulnerable to harm. These children miss education, suffer physical and mental damage, and lose the chance to break free from poverty that trapped their parents.

The crisis affects millions of families. According to Census 2011 data, 43.53 lakh (4.353 million) children aged 5-14 years were classified as main workers, showing a significant decline from 57.79 lakh in Census 2001. When including both main workers and marginal workers (children in seasonal or part-time work), the total reaches 10.1 million children in the 5-14 age group out of 259.64 million children. Research projections estimated that by 2025, approximately 7.43 million children would still be working as labourers in India if efforts continued at the then-current pace. Current rescue operations show that Telangana recorded the highest number of child labour rescues with 11,063 cases, followed by Bihar with 3,974 cases, Rajasthan with 3,847 cases, Uttar Pradesh with 3,804 cases, and Delhi with 2,588 cases between April 2024 and March 2025.

The reasons behind child labour are deeply troubling. Children work because families are poor and desperate for income to survive. Parents lack awareness that education could break the cycle of poverty. Communities accept child labour as normal because generations before also worked as children. Employers prefer hiring children because they pay them less, children obey without question, and children are less likely to demand rights or complain about conditions. According to research, child labour rates among Muslim communities were about 40% higher than Hindu communities, and tribal populations showed child labour rates of 3.8%, higher than the national average.

The harm extends far beyond lost schooling. Children working long hours suffer physical injuries, stunted growth, damaged eyesight, breathing problems from dust and chemicals, and permanent disabilities. Their minds suffer too—children lose confidence, develop fear and anxiety, miss social development with friends their age, and grow up without knowing their rights or worth. Families stay trapped in poverty because uneducated children grow into adults who can only find low-paying work, continuing the cycle for the next generation. According to Save the Children data, India has the highest number of children stunted because of poor nutrition—48.2 million children—equivalent to Colombia’s entire population.

Despite strong laws passed in 1986 and strengthened through amendments in 2016 that prohibit employment of children below 14 years in any occupation and adolescents in dangerous work, child labour continues. The gap between law on paper and reality on the ground remains wide. Children still work in factories, homes, fields, and shops across the country. Cases move slowly through courts, with only 1,390 cases registered under the Child Labour Act in 2023 compared to thousands of actual violations. Many children never get rescued because inspections are weak, employers hide violations, and families fear losing desperately needed income.

2. Understanding the Issue: The Scope and Impact of Child Labour
Child labour in India represents a serious violation of children’s rights that robs them of education, childhood, dignity, and future opportunities. Understanding the full scope requires examining who is affected, why children work, where labour is most common, what children endure, and the deep impact on individuals, families, and communities.

The Scale of the Crisis: Current Statistics and Trends
The data on child labour reveals troubling patterns across India.

• Recent Rescue Numbers: Between April 2024 and March 2025, rescue operations coordinated by Just Rights for Children network conducted 38,889 rescue operations across 24 states, leading to the rescue of 53,651 children. The highest numbers of rescues occurred in Telangana with 11,063 children, Bihar with 3,974 children, Rajasthan with 3,847 children, Uttar Pradesh with 3,804 children, and Delhi with 2,588 children.
• Census and Survey Data: The Census 2011, the most comprehensive official count, found 10.12 million child labourers aged 5-14 years out of 259.64 million children in that age group, representing approximately 3.9% of the child population. Projections based on population trends estimated that by 2025, approximately 7.43 million children would still be in labour.
• Underreporting Problem: Official statistics likely represent only a portion of actual child labour. Many children work in hidden sectors like homes, small family businesses, agriculture, and informal settings where government inspectors cannot reach. Families hide child workers to avoid penalties. Some estimates suggest the actual number of working children could be significantly higher when unreported cases are included.
• Types of Work: According to the 2024-2025 rescue data, nearly 90% of rescued children were engaged in the worst forms of child labour, including work in spas and massage parlours, orchestra troupes, domestic labour, informal entertainment services, and in many cases, sexual exploitation, pornography, and prostitution.
• Age Patterns: Most child labourers are in the 5-14 age group, with children as young as five working in various sectors. According to Save the Children, children between 14 and 17 years engage in dangerous work and account for 62.8% of India’s child labour workforce, with more boys than girls working in risky conditions.
• Gender Breakdown: Research shows that 38.7 million boys compared to 8.8 million girls are engaged in child labour, with boys facing more dangerous work conditions. However, girl child labour is often hidden in domestic work and family enterprises where it goes uncounted.

Geographic Distribution and High-Risk States
Child labour is not spread evenly across India, with certain states showing much higher rates.

• Uttar Pradesh: Projected to have 30% of the country’s total child labour population by 2025, making it the state with the highest burden. Census data showed Uttar Pradesh had 1,927,997 child labourers.
• Bihar: Expected to account for 12% of India’s child labour by 2025. The state recorded 3,974 child labour rescues between April 2024 and March 2025.
• Maharashtra and Rajasthan: Maharashtra is projected to have 8% of the country’s child labour and Rajasthan 6% by 2025. Rajasthan saw 3,847 rescue operations in 2024-2025.
• Other High-Risk States: Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Jharkhand are each expected to have 5% of the country’s child labour population. Telangana recorded the highest number of rescue operations with 11,063 children freed in 2024-2025.
• Urban Centers: Delhi, India’s capital, had over 1 million child labourers according to earlier surveys and recorded 2,588 rescues in 2024-2025. Other cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, and Bengaluru also report significant child labour.
• Rural vs. Urban: Historically, 80% of working children were found in rural areas where agriculture and traditional occupations dominate. However, UNICEF data shows a 54% increase in child labour in urban areas for children aged 5-14, as children migrate or are trafficked to cities for work.

Profile of Victims and Affected Communities
Not all children face equal risk of being forced into labour.

• Children from Poor Families: Poverty is the single biggest driver of child labour. Families earning below the poverty line depend on children’s wages to survive, forcing children to work instead of attending school.
• Children from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes: Research indicates that children from SC and ST communities face disproportionately high rates of child labour due to historical discrimination, limited access to education, and concentration in low-wage occupations.
• Children from Religious Minorities: Muslim children showed child labour rates about 40% higher than Hindu children according to government surveys. This correlates with higher poverty rates and lower school enrollment in these communities.
• Migrant Children: Children whose families migrate for work face especially high vulnerability. They lose access to schools, live in temporary camps without protection, and work alongside parents in construction, brick kilns, and agriculture.
• Orphaned and Vulnerable Children: Children without parental care, from single-parent homes, or with disabled or sick parents face higher risk because families lack adults who can earn adequate income.

Forms and Sectors Where Child Labour Occurs
Understanding where children work is essential for targeting interventions.

• Agriculture and Allied Activities: The largest sector employing child labour, particularly in rural areas. Children work in fields planting, weeding, harvesting, pesticide spraying, and tending livestock.
• Domestic Work: Thousands of children, mostly girls, work in homes cooking, cleaning, washing, and caring for other children. This work is hidden inside private homes where no one can see the conditions or hours.
• Manufacturing and Industry: Children work in garment factories, spinning mills, brick kilns, match factories, fireworks production, lock-making, glass factories, and many other small-scale industries.
• Services: Children work in restaurants and tea shops, as helpers in vehicle repair shops and small retail stores, as ragpickers collecting waste, and in other service sector jobs.
• Hazardous and Illegal Work: The most dangerous forms include work in spas and massage parlours, orchestra troupes, entertainment services, begging rings, and trafficking for sexual exploitation. Between April 2024 and March 2025, nearly 90% of rescued children were in these worst forms of labour.

