Child Labour in Vidarbha: How Poverty and Migration Keep Kids Out of School

thenewsdirt
Jul 29
8 min read

In Vidarbha, many children begin their day not in classrooms but in cotton fields, brick kilns and roadside stalls. The image of a child carrying bricks alongside adults or plucking cotton with bleeding fingers is no longer rare across districts such as Yavatmal, Gadchiroli and Amravati.

Economic uncertainty, routine migration and insufficient legal enforcement have transformed child labour into a grim but accepted reality.

These children are not merely helping their families occasionally but are often full-time participants in the region’s rural and informal workforce. For every child seen wielding a tool instead of a pencil, there is a system that failed them.

Economic Hardship: The Core of the Crisis

The decision to involve children in work is rarely made lightly by families in Vidarbha. Rural poverty is severe, compounded by frequent droughts, fluctuating agricultural yields and chronic rural indebtedness.

Numerous studies and field surveys conducted over the last decade confirm that a significant share of Vidarbha’s small farmers own less than two hectares of land, rendering their income marginal and unstable.

Agriculture in Vidarbha is dominated by cotton cultivation. The region has gained nationwide attention for high rates of farmer suicides, often traced to insurmountable crop losses and mounting debts. In these scenarios, children are often withdrawn from school to assist with planting, weeding and harvesting, or to enter wage work in local markets.

Many end up working in cotton ginning factories, brick kilns, or as construction helpers. Interviews from Gadchiroli and Chandrapur districts reveal that families employed as agricultural labourers rely on every able member, including children, to fulfil the daily wage quota that sustains household expenses.

Livelihood insecurity pushes families toward informal loans. In bonded and semi-bonded arrangements, entire families, often from Dalit and Adivasi communities, agree to work off debts in harsh conditions.

Children may be asked to run errands, assist adults in difficult tasks, or even be sent alone to fulfil agreements made by guardians. These arrangements escape or reporting to authorities nearly impossible, especially for younger children.

In villages of Yavatmal, social workers noted consistent patterns: families reporting failed harvests over two or three consecutive years frequently cited that at least one child aged between eight and fourteen was being kept out of school for full-time labour.

A 2023 report by Maharashtra’s State Labour Department recognised that pandemic-induced livelihood shocks prompted a noticeable rise in the number of children seeking daily wage work, sometimes doubling or tripling during lean agricultural periods.

Income from children’s work is seldom high, but it is often essential. Families weigh the choice between sending their children to schools with irregular teaching and holding back the family’s immediate needs. As one mother in Wardha articulated, “When work is there, we all must go. If the children do not go with us, we cannot work, because nobody will take care of them, and our earnings will fall short.”

Migration and the Breakdown of Educational Access

Migration, both seasonal and long-term, is a defining feature of Vidarbha’s labour economy. Entire families travel across districts and sometimes to neighbouring states in search of work.

Sugarcane fields in western Maharashtra, brick kilns in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, and construction sites in Nagpur and Chandrapur act as magnets for workforce influx, particularly during the post-monsoon lull in agriculture.

This migration disrupts the educational continuity for thousands of children each year. Reports compiled by non-governmental organisations tracking migration-affected children in Amravati and Akola districts point to several key outcomes:

School-age children who migrate with parents lose months of classroom time.
Enrollment registers often do not accurately reflect migration-related absences, due to lack of standardised tracking at the school, block or district levels.

Attempts have been made to create ‘migrant hostels’ or bridge schools, especially in brick kiln clusters near Nagpur, yet according to school administrators, these efforts are hampered by irregular funding, low attendance and inadequate outreach.

Children who remain in villages but whose parents migrate are left in the care of older siblings or extended family, frequently leading to higher levels of truancy, dropouts, or engagement in household and wage labour.

Studying enrolment patterns in Wardha district’s primary schools, researchers observed a steady drop in attendance during the sugarcane harvest months. Teachers reported that only about half of registered students showed up for class during peak migration periods between November and March.

Child rights groups operating in eastern Vidarbha have documented children joining road construction crews near Hinganghat for daily wages as low as Rs. 50 per day, often at the expense of months of schooling.

Testimonies from children reveal the emotional and psychological toll: a 12-year-old boy rescued from a brick kiln in Nagpur recounted, “I came with my parents, but there was nothing for me to do all day except work with bricks. There was no school.” These patterns, though extensively recognised in state reports, remain a persistent and unresolved challenge.

Fragmented Implementation of Child Protection Laws

Legislative prohibitions on child labour have existed in India for decades. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act was first enacted in 1986 and subsequently broadened.

Maharashtra has its own State Action Plan for the Eradication of Child Labour, yet effective implementation remains elusive on the ground in Vidarbha.

