IPEC Action in India
The cooperation between the ILO and the Government of India in the field of child labour started in
1992 with the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This agreement laid down the
principles, areas and modalities of cooperation for the progressive elimination of child labour. Under the
provisions of the MoU, the ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child labour (IPEC)
launched a national programme, and a National Steering Committee (NSC) responsible for policy
guidance and monitoring was established. The NSC is chaired by the Secretary of the Ministry of Labour
and Employment and has representatives from government agencies, including the Department of
Education of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Ministry of Social Justice and
Empowerment, employers' and workers' organizations and representatives of NGOs and civil society.
In the last six years, IPEC has changed its intervention approach in India, moving away from relatively
small action programmes, as implemented in the framework of the national programme, to more holistic
programmes integrated into national efforts to combat child labour through the NCLPs. Two different
approaches have been developed since then: the integrated approach and the state based approach.
The idea behind the integrated approach was not only to address the issue of putting children into nonformal schools, and later into formal schools, but also to tackle other factors that had a bearing on
sustaining the movement of rehabilitation, and, more importantly, preventing the accretion of more
children into the labour force. The Integrated Area Specific Programme (IASP), which was based on
this concept, comprised an integrated set of interventions simultaneously addressing all the interlinked
issues that perpetuate child labour at the district level. This programme, which started in 2000, is now
completed and a comprehensive evaluation has been undertaken.
The second approach consisted in moving from a district level to a state level perspective in designing
interventions. Taking into consideration the crucial role of state governments in issues of enforcement,
awareness raising, and admission of children into schools, it has been decided to design state based
projects against child labour that would cover a state as a whole. The Andhra Pradesh State Based
Project (APSBP) for the elimination of child labour is an example of this kind of intervention. The APSBP
works closely with the State Government and its departments to address the issue of child labour across
the State in a holistic manner, both in terms of geographical reach as well as in terms of the sectors
targeted. The commencement of the APSBP in early 2000 was in a sense the fruition of the evolution
of the IPEC programme in India during the first decade of its existence. The APSBP is also in its
evaluation stage and the programme development for the second phase has been completed and
approved for funding by DFID (the Development for International Development of the United Kingdom).
Both the integrated and state based approaches, which have been implemented since 1997, have
contributed to the most recent, and largest ever collaboration between the Government of India and the
ILO on the issue of child labour: the INDUS Project for the prevention and elimination of child labour
in ten identified hazardous sectors in four states of India.
Besides the INDUS project, which started in May 2003, a state based project is planned in Karnataka.
This project, financed by the Italian government, will target the worst forms of child labour with the aim
of combating child labour and economic exploitation in selected economic sectors and occupations.
Discussions with the NSSO and the Ministry of Labour and Employment on the possibility of conducting
a nationwide child labour survey are also underway.
Overview of ongoing projects
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