As per the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, amended in 2016 ("CLPR Act"), a "Child" is defined as any person below the age of 14 and the CLPR Act prohibits employment of a Child in any employment including as a domestic help. It is a cognizable criminal offence to employ a Child for any work. Children between age of 14 and 18 are defined as "Adolescent" and the law allows Adolescent to be employed except in the listed hazardous occupation and processes which include mining, inflammable substance and explosives related work and any other hazardous process as per the Factories Act, 1948. In 2001, an estimated 1% of all child workers, or about 120,000 children in India were in a hazardous job. Notably, the Constitution of India prohibits child labour in hazardous industries (but not in non-hazardous industries) as a Fundamental Right under Article 24.[10] UNICEF estimates that India with its larger population, has the highest number of labourers in the world under 14 years of age, while sub-Saharan African countries have the highest percentage of children who are deployed as child labourers. The International Labour Organisation estimates that agriculture, at 60 percent, is the largest employer of child labour in the world, while the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates 70% of child labour is deployed in agriculture and related activities. Outside of agriculture, child labour is observed in almost all informal sectors of the Indian economy.

ANY TWO IMPORTANT CAUSES OF CHILD LABOUR ARE :-

Increasing Population: India's population has crossed the mark of one billion as per 2011 census and has been incrementing more till now. Parents having more than 2 children face many problems in their maintenance, education and providing basic facilities.

Poverty: According to a report released by U.N. in Feb 2015, about 30 crore people still live in the extreme poor condition in India which accounts for 1/3rd of the total extreme poor people in the world. Poverty is the main reason behind child labor and is still a headache for Indian government. Ignorance from parents is also an out come from poverty and that leaves no choice for children.This leads to the indulgence of children into laborious works.