Labor Department Launches U.S.India Child Labor Project

“This project will remove children from exploitive conditions, provide educational alternatives for child laborers, and increase awareness of laws in India that restrict child labor practices,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao. “We appreciate the Indian government’s partnership with our Department’s worldwide effort to eliminate the worst forms of child labor. Now we need to get to work and get results.”
Dubbed the “INDUS project,” this new cooperative venture is the Department’s largest international technical assistance program. Its goal is to help eliminate child labor in ten hazardous industries in India, including: cigarette-making; brassware; bricks; fireworks; footwear; bangles; locks; matches; quarried stones; and silk. In addition, India has agreed to conduct a review of existing child-labor elimination efforts in the carpet-making industry.

The INDUS project will draw from the International Labor Organization’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) and other organizations’ experience, to achieve immediate and lasting results in eliminating child labor in hazardous industries. The U.S. DOL will also work with India’s Ministry of Labor’s National Child Labor Projects and its Department of Education’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education for All) program, which seeks to ensure universal primary education for children ages 6-14 by the year 2010.