Root Causes and Drivers of Child Labour
Understanding why child labour persists is key to ending it.

• Poverty and Economic Desperation: Families living in extreme poverty see no choice but to send children to work because adult wages alone cannot feed the family. Children’s income, though small, makes the difference between eating and going hungry.
• Lack of Access to Quality Education: When schools are far away, charge fees families cannot afford, lack basic facilities, or provide poor quality education that does not lead to better jobs, parents do not see value in keeping children in school.
• High Illiteracy Rates: Parents who never attended school themselves do not understand the long-term value of education. They believe children learn better through work than books.
• Social Acceptance and Tradition: In many communities, child labour has continued for generations. People view it as normal for children to work, particularly in family occupations and agriculture.
• Employer Demand: Employers actively seek child workers because they pay them much less than adults, children are easier to control and less likely to complain about conditions, children’s small hands are claimed to be better for delicate work, and children cannot form unions or demand rights.
• Weak Enforcement: Despite laws prohibiting child labour, enforcement remains weak. Too few labour inspectors cover too many workplaces. Penalties for violating employers are often not imposed. Cases move slowly through courts with low conviction rates.

The Devastating Physical Impact on Children
The physical harm from child labour affects children throughout their lives.

• Injuries and Accidents: Children working with dangerous machinery, sharp tools, heavy loads, and chemicals suffer frequent injuries including cuts, burns, broken bones, and crush injuries. Some children die in workplace accidents.
• Stunted Growth and Malnutrition: Children who work long hours and eat inadequately suffer stunted growth that cannot be reversed. India has 48.2 million children stunted due to malnutrition, the highest number in the world.
• Musculoskeletal Damage: Carrying heavy loads, working in cramped positions, and doing repetitive motions causes permanent damage to growing bones, joints, and muscles. Children develop back problems, joint pain, and deformities.
• Respiratory Problems: Children working in dusty environments like construction sites, stone quarries, and textile mills develop breathing difficulties, chronic cough, asthma, and lung diseases that persist throughout life.
• Vision Damage: Working in poor lighting conditions, doing detailed close work, and exposure to chemicals damages children’s eyesight. Many child labourers develop severe vision problems by their teenage years.
• Exposure to Toxic Substances: Children in agriculture spray pesticides without protection. Those in manufacturing handle toxic chemicals. This exposure causes poisoning, skin diseases, and long-term health damage including cancer and organ damage.

Psychological and Emotional Trauma
The mental health impact of child labour is severe and lasting.

• Loss of Childhood and Identity: Children who work instead of play lose the chance to develop normally. They miss the joy, creativity, exploration, and social development that childhood should provide.
• Depression and Low Self-Worth: Working children develop feelings of worthlessness, believing they are only valuable for their labour. Many suffer depression, hopelessness, and lose the ability to imagine better futures.
• Anxiety and Fear: Children working in harsh conditions develop constant anxiety about making mistakes, fear of punishment by employers, and stress from trying to balance impossible demands.
• Loss of Education and Skills: Children who miss school grow into adults who cannot read, write, or do basic math. They lack skills needed for better jobs and cannot help their own children with schoolwork.
• Social Isolation: Working children have no time for friends or normal social activities. They miss developing social skills, forming relationships, and being part of a community of peers.
• Trauma from Abuse: Many child labourers face physical abuse including beating, verbal abuse and humiliation, sexual abuse and exploitation, and trafficking. This trauma affects their mental health throughout life.

Social and Economic Impact on Families and Communities
The effects of child labour extend far beyond individual children.

• Perpetuation of Poverty: When children work instead of going to school, they grow into adults who can only find low-paying work, keeping families poor generation after generation. Education is the primary route out of poverty, and child labour blocks that route.
• Lower Economic Productivity: A workforce of poorly educated adults is less productive than an educated workforce. Child labour today means lower economic growth for the entire country tomorrow.
• Unfair Competition: Employers who use cheap child labour have an unfair advantage over businesses that follow laws and pay fair wages. This pushes good employers out of business and rewards violators.
• Social Inequality: Child labour concentrates in communities that are already disadvantaged—SC and ST populations, religious minorities, and poor families. This deepens existing inequalities and prevents these communities from advancing.
• Public Health Burden: Children damaged by labour become adults with chronic health problems requiring expensive medical care. Society bears the cost of treating injuries, disabilities, and diseases caused by child labour.
• Weakened Democratic Participation: Adults who never received education are less able to participate in democracy, understand their rights, demand better governance, and hold leaders accountable. Child labour today means weaker democracy tomorrow.

Your donation to BRAC helps address this crisis comprehensively. It funds rescue operations that free children from exploitation, immediate care and rehabilitation that helps children heal, educational support that gets children back in school and keeps them there, family support that addresses poverty so children do not need to work, legal aid that prosecutes violators and protects children’s rights, and prevention programs that stop child labour before it starts.

3. Legal Framework: Laws and Policies Protecting Against Child Labour
India has developed a comprehensive legal framework to prevent child labour, punish violators, and protect children’s rights. This framework combines constitutional protections, criminal law provisions, specialized child labour laws, Supreme Court directives, and international commitments. However, gaps between law and enforcement persist.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON INDIAN CRIMINAL LAW (AS OF 2025):
On July 1, 2024, India implemented a new set of criminal laws. All criminal legal references in this article are based on these current laws:

• The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, which replaces the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
• The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, which replaces the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
• The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA), 2023, which replaces the Indian Evidence Act.
  All references to the old IPC and CrPC are no longer in effect for current legal matters.

Constitutional Protections: The Foundation
The Indian Constitution provides fundamental protections that form the basis for laws against child labour.

• Article 21 – Right to Life and Personal Liberty: Guarantees every person, including children, the right to life and personal liberty. The Supreme Court has interpreted this to include the right to live with dignity, which child labour violates.
• Article 21A – Right to Education: Inserted in 2002, guarantees free and compulsory education for all children aged 6-14 years. This creates a constitutional obligation for the state to ensure children are in school, not working.
• Article 23 – Prohibition of Traffic in Human Beings and Forced Labour: Prohibits traffic in human beings and forced labour, which includes child labour in many forms. Violation of this right is an offence punishable by law.
• Article 24 – Prohibition of Employment of Children in Factories: Explicitly prohibits employment of children below 14 years in any factory, mine, or other hazardous employment. This is one of the most direct constitutional protections against child labour.
• Article 39(e) and (f) – Directive Principles: Direct state policy to ensure that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity, and that childhood is protected against exploitation and moral abandonment.

Criminal Law Provisions: Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023
The new criminal code contains specific provisions addressing exploitation of children.

• Section 93 – Exposure and Abandonment of Child Under 12 Years: This section criminalizes exposing or abandoning a child under 12 years by a parent or person having care of the child. Punishment is imprisonment up to seven years, or fine, or both. This prevents parents from abandoning children who may then fall into labour exploitation.
• Section 95 – Hiring, Employing or Engaging a Child to Commit an Offence: This section penalizes those who hire, employ, or engage children to commit offences. Punishment is imprisonment of either description which shall not be less than three years but which may extend to ten years, and fine. This targets those who exploit children for criminal activities including forced labour.
• Section 96 – Selling Children for Purposes of Prostitution: Prohibits selling children for prostitution. This addresses one of the worst forms of child exploitation often linked with child labour trafficking.
• Section 143 – Trafficking of Persons: Defines trafficking as recruiting, transporting, harbouring, transferring, or receiving a person for exploitation using various coercive means. The section outlines severe punishments for trafficking, with higher penalties for trafficking multiple persons or children. This is critical for addressing child labour trafficking.
• Section 144 – Exploitation of Trafficked Person: Deals with exploitation of trafficked persons, including sexual exploitation and forced labour. This provides additional punishment for those who exploit trafficked children.

Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016
The primary legislation specifically addressing child labour is the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, as amended in 2016.

Complete Prohibition for Children Below 14 Years:
The 2016 Amendment provides for complete prohibition of work or employment of children below 14 years of age in any occupation and process. Only two narrow exceptions exist: children may help their families or family enterprises if the work is not hazardous and only after school hours or during vacations, and children may work as artists in audio-visual entertainment or sports (excluding circuses) with appropriate safety measures that do not affect their education.

Prohibition of Adolescents in Hazardous Work:
The Amendment introduces the category of “adolescents” (14-18 years) and prohibits their work in hazardous occupations and processes. This recognizes that while older children may work in limited circumstances, they must be protected from dangerous work.

Stricter Punishment:
The Amendment provides for stricter punishment for employers who violate the Act. Violating employers face imprisonment and fines. The offence was made cognizable, meaning police can arrest without warrant and begin investigation without court permission.

Rehabilitation Provisions:
The Act provides for rehabilitation of children and adolescents employed illegally. It establishes the Child and Adolescent Labour Rehabilitation Fund at the district level for this purpose.

Supreme Court Directives: Landmark Judgments
The Supreme Court of India has issued important directions on eliminating child labour.

M.C. Mehta vs. State of Tamil Nadu (1996):
This landmark case is the most significant judicial intervention on child labour. On December 10, 1996, the Supreme Court gave comprehensive directions that transformed India’s approach to child labour.

Key Directives:

• Survey for Identification: State governments must conduct surveys to identify working children.
• Withdrawal and Education: Children working in hazardous industries must be withdrawn from work and enrolled in appropriate educational institutions.
• Employer Contribution: Offending employers of children must pay Rs. 20,000 per child to a welfare fund established for this purpose. This creates financial consequences for violators and generates funds for rehabilitation.
• State Government Contribution: If employment cannot be provided to one adult member of the family of the child withdrawn from work, the state government must contribute Rs. 5,000 to the welfare fund. This addresses the economic loss families face when children stop working.
• Financial Assistance to Families: Families of withdrawn children receive financial assistance from the interest earned on the corpus deposited in the welfare fund as long as the child actually attends school. This provides ongoing income replacement.
• Regulation of Non-Hazardous Work: For children working in non-hazardous occupations, working hours must not exceed six hours per day and education for at least two hours must be ensured. The entire expenditure on education must be borne by the employer.

Bandhua Mukti Morcha vs. Union of India (1984):
This case addressed bonded child labour in the carpet industry in Uttar Pradesh. The Supreme Court held that the State is obliged to render socio-economic justice to the child and provide facilities and opportunities for proper development of his personality. The Court confirmed forced employment of large numbers of children, mostly from SC and ST communities and brought from Bihar, in carpet weaving centers.

Other Important Cases:
Justice Subba Rao and other judges have issued multiple judgments emphasizing state obligations to protect children from exploitation and ensure their development.

Implementation and Monitoring Mechanisms
The legal framework includes mechanisms for implementation.

• National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme: Implemented since 1988 for rehabilitation of child labourers. Children aged 9-14 are rescued and enrolled in NCLP Special Training Centers providing bridge education, vocational training, mid-day meals, stipend, healthcare, and mainstreaming into formal education. Children aged 5-8 are directly linked to formal education.
• Child and Adolescent Labour Rehabilitation Rules, 2017: Frame detailed duties and responsibilities of state governments and district authorities to ensure effective enforcement.
• Standard Operating Procedures: Developed as ready reckoner for trainers, practitioners, and enforcement agencies.
• Monitoring by Supreme Court: Implementation of the M.C. Mehta judgment directions is monitored by the Supreme Court through periodic affidavits filed by the central government reporting compliance.

Enforcement Actions and Data
Government data shows enforcement activities though gaps remain.

• Inspections and Violations: From 2009-2013, labour department inspectors conducted 1,073,471 inspections, finding 55,180 violations, leading to 24,718 prosecutions and 6,186 convictions.
• Recent Case Registrations: In 2023, the National Crime Records Bureau recorded 1,390 cases under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act. However, this represents only cases that were officially registered, not the full extent of violations.
• Rescue Operations: Between April 2024 and March 2025, 38,889 rescue operations were conducted across 24 states, leading to 38,388 FIRs registered and 5,809 arrests, with 85% related to child labour.

Enforcement Gaps and Challenges
Despite strong laws, implementation faces serious weaknesses.

• Insufficient Inspectors: India has far too few labour inspectors to cover millions of workplaces where children might work. Existing inspectors lack adequate training, transportation, and support.
• Hidden Nature of Work: Much child labour occurs in private homes, small family enterprises, agriculture, and informal sector where inspectors cannot easily access.
• Data Discrepancies: Research comparing National Crime Records Bureau data with judicial records from e-Courts found eight times more child labour cases (9,193 trials) in court data than NCRB reported (1,329 cases) for 2015-2022. This massive gap occurs because NCRB follows the “Principal Offence Rule,” counting only the most serious crime when multiple offences occur together.
• Low Penalties and Conviction Rates: Even when cases are registered, conviction rates remain low and penalties imposed are often minimal, failing to deter violators.
• Delayed Justice: Cases move slowly through the justice system. By the time cases conclude, rescued children may have become adults, reducing the impact of the intervention.
• Lack of Rehabilitation Implementation: While the legal framework mandates rehabilitation, actual implementation of programs to educate withdrawn children and support families economically remains weak in many states.

Donate to BRAC to fund our legal aid programs that help ensure laws protecting children are actually enforced. We register cases and pursue prosecution, support rescued children through legal processes, file public interest litigation when authorities fail to act, monitor implementation of Supreme Court directives, advocate for stronger enforcement and adequate inspector resources, and track cases to ensure convictions and appropriate penalties. Your support transforms laws on paper into real protection for children.

4. Challenges: Barriers to Eliminating Child Labour
Despite legal frameworks and growing awareness, eliminating child labour faces serious challenges operating at economic, social, institutional, and systemic levels. These interconnected barriers create an environment where child labour persists.

Economic and Poverty Challenges

• Extreme Poverty: The single biggest driver of child labour is poverty so severe that families cannot survive without children’s earnings. When parents earn Rs. 200-300 per day and a child can earn Rs. 50-100, that additional income means the difference between eating and hunger.
• Adult Unemployment and Underemployment: When adult family members cannot find work or earn adequate wages, families have no choice but to send children to work. Until adult employment and wages improve, economic pressure for child labour continues.
• Debt and Bonded Labour: Many families fall into debt and are forced to send children to work to repay loans. The combination of debt bondage and child labour traps families across generations.
• Economic Benefits to Employers: Employers continue hiring children because it increases their profits. They pay children a fraction of adult wages for the same work, face minimal risk of punishment if caught, and easily replace children who escape or are rescued.
• Migration and Displacement: Families who migrate for work lose access to schools and social support systems. Their children fall into labour because no alternatives exist. Climate change and natural disasters are increasing such displacement.

