India's already low exports doubly hit by non-tariff barriers raised by WTO linking ‘Social Clauses’ to trade: A study of India's stand on social clause of labor standards with special focus on child labor practices.”

India has chronic trade deficit and consequent Current Account Deficit mainly due to her primary composition of trade. India exports low value-high volume goods like ores, spices, coffee, cardamom, cotton and cotton waste, cereals, pulses, fruits, carpets manufactured by child labour and low paid adult prison labour. The list disgracefully includes the human skeletons.

Though India has made strides in software technology and space technology she is known all over the world as technologically backward country having feudal remnants and feudal harsh management practices. India's low exports never showed any sign of improvement in 65 years of her republicanism And further it looks like it will go into doldrums because of the non-tariff barriers impacted by the social clauses put in place by World Trade Organization. No doubt the objective of World Trade Organization is to bring more happiness into the lives of people. But for India the matter looks very different. India has more than 50 million children working 12 hours a day just to earn food enough to keep them alive. Thus, the Indian Government has made employment of children a punishable offence. But the need is of improving the wages in informal sector so that there is no need of children becoming a helping hand in the family.

This paper is an attempt to find out the prevalence of child labour in various export oriented industries, to study the wide deficit in Balance of Payment and to recommend a reconsideration of the policies.