Labor Department Launches U.S.—India Child Labor
Project

NEW DELHI, India—The Department of Labor (DOL), the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the government of India today launched a $40 million project to combat exploitive and hazardous child labor in India.

“This project will remove children from exploitive conditions, provide educational alternatives for child laborers, and increase awareness of laws in India that restrict child labor practices,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao. “We appreciate the Indian government’s partnership with our Department’s worldwide effort to eliminate the worst forms of child labor. Now we need to get to work and get results.”

Dubbed the “INDUS project,” this new cooperative venture is the Department’s largest international technical assistance program. Its goal is to help eliminate child labor in ten hazardous industries in India, including: cigarette-making; brassware; bricks; fireworks; footwear; bangles; locks; matches; quarried stones; and silk. In addition, India has agreed to conduct a review of existing child-labor elimination efforts in the carpet-making industry.

The INDUS project will draw from the International Labor Organization’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) and other organizations’ experience, to achieve immediate and lasting results in eliminating child labor in hazardous industries. The U.S. DOL will also work with India’s Ministry of Labor’s National Child Labor Projects and its Department of Education’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education for All) program, which seeks to ensure universal primary education for children ages 6-14 by the year 2010.

U.S. DOL and the government of India have dedicated $20 million each toward the project. By prior agreement, the Department’s contribution to the program will be administered by IPEC. The project will be implemented in 20 districts in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

In August 2000, U.S. DOL and the Indian Ministry of Labor signed a Joint Statement of Enhanced Cooperation on the Elimination of Child Labor. The agreement committed both nations to support an ILO/IPEC project to eliminate child labor in specified hazardous industries.

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Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.