DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2016.v04i04.018

Pages: 426-437

Child labour in India is one of the most confronting issues. In spite of growing awareness and concern for this present day’s problem, number of children working in unorganised sector is not negligible at all. Hand embroidery industry in southern districts of West Bengal is one such unorganised industry where existence of child labour is a common phenomenon. Major segment of employment in hand embroidery is in the small and marginal household enterprises. A large number of home based production organisations is operated by poor artisan family members including family children. These child artisans with their meagre income help the families to somehow maintain subsistence livelihood. Marginal productivity of those tiny artisans cannot be ignored, but all of them cannot be considered child labour as defined by the extant laws. The present paper tries to find out in an intensive way the socio-economic conditions of the child artisans and their families. It also attempts to explore the causes of the existence of such problem. Concluding part of the paper suggests some measures to get rid of this social problem.