India’s Child Domestic Workers: Uncovering an Unseen Reality Within Society

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-533-1_75How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Child; Domestic Labour; Rights; Hazardous; Enforcement; ILO; UN Convention; Constitution

Abstract

The issues regarding children, within domestic labour, is often overlooked, particularly concerning its impact on their well-being and the violation of their rights. This situation raises important concerns, considering the provisions outlined in the Constitution of India. Children, by their nature, tend to trust the words of adults and may miss out on significant experiences in their lives. Despite the presence of our Constitutional safeguards and The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986 (amended in 2016), the law prohibits the employment of individuals under the age of 14 and places restrictions on hazardous work for adolescents to ensure their safety and well-being. However, child domestic labour issues in India remain a significant challenges and significant gaps remain in the application of these laws to domestic work, as it has not been designated as dangerous or unsafe under the legislations. This study will critically analyse the social and economic factors that influence children into domestic labour, as well as the legislative frameworks in India, in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The current laws are not robust or clear enough to provide adequate protection for at-risk children, as they primarily focus on hazardous work while neglecting the difficulties encountered by household employees and the consequences endured by children. Furthermore, the insufficient acknowledgement of domestic labour as hazardous, combined with insufficient legal enforcement, fails to protect and safeguard children in India adequately.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Diana Tricia Tlang
AU  - Bhupali Saikia
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/31
TI  - India’s Child Domestic Workers: Uncovering an Unseen Reality Within Society
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Smart Systems and Social Management (ICSSSM-2 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1229
EP  - 1241
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-533-1_75
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-533-1_75
ID  - Tlang2025
ER  -