October 2015
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A large number of people in India live below the poverty line and even in the condition of absolute poverty, which are unable to meet their basic needs. For which many small children in India are forced to engage in some kind of work and most of the time they are exploited and exposed to hazardous work conditions, many times neglecting their studies. Hence, the present paper is an attempt to study the socioeconomic background and working condition of the child labourers and to study the perception of the child labourers about their working condition. The study is based on the children working in petty shops of Bongaigaon town as almost all the petty shops are employing at least one child labour at their shops. The study is both descriptive and analytical. The data is collected from 40 male child labourers by purposive sampling with the help of structured interview schedule. The children are further selected by using convenient sampling. It is observed that the economic conditions of the child labour is poor and majority of them are illiterate and they themselves does not like to go to school which is similar in case of their siblings also. The child labourers are satisfied with their present job which is so hazardous and are poorly paid, as they are comparing this with their life prior to joining this profession in the clutches of extreme poverty.