Social and Cultural Barriers

• Acceptance of Child Labour as Normal: In many communities, child labour has continued for generations. People view children working, especially in family occupations and agriculture, as normal and even beneficial training for life.
• Low Value Placed on Education: When parents never attended school and their neighbours also lack education, they do not understand the long-term value of keeping children in school. They believe children learn more useful skills through work than in classrooms.
• Caste and Social Discrimination: Children from Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and other marginalized communities face discrimination that limits their access to quality education and decent work opportunities. Historical patterns of occupation continue, with children of labourers expected to become labourers.
• Gender Discrimination: Girl children face double discrimination. Families invest less in girls’ education because they expect girls to marry and leave home. Girls are kept home to do housework and care for siblings, which is invisible child labour not counted in official statistics.
• Early Marriage: When girls are married young, they leave school and take on adult responsibilities. Early marriage and child labour are linked problems that reinforce each other.

Education System Gaps

• Lack of Access to Schools: In many areas, especially remote rural regions and urban slums, schools are too far for young children to walk safely. This physical barrier prevents school attendance.
• Poor Quality Education: Schools that lack trained teachers, adequate classrooms, toilets, drinking water, and learning materials fail to attract and retain students. When children attend such schools and learn nothing, parents see no point in continuing.
• Costs of Education: Although government schools are officially free, families still face costs for uniforms, books, supplies, transportation, and private tutoring. Poor families cannot afford these costs.
• Lack of Vocational Options: The education system focuses on academic learning but offers few vocational pathways. Children who struggle academically or need practical skills drop out because no relevant options exist.
• Inflexible School Timings: School schedules designed for middle-class families do not accommodate children who must work part-time or have family responsibilities. Rigid systems push vulnerable children out.

Institutional and Enforcement Failures

• Insufficient Labour Inspectors: India has approximately one labour inspector per several thousand establishments. This impossibly low ratio means most workplaces never get inspected. Inspectors who exist often lack vehicles, technology, and support staff.
• Weak Penalties: Even when violations are detected, penalties imposed are often small fines that employers treat as minor business costs. The punishment does not deter future violations.
• Corruption: Employers sometimes bribe inspectors to overlook violations or receive advance warning of inspections so they can hide child workers. Corruption undermines enforcement at every level.
• Judicial Delays: The justice system is overwhelmed with massive case backlogs. Child labour cases move slowly, taking years to reach trial and judgment. By the time justice comes, rescued children have become adults and the impact is lost.
• Data Gaps and Inconsistencies: Official data significantly undercounts child labour. The discrepancy between NCRB reports showing 1,329 cases and court records showing 9,193 trials for the same period reveals massive data problems that prevent understanding the true scale of the problem.
• Lack of Coordination: Multiple government departments—labour, education, women and child development, police—have responsibilities for child protection, but coordination is poor. Children fall through gaps when agencies do not work together.

Rehabilitation and Support System Weaknesses

• Insufficient Rehabilitation Centers: India has too few specialized facilities to rehabilitate rescued child labourers. The National Child Labour Project covers some districts but not others, leaving many areas without services.
• Weak Family Support Programs: The legal framework requires providing employment to adult family members or financial assistance when children are withdrawn from work. However, implementation of this critical economic support is inconsistent and inadequate.
• No Alternative Livelihood Options: Families that depend on child labour income face economic crisis when children are rescued if no alternative income source is provided. Desperation forces children back to work or into other harmful situations.
• Poor Reintegration into Schools: Rescued children often cannot simply return to regular schools because they are over-age for their education level, have been out of school for years and need bridge education, face stigma and discrimination from teachers and classmates, and lack documentation like birth certificates needed for enrollment.
• Lack of Ongoing Support: Even when children are initially placed in schools or training programs, there is often no follow-up to ensure they stay enrolled and succeed. Without continued monitoring and support, many children drop out and return to labour.

Specific Sectoral Challenges

• Agriculture: The vast majority of child labour occurs in agriculture, which is largely exempt from labour law coverage. When children work on family farms or in agricultural labour, detection and enforcement are nearly impossible.
• Domestic Work: Child domestic workers labor in private homes behind closed doors. No inspectors can access these spaces. Children are completely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse with no witnesses.
• Informal Sector: Most child labour occurs in the informal economy—small shops, workshops, construction sites, and street vending. These workplaces are not registered, pay no taxes, and exist outside regulatory systems.
• Inter-State Trafficking: Children are trafficked across state borders for labour, particularly from poor states like Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh to more prosperous regions. Coordination between state governments is weak, allowing traffickers to operate across jurisdictions.

Demand-Side Challenges

• Consumer Demand for Cheap Products: Consumers who want the lowest prices create market pressure for cheap labour. Companies that use child labour can undercut competitors, creating pressure for others to do the same.
• Global Supply Chains: International brands sourcing from India sometimes indirectly benefit from child labour in their supply chains. Even when companies have policies against child labour, verification deep in supply chains is difficult.
• Lack of Corporate Accountability: Companies face insufficient consequences when child labour is found in their supply chains. Without meaningful accountability, businesses lack incentive to ensure their suppliers do not use children.

Your contribution to BRAC helps overcome these systemic challenges by addressing root causes. We provide economic support to families so children do not need to work, strengthen education access and quality so children want to stay in school, work with communities to change attitudes that accept child labour, support enforcement through monitoring and advocacy, provide comprehensive rehabilitation for rescued children, create alternative livelihoods for vulnerable families, and advocate for policy reforms that close gaps. Every rupee donated moves us toward a system where child labour becomes impossible and every child enjoys their right to education and childhood.

5. Solutions: Building a Child-Labour-Free India
Eliminating child labour requires a comprehensive strategy addressing prevention, rescue and rehabilitation, education access, economic support for families, and systemic change. BRAC implements an integrated “Five Pillars of Protection” model based on evidence and decades of experience working with vulnerable children.

Pillar 1: Prevention and Community Awareness Programs
Preventing child labour before it starts is the most effective approach.

Community Education and Mobilization:

• Village and Neighborhood Campaigns: We conduct intensive awareness campaigns in high-risk areas across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Telangana, and other states using street theater, community meetings, wall paintings, and folk media to educate people about the harm of child labour, value of education, and legal protections for children.
• School Enrollment Drives: We work with communities to identify out-of-school children and organize enrollment drives that connect children with schools, help families obtain necessary documents, address barriers preventing enrollment, and follow up to ensure children actually attend.
• Parent Education Programs: We conduct sessions with parents explaining the long-term benefits of education, risks of child labour to children’s health and development, legal protections and consequences, and available support so children can attend school instead of working.
• Peer Education: We train older children and youth as peer educators who reach out to working children, share information about rights and educational opportunities, and serve as role models showing that education leads to better futures.
• Community Vigilance Committees: We establish committees of respected community members who monitor for child labour, report violations to authorities, intervene when families are about to pull children from school for work, and create social pressure against child labour.

Targeting High-Risk Communities:

• SC/ST Community Engagement: Recognizing that children from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities face disproportionate risk, we conduct targeted programs in these communities addressing specific barriers they face including discrimination, lack of documents, and historical patterns of intergenerational labour.
• Religious Minority Outreach: We conduct special programs in Muslim and other minority communities that show higher child labour rates, working with religious leaders and community organizations to promote education and protect children.
• Migrant Family Support: We work with migrant families to ensure their children can access schools despite moving for work, connecting them with programs that provide flexibility, and advocating for portable school enrollment systems.

Employer Engagement and Monitoring:

• Industry Partnerships: We work with industry associations in high-risk sectors including textiles, agriculture, restaurants, and manufacturing to educate about laws, consequences of violations, and business benefits of adult employment over child labour.
• Supply Chain Monitoring: We partner with companies to monitor supply chains for child labour, conduct social audits, provide training to suppliers, and create certification systems for child-labour-free production.
• Ethical Business Networks: We build networks of businesses committed to not using child labour, providing them with recognition and connecting them with consumers who value ethical production.

