A new $14 million fund to combat child labour and trafficking

We are delighted that the Rajasthan Government has dedicated $14m to combat issues of child labour and trafficking.

The Nehru Child Protection Fund will be provided by the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment and aims to tackle child labour and child trafficking. The fund supports the government’s pledge in January last year to make Jaipur free of child labour. This marks great progress for the work of the Child Labour Free Jaipur campaign (CLFJ), the British Asian Trust and Freedom Fund programme which is supported by our partner the John Lewis Foundation.

With leadership from key government departments, CLFJ has taken action to help strengthen prosecutions leading to fundamental change. Since we launched the CLFJ with the Freedom Fund in Rajasthan just over a year ago, we’ve already seen impressive developments in Jaipur against child labour, including strengthened legal sanctions against child traffickers.

In August 2019, a landmark trafficking conviction was achieved in Jaipur and five convictions have been made in the last six months, three of which have resulted in life imprisonment. 66 children have been helped to come back to Jaipur to testify against traffickers with the support of committed lawyers.
This significant funding by the government supports the positive action that is already being taken to end child labour, with the city’s courts now being committed to taking swift action against child traffickers. Jaipur is leading the way in India to enforce the country’s laws against trafficking.

Find out more about the Child Labour Free Jaipur programme here.

February 2020