Quality of Education, Child Labour and Child Protection Structure: Interrogating the Status of Child Rights in Uttar Pradesh

One wonders why child labour is so rampant belying states’ claim for proper protection of child rights. Is it because of the inferior quality of education that the community does not feel attracted to send their children to school? Or is it because of insensitive/non-responsive/non-functional nature of social protection system that the child rights are infringed/encroached upon in India? Or is it because of parents’ and communities’ ignorance about legal and social implications of this phenomenon that the children are allowed for labour either in the agricultural land or in a factory or hotel, etc.? Or is it because of certain structural inconsistencies and poverty in Indian rural society that children are forced to move out of their villages/districts in search of some remunerative jobs? It is this context of crisis and conflict, enrooted in the very answers to the aforesaid questions, that this paper has tried to examine, based on the findings of the study conducted in the rural zone of three districts—Jaunpur, Mirzapur and Sonbhadra—of Eastern Uttar Pradesh during the year 2011–12 and our revisit of the study area in the year 2013.1 Broadly, three variables were considered to assess the status of child rights in the area under study: (i) quality of education, (ii) child labour and (iii) social protection structures.