Pillar 2: Rescue, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration
When children are already in labour, rapid rescue and comprehensive rehabilitation can restore their lives.

Rescue Operations and Emergency Response:

• 24/7 Child Labour Helpline: Our helpline operates in Hindi, English, and regional languages, allowing anyone to report child labour. Trained staff respond immediately, coordinate with authorities, and dispatch rescue teams.
• Raid and Rescue Coordination: We work with police, labour department officials, and child welfare committees to conduct rescue operations, free children from exploitative situations, ensure legal proceedings against employers, and secure immediate care for children.
• Post-Rescue Care: Immediately after rescue, we provide medical checkups and treatment for injuries and health problems, psychological first aid and trauma counseling, nutritious meals and safe shelter, contact with families when appropriate and safe, and legal support including documentation and witness protection.
• Documentation and Legal Support: We help rescued children obtain birth certificates, school records, and other documents needed to access services, file FIRs against exploiting employers and traffickers, support prosecution through trial, and help families claim compensation from rehabilitation funds as directed by Supreme Court judgments.

Comprehensive Rehabilitation Services:

• Bridge Education Centers: For children who have been out of school for extended periods, we operate bridge education centers providing accelerated learning that covers missed schoolwork, life skills and social development, vocational exploration, and psychological healing through structured environment.
• Special Training Centers: Following the National Child Labour Project model, our centers provide intensive support for 6-12 months including age-appropriate education, vocational skill development, nutritious mid-day meals, monthly stipends to families, healthcare services, and sports and cultural activities.
• Mainstreaming into Formal Schools: We work with education departments to mainstream rehabilitated children into regular schools, advocating for age-appropriate placement rather than grade-appropriate when children are overage, providing tutorial support to help children catch up, sensitizing teachers and students to prevent discrimination, and monitoring attendance and performance to prevent dropout.
• Residential Care When Needed: For children who cannot safely return to families, we coordinate placement in children’s homes and other residential care facilities that provide long-term care, education, and preparation for independent living.

Psychological Healing and Counseling:

• Individual Trauma Counseling: Our trained counselors provide one-on-one therapy helping children process experiences of exploitation, develop coping strategies for anxiety and depression, rebuild self-esteem and confidence, and develop life skills and plans for the future.
• Group Therapy and Peer Support: We facilitate support groups where rescued children meet regularly, share experiences and feelings, learn they are not alone, and support each other’s healing and growth.
• Family Counseling: We work with families to heal relationships damaged by children’s labour experiences, help families understand children’s needs and trauma responses, prevent families from sending children back to work, and strengthen family functioning.

Pillar 3: Education Access, Quality, and Retention
Education is the primary alternative to child labour and the pathway out of poverty.

Improving Access to Schools:

• School Infrastructure Support: We work with government and communities to establish schools in areas that lack them, repair and upgrade existing schools, provide toilets including separate facilities for girls, ensure drinking water and basic facilities, and create child-friendly learning environments.
• Transportation Support: For children who live far from schools, we organize school buses and van services, provide bicycles to older children, arrange for safe walking groups with adult supervision, and advocate for residential schools in remote areas.
• Enrollment Support Services: We help families navigate enrollment processes, obtain birth certificates and other required documents, access scholarship programs, and overcome bureaucratic barriers that prevent children from starting school.

Improving Quality of Education:

• Teacher Training: We provide training to teachers on child-friendly teaching methods, identifying and supporting children at risk of dropout, teaching children from diverse backgrounds and learning levels, using active learning rather than rote memorization, and creating inclusive classrooms.
• Learning Materials: We supplement government resources by providing textbooks and workbooks, libraries and reading materials, science and sports equipment, and digital learning tools.
• Remedial Education Programs: We run after-school and weekend remedial classes for children who are falling behind, helping them catch up with grade-level expectations, building confidence in their ability to learn, and preventing dropout due to academic failure.
• Vocational Education: We introduce vocational and skill development options for older children and adolescents, providing alternatives to purely academic paths, teaching marketable skills, and keeping children engaged in education.

Preventing Dropout:

• Early Warning Systems: We work with schools to identify children at risk of dropping out through tracking attendance patterns, monitoring academic performance, understanding family situations, and noting behavioral changes that indicate problems.
• Targeted Interventions: When children show risk signs, we immediately intervene with home visits to understand problems, addressing specific barriers like cost, work pressure, or learning difficulties, providing tutorial support, and engaging parents to keep children enrolled.
• Financial Support: We provide scholarships, uniforms, shoes, and school supplies, covers examination fees and other costs, offers stipends to families to replace income lost when children attend school instead of working, and creates economic incentives for keeping children in school.
• Girl Child Focus: Recognizing girls face extra barriers, we run special programs including girls’ education camps and mentoring, addressing safety concerns about travel to school, providing sanitary products and private facilities, and working with families to overcome gender-based discrimination.

Pillar 4: Economic Empowerment and Family Support
Families must have economic alternatives so children do not need to work.

Adult Employment and Skills Training:

• Vocational Skills Training: We provide training to parents and older family members in marketable skills including construction trades, computer applications, tailoring and garment work, food processing and catering, automotive repair, beauty and salon work, and retail and hospitality skills.
• Job Placement Support: We maintain relationships with employers who commit to fair labor practices, provide job placement services matching trained workers with opportunities, support workers during initial employment period, and follow up to ensure sustainable employment.
• Labor Rights Education: We teach workers about minimum wage laws, workplace safety rights, social security benefits they are entitled to, and how to organize and demand fair treatment.

Interest-Free Fund and Livelihood Support:

• Self-Help Groups: We organize women into self-help groups that provide mutual support, pool savings and access credit, start collective enterprises, and empower members economically and socially.
• Interest-Free Fund for Enterprise: We offer interest-free capital (Rs. 10,000 to 50,000) to empower small businesses. Use it to launch your venture, purchase essential equipment, fund an expansion, or strengthen your working capital—all without the cost of interest.
• Business Development Support: We provide training in business planning and management, marketing and customer relations, financial record-keeping, and problem-solving, and connect entrepreneurs with markets and resources.
• Agricultural Support: For families depending on agriculture, we provide training in improved farming techniques, access to quality seeds and inputs, assistance forming farmer producer organizations, and connections to better markets that offer fair prices.

Social Protection and Safety Nets:

• Linking Families to Government Schemes: We help vulnerable families access welfare programs including food security through Public Distribution System, employment guarantee schemes like MGNREGA, pension schemes for elderly and disabled, health insurance and medical support, and housing and sanitation programs.
• Emergency Financial Support: When families face crises that might push children into work, we provide emergency assistance for medical emergencies, death of earning member, natural disasters, and other sudden shocks.
• Savings and Insurance Programs: We help families build financial resilience through group savings programs, access to health and life insurance, asset building strategies, and financial literacy training.

Pillar 5: Legal Reform, Advocacy, and Systemic Change
Long-term elimination requires transforming systems and strengthening accountability.

Legal Aid and Justice Support:

• Free Legal Representation: We provide lawyers to represent children and families in child labour cases, ensuring prosecution of violating employers, pursuing compensation claims under Supreme Court directives, and protecting children’s legal rights throughout processes.
• Supporting Enforcement: We work with labour departments by identifying violations and providing evidence, accompanying inspectors on raids, advocating for prosecution in cases that are often dropped, and monitoring case progress through courts.
• Public Interest Litigation: We file strategic court cases challenging government failures to implement laws, seeking compensation for systemic violations, demanding adequate enforcement resources, and establishing legal precedents that strengthen child protection.

