Noble Cause

Noble Cause is a Delhi-based Indian non-profit Non-Government Organization (NGO). The organisation's area of work involves research, documentation, advocacy, training and campaign support on a variety of economical and social justice issues.

Child Welfare

According to UNICEF, there are almost 100 million children in India in the age-range of 5-14 who are not in school and, by the definition employed in this paper, therefore to be considered as working children. A quick glance at the industrial sector shows that children are employed in the slate pencil, diamond-cutting, gem polishing, cotton hosiery, carpet-weaving, lock-making, pottery, brass-ware and glass industries to name a few. There is virtually no sector of the Indian economy that is untouched by working children. In a number of industries where the author did primary research, while children's work was being justified in the name of traditional occupations, the fact of the matter was that children of master craftsmen and the better-off artisans were going to school regularly and they spent a couple of hours a day learning skills from their fathers. It was the children of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes or the Muslim communities who provided the bulk of the child labor force. These groups represented a combination of economic and social disadvantages. When one looked at the lives of these children as they grew to adulthood, it was apparent that the absence of schooling closed the route to upward mobility and, once again, perpetuated the disadvantages in the next generation.