The context in which CACL came into being: The 1970s and 80s were marked with advocacy and campaigns across the globe, highlighting the need to recognize rights of children as envisaged by the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959). In 1973, ILO Convention 138 on Minimum Age stipulated that minimum age for employment shall not be less than the age of completion of compulsory schooling and, in any case, shall not be less than 15 years. 1979 was declared the International Year of the Child and it took another 10 years for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) to set the definition of a child as a person under 18 years of age and to set out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. Human Rights of children were recognized globally andthe Convention was ratified by a large number of countries in record time and both governments and civil society organisations across the world started operationalizing the articles of UNCRC. Article 32 of the UNCRC prohibited employment of children (under the age of 18). By 1991, the US Congress had begun to discuss a bill to prohibit imports of goods made with the use of children’s labour (later approved in 1999).

Back home in India, for the first time ever, a legislation to protect children from economic exploitation was promulgated, albeit half-heartedly. The Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act in 1986 (CLPRA) established 14 as the minimum age of employment for children in (a specified list of) hazardous occupation and processes and provided regulations for the employment of children under 14 in other occupations and processes. By 1992, India ratified the UNCRC, with reservation on Article 32 on child labour, arguing that since India was a poor country and poor families were at risk of starving if their children were not allowed to work, it would not be feasible for India to eliminate child labour immediately .

By the 1980s, there were large number of NGOs, CBOs, trade unions and other social groups who were working for the welfare of child labour. There were different approaches of providing them with education and other social services while they continued to work, removing them from work situation to school situation, helping to improve the working conditions and so on. The work by these organisations was often isolated from the work done by other organisations and limited to their specific areas, villages, talukas and districts and were dispersed. At the same time, different studies and estimates on child labour in India started emerging from official and unofficial sources—Census estimated 13.6 million children working in India in 1981, while Operation Research Group put out a set of statistics stating that 44 million children were in labour. There were other estimates which varied between 44 million and 115 million.

Many organisations felt the need to join together and have common perspectives and also create larger impact towards supporting children who have been exploited economically. It is in this context that the Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL) a national network of organisations and individuals committed to complete eradication of child labour in the country was born.