Policy Advocacy and Legislative Reform:

• Strengthening Enforcement: We advocate for dramatically increasing the number of labour inspectors, providing adequate training and resources to enforcement agencies, using technology for monitoring and tracking violations, and imposing penalties severe enough to deter violations.
• Expanding Rehabilitation: We push for universal implementation of National Child Labour Project in all districts, adequate funding for rehabilitation programs, mandatory support to families when children are withdrawn from work as directed by Supreme Court, and coordination between education and labor departments.
• Improving Data Systems: We advocate for better data collection that accurately reflects child labour prevalence, coordination between different agencies tracking child labour, regular surveys to monitor trends, and transparency in sharing data publicly.
• Corporate Accountability: We push for laws requiring companies to monitor supply chains for child labour, mandatory due diligence and reporting, penalties for corporations that benefit from child labour, and incentives for businesses that maintain child-labour-free operations.

Research, Documentation, and Knowledge Building:

• Data Collection: We maintain comprehensive databases on child labour rescue operations documenting patterns and trends, tracking geographic hot spots, identifying effective intervention strategies, and measuring impact of programs.
• Impact Studies: We conduct research on what works in preventing and eliminating child labour, economic impact of child labour on families and society, cost-benefit analysis of education versus child labour, and barriers preventing children from accessing education.
• Documentation: We document stories of rescued children and their recovery, case studies of successful interventions, evidence of enforcement gaps and systemic failures, and best practices for replication.
• Knowledge Sharing: We publish reports, toolkits, and guides, share findings with government agencies and other organizations, present at national and international forums, and contribute to global knowledge on child labour elimination.

Public Awareness and Social Norm Change:

• Media Campaigns: We run multi-platform campaigns through television, radio, and print media, social media and digital platforms, community radio in rural areas, and outdoor advertising highlighting the harm of child labour and value of education.
• Celebrity and Influencer Engagement: We partner with film stars, sports personalities, and social media influencers to amplify messages, reach large audiences, and make child protection a mainstream concern.
• Schools and Youth Mobilization: We work through schools conducting awareness sessions with students, engaging youth as advocates and volunteers, creating child-friendly reporting mechanisms, and building a generation that rejects child labour.
• Annual Events and Campaigns: We organize campaigns on World Day Against Child Labour (June 12), International Day of the Girl Child, and other occasions creating public focus, honoring children and families who choose education over work, and recognizing best-performing states and districts.

Donate to BRAC to fund these comprehensive solutions that address both immediate child needs and long-term systemic change. Every contribution—whether Rs. 2,000 or Rs. 1,50,000—directly funds rescue operations that free children from exploitation, educational support that keeps children in school, economic support for families so children do not need to work, legal aid that prosecutes violators, and advocacy campaigns that transform systems. Your support saves childhoods while breaking cycles of poverty.

6. Societal Impact: Building a More Prosperous and Just India
Eliminating child labour creates transformative impacts extending beyond individual children, contributing to economic prosperity, social justice, and a society where every person can reach their full potential.

Individual and Family Transformation

• Child Development and Well-Being: When children are freed from labour and enrolled in school, they experience physical recovery as they gain proper nutrition and healthcare, emotional healing as they engage in play and social interaction, intellectual development through education, development of self-confidence and aspirations, and preparation for dignified work and meaningful lives.
• Educational Achievement: Children who receive support after rescue and stay in school achieve literacy and numeracy skills that are foundation for all learning, completion of primary and secondary education, entrance to vocational training and higher education, development of critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, and credentials needed for formal sector employment.
• Family Economic Improvement: When BRAC provides livelihood support to families whose children have been withdrawn from labour, parents gain access to better-paying employment through skills training and job placement, ability to start or expand small businesses through Interest-Free Fund, stable income that removes the economic pressure for child labour, and capacity to invest in children’s education and health.
• Breaking Intergenerational Cycles: Children who complete education grow into adults who earn higher incomes than their parents, value education and prioritize it for their own children, understand rights and can advocate for themselves and their families, and model success for their communities.

Community-Level Transformation

• Strengthened Social Fabric: Communities where child labour decreases see higher school enrollment rates with children attending together, reduced social divisions as education provides equal opportunities, increased civic participation as educated residents engage in community decisions, and reduced tolerance for exploitation of any kind.
• Economic Development: Communities benefit when adult employment replaces child labour, creating more stable workforce with better skills, higher productivity and economic output, growth of local businesses serving better-off families, and attraction of investment to areas with educated populations.
• Reduced Crime and Social Problems: Research shows that keeping children in school and out of labour reduces juvenile delinquency and crime, substance abuse, early pregnancy and marriage, trafficking and exploitation, and social conflict.
• Gender Equality: When girls are freed from labour and supported to stay in school, they gain literacy and education at equal rates to boys, delay marriage and childbearing to healthier ages, have fewer children when they do become mothers, raise healthier and better-educated children, and participate more fully in economic and social life.

Broader Economic Impact on India

• Increased Economic Productivity: An educated workforce is dramatically more productive than an uneducated one. Every child who completes education instead of working as a child contributes substantially more to the economy throughout their working life.
• Higher Tax Revenue: Educated workers earn higher incomes, pay more taxes, require less welfare support, and contribute to government revenue that funds public services.
• Competitive Advantage: As India competes in the global economy, an educated workforce attracts high-value industries, drives innovation and entrepreneurship, enables India to move up value chains beyond low-wage manufacturing, and strengthens India’s position in knowledge-based sectors.
• Reduced Healthcare Costs: Children protected from labour avoid injuries and health damage, reducing lifelong healthcare costs. Healthy, educated adults have lower rates of chronic disease, disability, and premature death.

Social Justice and Rights Realization

• Fulfillment of Constitutional Rights: Eliminating child labour realizes children’s constitutional rights to education under Article 21A, protection from exploitation under Articles 23 and 24, and development in dignity under Article 39.
• Reduced Inequality: Child labour concentrates in disadvantaged communities including Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, religious minorities, and the poorest families. Protecting children from these communities and ensuring their education directly reduces inequality.
• Empowerment of Marginalized Groups: When children from marginalized communities receive education, they gain tools to challenge discrimination, demand their rights, participate in democracy, and transform their communities’ status.
• Strengthened Rule of Law: Effective enforcement of child labour laws strengthens respect for law generally, establishes that exploitation has consequences, protects businesses that follow the law from unfair competition, and builds public confidence in justice systems.

Achievement of National and International Commitments

• Sustainable Development Goals: Eliminating child labour is essential to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals including Goal 4 on quality education, Goal 8 on decent work and economic growth, Goal 10 on reduced inequalities, Goal 16 on peace, justice, and strong institutions, and overall poverty reduction.
• International Standing: India’s success in eliminating child labour enhances its reputation internationally, strengthens trade relationships as partners demand ethical supply chains, attracts investment from companies focused on sustainability, and positions India as a leader in child protection.

Long-Term Demographic Benefits

• Human Capital Development: Today’s children are tomorrow’s workforce, entrepreneurs, innovators, professionals, and leaders. Investing in their education through eliminating child labour is investing in India’s future prosperity.
• Poverty Reduction: Education is the most powerful tool for breaking cycles of poverty. Eliminating child labour so children can complete education will dramatically reduce poverty in the next generation.
• Health and Well-Being: Children who grow up healthy and educated become adults who have healthier families, access better healthcare, make informed health decisions, and live longer, more productive lives.

