Kohima: A widespread, unmonitored system in Nagaland sees children from rural villages relocated to urban homes under the guise of education, only to be subjected to significant domestic labour. These arrangements, typically facilitated by extended family members or community contacts, rely on a verbal agreement that rarely guarantees the child a genuine path to schooling.
While some host families provide for children as promised, others demand labour that begins before dawn and continues long after school hours. One student living in Dimapur described the daily exhaustion of balancing household chores with academics, noting: "By the time I sit down to study I am already tired. Sometimes I sleep in class. The teacher thinks I am lazy."
Under the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, the employment of children under 14 in any capacity is illegal. The government defines family strictly, excluding neighbors and acquaintances. Consequently, the vast majority of these informal arrangements are legally categorized as child labour. Despite this, the practice remains socially accepted, with many guardians reframing the labour as simple household assistance that mimics how they treat their own children.
Institutional mechanisms exist to address this, including the Child Welfare Committee and the Child Helpline. However, these systems rarely reach inside private homes. Teachers in Kohima and Dimapur report that many students struggle to balance schoolwork with home obligations, and some eventually drop out entirely when the workload becomes unmanageable. With only 52 government higher secondary schools in the state, rural parents often feel they have no alternative but to send their children to urban centers, where they remain vulnerable to exploitation in an invisible system.
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