By: Nazia Nabi
In every household, children deserve to experience love, support, and the opportunity to develop and thrive. Yet, in many households across Jammu and Kashmir, some children are not being raised, they are raising others. Hired as domestic help, these minors are forced to take on adult responsibilities that even grown-ups find challenging. This silent form of child labour remains one of the most disturbing, hidden issues in our society.
Imagine placing the safety and care of a baby in the hands of a child, someone who is still learning to care for themselves. While adults struggle to manage housework, childcare, and daily responsibilities, we expect a child to clean, cook, wash, and even babysit. This not only defies logic, it is deeply unjust and inhumanely paradoxical.
These young domestic workers are often girls, pulled from poverty-stricken families with promises of food or money. Once employed, they become invisible, working behind closed doors without regular oversight, without rest, and often without access to education. Many suffer in silence, physically exhausted, emotionally neglected, and completely cut off from a normal childhood.
What makes this situation worse is its social normalisation. In many cases, because of this social camouflage, the families don’t even see it as abuse rather they see it as “help.” But what kind of help forces a child to sacrifice their future to keep a household running?
Children are not meant to manage kitchens, scrub floors, or soothe crying infants at midnight. They are not meant to be burdened with adult fears, responsibilities, or fatigue. These experiences can cause lasting psychological damage and emotional erosion, robbing them of trust, joy, and the basic building blocks of self-worth.
Employing minors as domestic help is not only unethical but it is illegal as well. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act and the Juvenile Justice Act prohibit anyone from employing children under 14 in any occupation, including domestic work. But laws need hands and hearts behind them to be effective and that’s where awareness and enforcement come in.
When children are rescued from domestic labour, the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) becomes their voice. Operating under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, the CWC is responsible for assessing the child’s needs, ensuring their protection, and making key decisions about their rehabilitation.
The CWC works closely with police, NGOs, and child protection officers to ensure children are placed in safe environments and not returned to the same harmful conditions. Through shelter homes, counselling, education, and support services, the CWC gives these children a chance to heal and dream again.
Yet, despite their efforts, the CWC cannot act unless cases are reported. And in domestic work, where the abuse is quiet and hidden, the responsibility falls on society to observe, report, and intervene. It needs moral momentum.
Ending domestic child labour starts at home. If we truly want a just society, we must stop seeing children as cheap or obedient workers. We must challenge the mindset that normalises child domestic help and instead advocate for children to be in schools, not kitchens.
Don’t employ children ever.
Educate others about the rights of children.
Support families in crisis so that they don’t feel forced to send their children to work.
Report child labour to the authorities or by calling Child Help Line 1098
Jammu and Kashmir has endured many hardships, but it also holds a generation full of promise. These children are not burdens; they are potential future doctors, teachers, artists, and leaders. But we must first protect their right to simply be children.
No child should be expected to carry the weight of a household. No child should raise another child.
Let us act through compassion, awareness, and firm resolve so that every child in our region can live with dignity, dream with hope, and grow without fear.
Member, Child Welfare committee, Baramulla
Contact: nabi.nazia@gmail.com
