Employment of children in hazardous industries is prohibited…Labour Commissioner

The Labour Commissioner has informed in a recent press release that the Child and Youth Labour (Prohibition and Control) Act, 1986 prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 years in all employment and processes except for activities of performing acting work as child actors/actresses without prejudice to the right of children to education. The Act completely prohibits the employment of children between the ages of 14 and 18 in dangerous industries like crackers and mines. For such first offence of employing children, the employer is liable to imprisonment for a term of 6 months to 2 years and a fine of Rs.20 thousand to Rs.50 thousand or both. A repeat offence is punishable by 1 year to 3 years imprisonment. A child to work as an artist may be allowed to act subject to the conditions laid down in the Karnataka Rules ‘2C’ of the Child and Youth Labour (Prohibition and Control) Act, 1986. They are as follows. No child shall be assigned to acting work for more than 5 hours in a day and should not work for more than 3 hours without rest. If the child participates in any pro-commercial program produced by any producer of audio and visual media, then he must take the prior permission of the District Magistrate of the area where the activity takes place and before starting this activity, submit a covering letter to the District Magistrate in Form ‘C’ and submit the consent letter of the parents or guardians of the participating children. Ensuring producers are subject to a disclaimer of films or television shows that appropriate precautions have been taken to prevent cases of child abuse, neglect or exploitation while filming entirely using children.