Article 24 of Constitution of India and Prevention of Child Labour

Article 24 in the Constitution of India, 1949 reads as follows:

24. Prohibition of employment of children in factories, etc No child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment Provided that nothing in this sub clause shall authorise the detention of any person beyond the maximum period prescribed by any law made by Parliament under sub clause (b) of clause ( 7 ); or such person is detained in accordance with the provisions of any law made by Parliament under sub clauses (a) and (b) of clause ( 7 ).

Article 24 mandates that No child below age of 14 years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment. Similarly Article 39(f) lays down certain directive principles of policy to be followed by the State: Article 39 The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing: (f) that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment.

Some notes on Child Labour

The Employment of Children Act 1938 was among the first acts to prevent child labour. The provisions of this act did not include the construction work on projects because the construction industry was not a process specified in the Schedule to the Act. But construction work & projects were held equal to hazardous occupation by the Supreme Court in the People’s Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India (1982) case.

Similarly in the M.C.Mehta v. State of Tamil Nadu (1991) case, Supreme Court directed that children should not be employed in hazardous jobs in factories for manufacture of match boxes and fireworks.

In Gaurav Jain v Union of India: [1997] case, the Supreme Court held that the children of the prostitutes have the right to equality of opportunity, dignity, care, protection and rehabilitation so as to be part of the mainstream of social life without any pre-stigma attached on them.