Your support for BRAC creates these ripple effects that extend far beyond individual children. When we rescue one child from labour and support them to complete education, we transform that child’s entire life trajectory. We strengthen their family economically. We influence their community to value education. We contribute to a more educated workforce that drives India’s prosperity. We demonstrate that child protection laws are enforced. We move India closer to becoming a country where every child enjoys their rights, reaches their potential, and contributes their unique gifts to building a better future for all.

7. Call to Action: Join the Movement to End Child Labour
Over 53,651 children were rescued from exploitation between April 2024 and March 2025. Behind each number is a child whose life hangs in balance—a girl who could return to the spinning mill or stay in school, a boy who could continue carrying bricks or learn to read and write, a young person who could be trafficked or be free. Your decision to support BRAC today determines which future becomes reality.

Why Your Support Matters Now

• Scale of the Crisis Demands Urgent Action: With over 7 million children still estimated to be working as labourers across India, and rescue operations continuing to find thousands of children in exploitation, the crisis remains enormous. Every day of delay means another day of stolen childhood for these children.
• Current Momentum Can Be Accelerated: The increase in rescue operations—38,889 rescues in 2024-2025—shows growing awareness and action. With adequate resources, we can scale up rescue operations across high-risk states including Uttar Pradesh (projected to have 30% of child labour), Bihar (12%), Telangana, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh where the need is greatest.
• Proven Solutions Need Resources: BRAC’s Five Pillars model has demonstrated success in freeing children, keeping them in school, and supporting families economically. What limits us is not knowledge of what works but resources to implement at the scale needed.
• Children Cannot Wait: Childhood is brief and irreplaceable. A child forced to work at age 8 and rescued at age 14 has already lost years that cannot be recovered. Acting now protects children during the critical years when intervention makes the most difference.

Ways to Support: Every Contribution Creates Real Change
Your financial support directly funds programs that rescue children, provide education, support families, and transform systems. Here’s exactly what your donation achieves:

One-Time Donations That Transform Lives:

• Rs. 2,000: Provides school supplies including uniforms, shoes, bags, textbooks, notebooks, and stationery for one child for an entire academic year, removing economic barriers that force families to choose between education costs and basic needs.
• Rs. 5,000: Covers bridge education support for one rescued child for three months, including tutoring to catch up on missed learning, psychological counseling to heal trauma, nutritious meals during classes, and monitoring to prevent dropout.
• Rs. 15,000: Provides vocational skills training to one parent of a child labourer, including three months of technical training in a marketable trade, job placement support connecting them with employers, tools and equipment to start independent work, and follow-up support ensuring sustainable income that replaces child’s earnings.
• Rs. 35,000: Funds a complete rescue operation including coordinating with police and labour department, providing legal documentation support, emergency medical care and psychological first aid for rescued children, immediate shelter and safety, and prosecution support to ensure violating employers face consequences.
• Rs. 75,000: Establishes a Self-Help Group bringing together 15-20 mothers from vulnerable families to pool savings, access Interest-Free Fund for enterprise development, support each other economically and socially, and collectively ensure their children attend school instead of working.
• Rs. 1,50,000: Runs a community awareness campaign in one high-risk village for six months including street theater and folk media performances, parent education sessions, school enrollment drives, establishment of community vigilance committees, and continuous monitoring to prevent child labour.

Monthly Donations That Sustain Long-Term Impact:
Monthly giving provides the predictable funding needed for ongoing programs.

• Rs. 1,000 per month: Sponsors ongoing educational support for two children at risk of dropping out, covering tutorial classes, examination fees, and supplies that keep them in school.
• Rs. 3,000 per month: Maintains our 24/7 Child Labour Helpline for one day each month, ensuring trained staff are available to receive reports of child labour, coordinate emergency responses, and dispatch rescue teams.
• Rs. 5,000 per month: Provides psychological counseling services for five rescued children, helping them heal from trauma, rebuild self-esteem, and develop skills for healthy futures.
• Rs. 10,000 per month: Sustains one community vigilance committee monitoring for child labour, conducting regular village surveys, intervening when families attempt to withdraw children from school for work, and reporting violations to authorities.

Volunteer Your Time and Skills:
Financial contributions are essential, but your time, skills, and voice also create powerful change.

• Legal Professionals: Volunteer to represent children and families in child labour cases, ensure prosecution of violating employers, pursue compensation claims, and provide legal awareness training.
• Educators and Counselors: Volunteer to provide tutorial support to rescued children catching up on schooling, conduct career guidance sessions helping children see possibilities beyond labour, and offer psychological counseling supporting children’s healing.
• Corporate Employee Volunteering: Bring teams from your company to conduct awareness campaigns in communities, organize school enrollment drives, provide career mentoring to older children, and contribute skills like teaching, technology support, and management expertise.
• Join as Long-Term Volunteer: Commit regular hours supporting our programs through monitoring children’s school attendance, conducting home visits to at-risk families, helping with documentation and administrative support, and assisting with fundraising and awareness activities.

Advocate and Build Awareness:

• Social Media Advocacy: Share BRAC’s posts about child labour on your social media platforms, use hashtags like #EndChildLabour and #ProtectEveryChild, tag friends and ask them to join the movement, and share rescue stories and success stories that inspire others to act.
• Organize Awareness Events: Host screening of documentaries on child labour in your community, organize panel discussions on children’s rights, conduct essay or art competitions in schools on child protection themes, and coordinate fundraising events with proceeds supporting BRAC’s work.
• Corporate Partnerships: Advocate for your employer to partner with BRAC through corporate social responsibility funding, employee payroll giving programs, matching gift programs that double employee donations, and supply chain monitoring to ensure no child labour in company operations.
• Policy Advocacy: Write to elected representatives demanding stronger enforcement of child labour laws, adequate funding for rehabilitation programs, and sufficient labour inspectors. Participate in public consultations on child protection policies. Join campaigns calling for corporate accountability.

Transparency and Accountability: Your Donation in Trusted Hands
We understand that when you donate hard-earned money, you need assurance it will be used effectively and ethically.

• 85% Direct Program Allocation: At our NGO, 85% of every rupee donated goes directly to programs serving children and families. Only 15% covers essential administration and fundraising costs, which is significantly better than sector averages.
• Regular Reporting: We provide quarterly updates to all donors on programs funded, children reached, outcomes achieved, and financial utilization. Annual impact reports are publicly available at brac.in/reports, ensuring complete transparency.
• Independent Audits: Our finances are audited annually by independent chartered accountants. Audit reports are shared with donors and made available on our website.
• Donor Communication: We maintain regular communication with supporters through email newsletters with stories of children supported, impact updates showing measurable outcomes, invitations to visit programs and meet children whose lives have changed, and opportunities to provide feedback on our work.

Tax Benefits: Your Donation Also Reduces Tax Liability
Contributions to BRAC qualify for tax deduction under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act. This means you can claim deduction for your donation when filing income tax returns, reducing your tax liability while supporting children’s rights. We provide official donation receipts within 7 business days that you can submit to claim the deduction.

How to Get Started Today
Joining the movement to end child labour takes just minutes.

• Donate Online: Visit www.brac.in/donate-now to make a secure online donation using credit card, debit card, net banking, UPI, or digital wallets. Choose one-time or monthly giving at the level that is right for you.
• Call Us: Speak with our donor relations team at +91 7977386674. Our team can answer questions, discuss specific programs you want to support, arrange corporate partnerships or large donations, and set up monthly giving or planned giving arrangements.
• Email Us: Write to partner@brac.in or info@brac.in to discuss volunteering opportunities, organize workplace giving campaigns, explore corporate partnerships, arrange visits to our programs, or share ideas for collaboration.
• Follow BRAC on social media to join the movement to end child labour. Stay connected with our work, learn about children’s rights and protection, share stories that inspire others to act, and be part of a community committed to ensuring every child enjoys childhood, education, and the chance to reach their full potential.

