An occupational profile of tribal children of Patiala city

Government of India claims that child labour is banned in the country through its legal pronouncements. The present research work discloses the shocking facts regarding the prevalence of child labour among tribal children between 06 to 15 years in Patiala city of Punjab. In addition to it, it underlines the challenges appeared before them. For this purpose, this chapter tries to seek answers to certain questions regarding underlying patterns of child labour among tribal children. Through this, the factors responsible for child labour have been identified. Along with it, their impacts on tribal children are probed. Pertaining to this, interview schedule is used to procure the answers to certain questions regarding their occupation. It includes: What is your occupation? When did you start earning money? What forced you to earn? Is the income sufficient to fulfil your basic needs? How many months, days and hours you work in a year, week and day respectively? What problems do you face at work place? These questions were put to them to procure information. The tribal children of 06 to 15 years age group in Patiala city of Punjab make the universe of this study. In the process of interviewing the respondents, census method was used in the selection of tribal settlements and households. Purposive sampling was used to select the respondents (children belonging to 06 to 15 years age group). Given the nature of the problem under study it is decided to follow the census method since only those households had to be selected that had children between 06–15 years. Hence all such households across all settlements were taken whose number stands at 211. And the total number of respondents stands at 366. It cuts across gender lines thus we have 191 boys and 175 girls included in this study. Census method is used in the selection of tribes in Patiala city. There are four tribes namely, Bazigar, Sikligar, Dehe and Ghihare (the latter two are Sansi's subgroups) living in the city. All such households of these tribal groups have been included in the study that had children in the relevant age group that is 06–15 years irrespective of gender. The research design for the present study is primarily exploratory and descriptive in nature. Some of the popular methods of exploratory research used in the research include literature survey which of course is true for all types of research followed by field observations, depth interviews and group meetings with the respondents and other concerned members of the family and community. This all shall be done to obtain extensive details into various aspects of the child labour among tribal children.