Church in India struggling against child labour

The Catholic Church in India is drawing attention to the plight of millions of children forced to work on account of lack of education and poverty.

India is the country with the highest level of child labour in the world. As many as 45 million children are at risk, despite the fact that the Indian constitution specifically forbids the practice.

The spokesman for the Indian Bishops’ Conference, Fr. Babu Joseph, said “There has to be more concerted effort on the part of the civil society as well as the government to find a solution to this rampant problem of child labour.”

“I think there has to be a national policy,” he said,” a very strong policy that has to be implemented to completely root out this inhuman practice of employing children in production centres, in factories, in the farmland and so on.”

Listen to the full interview of Fr. Babu Joseph with Christopher Wells: