One primary goal of our campaign is to empower working children and to encourage them to advocate on their own behalf. We will regularly present examples of such advocacy on this website – today one from our partner organisation Vigyan in India.

On december 27th 2022 Vigyan and members of their Children’s Advisory Committees (CACs) invited parents, school management committee members, and representatives of the police department, the labour department, the ILO office India, the state commission for the protection of child rights, the child welfare committee and other CSOs to a dialogue on children’s work.

The CAC members shared their problems related to work and what conditions had made them join the labour force. They also shared their experience with working hours, how their employers behaved towards them, their struggle to find time to play and rest and how they were often paid very low wages.

Their main demands were for stakeholders to:

make schools child friendly and inclusive, so no child would have to drop out and be forced to work

improve child labour laws to be more stringent and effective

enhance the income of adult family members so that children wouldn’t have to work

At the end of the meeting all stakeholders agreed to have a follow-up meeting post the general elections in February 2022.

The event was also covered by local media.