Every child deserves to be a child—to play, learn, dream, and grow in safety and dignity. With your support, we can make this a reality for every child in India. Donate today.

8. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: What is child labour and why is it harmful?
Child labour refers to work that deprives children of their childhood, potential, dignity, and education, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. It includes children working in dangerous conditions, working long hours that prevent school attendance, working at very young ages when they should be playing and learning, and being exploited economically with low or no pay. It is harmful because children suffer physical injuries, stunted growth, health problems, and disabilities, miss education that is their path out of poverty, endure psychological trauma and loss of childhood, and remain trapped in poverty as adults.

Q2: How many children are engaged in child labour in India currently?
According to Census 2011, 43.53 lakh (4.353 million) children aged 5-14 years were classified as main workers, showing a significant decline from 57.79 lakh in Census 2001. When including both main workers and marginal workers (children in seasonal or part-time work), the total reaches 10.1 million children in the 5-14 age group. Research projections estimated that approximately 7.43 million children would still be working as labourers by 2025 if efforts continued at previous pace. Recent rescue operations freed 53,651 children between April 2024 and March 2025, with nearly 90% in the worst forms of child labour. However, experts believe official statistics significantly undercount actual child labour because much occurs in hidden sectors like domestic work, family enterprises, and informal settings not captured in surveys.

Q3: Which states have the highest child labour rates?
According to research projections, Uttar Pradesh is expected to account for 30% of India’s total child labour population, making it the state with the highest burden. Bihar is projected to have 12%, followed by Maharashtra with 8% and Rajasthan with 6%. Recent rescue operations showed Telangana with 11,063 rescues, Bihar with 3,974, Rajasthan with 3,847, Uttar Pradesh with 3,804, and Delhi with 2,588 children rescued between April 2024 and March 2025.

Q4: What are the main laws protecting children from child labour?
The primary law is the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, as amended in 2016, which completely prohibits employment of children below 14 years in any occupation and adolescents aged 14-18 in hazardous work. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023 contains criminal provisions including Section 95 that penalizes hiring children to commit offences with imprisonment from three to ten years, and Section 143-144 that address trafficking and exploitation. The Constitution under Articles 21A, 23, and 24 guarantees children’s rights to education and protection from exploitation. The Supreme Court in the landmark M.C. Mehta case (1996) issued comprehensive directions for child labour elimination including mandatory rehabilitation and family support.

Q5: What sectors employ the most child labour?
The largest sector is agriculture and allied activities, particularly in rural areas where children work in fields, with livestock, and in agricultural labour. Domestic work employs many children, mostly girls, working in private homes doing cooking, cleaning, and childcare. Manufacturing and industry includes garment factories, spinning mills, brick kilns, and small-scale industries. Services include restaurants, tea shops, vehicle repair shops, retail stores, and waste picking. The worst forms include work in spas and massage parlours, entertainment services, and trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Q6: Why do families send children to work instead of school?
The primary reason is extreme poverty where families cannot survive without children’s income. Other factors include parents’ lack of education and understanding of education’s long-term value, poor quality or inaccessible schools that families do not see as worthwhile, social acceptance of child labour as normal in many communities, need for children to help in family businesses and farms, and high costs of education even in government schools when uniforms, supplies, and transportation are considered.

Q7: What happens to children after they are rescued from labour?
After rescue, children receive immediate medical care, psychological counseling, nutritious meals, safe shelter, and legal support. They are enrolled in bridge education centers that provide accelerated learning to catch up on missed schoolwork, life skills, vocational exploration, and continued counseling. After 6-12 months, they are mainstreamed into regular schools with tutorial support, monitoring to prevent dropout, and scholarships covering education costs. Their families receive economic support through adult skills training, job placement, Interest-Free Fund for enterprise, and linkage to welfare programs so children do not need to return to work. Cases are filed against employers who exploited them, and families can claim compensation from rehabilitation funds as directed by the Supreme Court.

Q8: How does BRAC’s approach differ from other organizations?
BRAC implements a comprehensive Five Pillars model that addresses prevention through community awareness, rescue and rehabilitation of working children, education access and quality improvement, economic empowerment of families so children do not need to work, and legal reform and systemic advocacy. Unlike organizations that focus on only one aspect, we address both immediate child needs and root causes of poverty and inequality driving child labour. We have 40 years of global experience working in child protection and poverty reduction across 11 countries. We maintain high standards of transparency with 85% of funds going directly to programs, independent audits, and regular public reporting. We focus on high-risk communities including SC/ST populations, religious minorities, and migrant families who face the greatest vulnerability.

Q9: Can I visit BRAC’s programs and meet children you support?
Yes, we welcome donors and supporters to visit our programs and see firsthand how contributions create impact. You can observe bridge education centers in operation, meet children who have been rescued and are now thriving in school, speak with families receiving livelihood support, participate in community awareness activities, and learn about rescue operations and legal aid work. To arrange a visit, contact us at partner@brac.in or +91 7977386674. We coordinate visits in Mumbai and surrounding areas in Maharashtra, as well as in other states where we operate programs.

Q10: How can my company partner with BRAC?
Corporate partnerships can take many forms including CSR funding supporting specific programs or geographies, employee volunteering where teams contribute time and skills to awareness campaigns, education support, or skill-building activities, payroll giving programs allowing employees to donate automatically from salaries with company matching, supply chain monitoring where we help ensure your supply chains are free of child labour, and cause marketing campaigns where a portion of product sales supports child protection. Companies also sponsor specific interventions like running a bridge education center, funding rescue operations in high-risk districts, or supporting vocational training for parents of child labourers. Contact partner@brac.in to explore partnership opportunities tailored to your company’s CSR priorities.

Every question you ask brings us closer to a India where no child works and every child learns. Remember, your support today creates the childhood, education, and future that every child deserves. Whether through a donation of Rs. 2,000 or Rs. 1,50,000, monthly giving, volunteering your time and skills, or advocating for stronger child protection, your action matters. Visit www.brac.in/donate-now, call +91 7977386674, or email partner@brac.in or info@brac.in to start making a difference today.

DISCLAIMER
This article is written in simple language to be accessible to a general audience and is not a judicial or formal document. For clarity and to keep it short, we sometimes summarize legal provisions rather than citing them in full. While we have tried to ensure accuracy, this article is for general awareness and education only—not legal advice. If you find any error in this article, please email us at info@brac.in with the exact words or sentences that need correction. We welcome feedback to ensure accuracy. Laws may vary across states and are subject to change; readers should seek qualified legal advice for specific cases. The plans and work presented are based on BRAC’s research-driven proposals and illustrative projections. They do not represent outcomes of current or ongoing programs. This model illustrates the scale of impact that could be achieved with your support and regular donations. Actual results may differ depending on available resources, external conditions, and program execution. With your donation, these projections can move from vision to reality. Donate now by visiting our Donate Now page and choosing the cause that matters most to you.

BRAC® is a registered trademark (2015–2035) under the Indian Trade Marks Act, 1999. Unauthorized use will result in legal action. Report: legal@brac.in

Note: This article may be shared for educational and awareness purposes with proper attribution to BRAC (www.brac.in). Commercial use, reproduction, or distribution without written permission is prohibited. For permissions, contact info@brac.in