Institute for Migrant Rights
Railway line at Cianjur station, c. 1890 · KITLV, CC BY 4.0

Migration Jurisprudence from the South › India

Bachpan Bachao Andolan v. Union of India (children in circuses)

Supreme Court of India · India · 2011-04-18 · National court

Citation: (2011) 5 SCC 1
Type of case: Constitutional and human rights
Outcome: Decided for the migrant side

Question

Must the state rescue children, including children trafficked from Nepal, working in circuses?

What the court decided

Yes. Employing children in circuses was prohibited, raids and rescue were ordered, and the government had to act against trafficking.

In plain language

Children, many of them brought from Nepal, were found working and abused in Indian circuses. The Supreme Court banned child labour in circuses and ordered rescues and rehabilitation.

Dalam bahasa sederhana

Anak-anak, banyak yang dibawa dari Nepal, ditemukan bekerja dan dianiaya di sirkus India. MA melarang pekerja anak di sirkus dan memerintahkan penyelamatan dan rehabilitasi.

Pertanyaan: Wajibkah negara menyelamatkan anak, termasuk anak yang diperdagangkan dari Nepal, yang bekerja di sirkus?

What happened afterwards

  • 2011-04-18: Judgment.

Sources

Open this decision in the interactive collection (compare, filter, Indonesian view, downloads).

Cite as: Institute for Migrant Rights (2026), Migration Jurisprudence from the South, version 0.1, https://theimr.org/court-decisions/d/in-bba-2011/. This page summarizes a court decision for research and advocacy; it is not legal advice.

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Keywords: case law; jurisprudence; judicial decisions; comparative constitutional law; courts and migration; judicial behavior; litigation outcomes; refugee law; non-refoulement; citizenship and nationality; empirical legal studies; empirical legal scholarship; quantitative legal research; statistical analysis in law; law and economics; law and economics of migration; comparative law; socio-legal studies; legal pluralism; migration law; labor migration; migrant workers’ rights; human rights law; access to justice; Global South; Asia; Africa; Middle East; Latin America; Indonesia; open data; replication data.