A 2024 audit of enforcement by the Parliamentary Standing Committee revealed key structural weaknesses that directly impact Vidarbha:

The responsibility for monitoring child labour is distributed among multiple government agencies, including the Labour Department, the Social Welfare Department and panchayat (village council) bodies. Overlaps and uncoordinated efforts lead to surveillance gaps.
Labour inspection staff is limited: in several Vidarbha districts, each inspector oversees hundreds of establishments, making sustained enforcement impossible.
Raids and rescue operations are sporadic, often only initiated after complaints or reports from NGOs, rather than as a result of systematic inspections.

In interviews, officials from Nagpur’s Labour Department voiced frustration over insufficient staffing, logistical barriers and limited follow-up with rescued children. Employers in unorganised sectors are rarely prosecuted. Penalties, when imposed, are usually low and paid without admission of guilt.

A local activist involved in rescue drives in Chandrapur district explained, “There is a lack of rehabilitation options for rescued children. Most are returned to families, where the cycle starts again. Without economic alternatives, families revert to sending them into labour.”

Community members often do not perceive the practice as objectionable, further limiting willingness to report abuses.

A review of court records from 2019 to 2023 in Akola district indicated that despite numerous child labour complaints, barely a handful led to convictions or significant penalties for employers.

Cultural attitudes in Vidarbha play a subtle but significant role in perpetuating child labour. Generational poverty, compounded by limited educational achievements among adults, has normalised children’s economic participation. In more traditional and tribal households, communal work involves all able members, with children introduced to farming or family crafts at a young age.

As a result, many see child work not as exploitation but as essential training and a family duty. Conversations with residents in the tribal pockets of Melghat and Gadchiroli uncovered remarks like, “My son began helping us in the fields much before he turned ten. This is how we have always managed our land. School is good, but work comes first when food is short.”

Employers frequently exploit these attitudes to justify the presence of young workers in hazardous and illegal settings.

Interviews by journalists with brick kiln owners in the outskirts of Amravati highlighted a common rationale: “We don’t force anyone. These families send their children, and it helps them earn more. In our view, this is not abuse.”

Prevailing gender expectations further intensify the drift toward child labour. Girls face dual burdens: engaging in agricultural or wage work and attending to household chores.

Teacher reports in rural Wardha and Buldhana show a marked preference for keeping older girls out of school in order to take care of younger siblings or elderly family members while parents work away from home.

Gaps in Educational Infrastructure and Policy Barriers

Education is often presented as the most effective weapon against child labour, but for many families in Vidarbha, the system itself discourages consistent attendance and engagement.

Surveys by the National Sample Survey Office and organisations like the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies detail the extent of infrastructural inadequacy facing the region’s rural schools.

Reports from the Chandrapur and Nagpur divisions reveal:

A high proportion of government schools lack separate toilets, especially for girls, resulting in dropouts after primary grades.
Shortages of teachers, with one teacher sometimes handling up to five different classes across multiple age groups, impede sustained learning.
High student-to-teacher ratios and dwindling state budgets for midday meals, scholarships and materials force families to absorb additional costs for participation in schooling.

Universal enrolment targets are further undermined by frequent teacher absenteeism and the closure of schools in remote hamlets due to low attendance. Even when children are formally enrolled, sporadic attendance and poor learning outcomes persist.

Several parents cited limited faith in the quality or utility of education as a reason for prioritising work. One cotton farm worker in Amaravati commented, “Children sit in class, but there are no teachers or they are teaching something that will not help us. It is better they learn some real skills by working.”

A review of Maharashtra’s budget allocation to child welfare and labour eradication strategies highlights systemic deficiencies:

Funds for anti-child labour projects, such as special schools or rehabilitation schemes, are frequently delayed or underutilised.
Coordination between district-level task forces, child welfare committees and police is often limited or absent.
Birth registration, an initial step in proving underage employment, is frequently incomplete in rural Vidarbha, complicating efforts to confirm ages in raids and prosecutions.

International and national agencies have attempted periodic interventions, but as reflected in several UNICEF and ILO documents, these frequently struggle to achieve lasting change in Vidarbha without consistent government and community buy-in.

Child labour in Vidarbha emerges from numbers and statistics, but its brutal reality is shaped by personal stories.

A young boy recounted to outreach workers, “I went with my mother and father to the construction site near Nagpur. We stayed in a hut near the area. I carried bricks, mixed sand and helped with water. I could not go to school for ten months.”A mother in Yavatmal described their situation: “We send our children along when work is far away. Otherwise there is nobody to watch them in the village. If we do not go together, we lose our jobs.”

A social worker based in Akola described a cycle of broken promises: “We have found the same children doing similar work year after year.

Some have been rescued more than once. Until something deeply changes in their daily lives, these children return to the same jobs.”

Efforts to restrict and eliminate child labour in Vidarbha confront a patchwork of structural, economic and societal constraints.

The persistence of this phenomenon reflects not merely failures of law or enforcement, but entrenched patterns in livelihoods, migration, family coping strategies and community beliefs. In Vidarbha, the journey from policy to practice remains incomplete, and children continue to be caught in the quest for survival amidst shifting promises of protection and progress.