Small Hands in South Asia Child Labour in Perspective

Published in association with Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development Child labour has become a hot issue. International attention has often been focused on South Asia, and initiatives have been undertaken to use pro-active policies, such as a trade boycott, to pressurise governments in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh to implement a complete ban on child labour and to realize universal education. A gathering of outstanding international scholars, financed by the Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development, has discussed these issues on the basis of empirically grounded research papers. A selection of these papers has been edited for this volume. The volume contains papers on the extent of child labour in South Asia (and the spread across regions and sectors), its correlation with education, some of the worst forms of child labour, and best practices. The papers are a good mix of social anthropology, economics and political science approaches. The expertise of the contributors and their concern for what continues to be a stark reality in South Asia make this book an invaluable source of reference on the issue of child labour, academically rigorous and politically relevant. It will be highly relevant to policy makers, scholars, journalists and practitioners.