Child labour is a serious problem of Indian Community and Dr. Dube believes that children should play and learn and any kind of labour by them would not let them explore and develop their mind and body. He has spent significant years on child labour issues in the country. He has worked on issues connected with child labour through organizations, arranging various seminars, preventive remedies and campaigns against child labour. He has actively participated in rescue and rehabilitation of hundreds of children across the county. He has been part of many movements aiming elimination of child labour at the State and National level. He has also served as Chairperson of Core Committee on Child Rights in Uttar Pradesh. He has also creating awareness on legal aspects of child labours including the key points of the judgment “M.C. Mehta vs. State Of Tamil Nadu And Others (1996)”. He has extensively worked with children in Carpet, Bidi, Mining, Quarries, Brick Kilns, Glass, BT Cotton, Fire Crackers industries, and other unorganized sectors to rescue and rehabilitate the children from child labour.

Dr. Yogesh Dube has worked on various sections of Child Psychology including the child development, normal and abnormal behavior of the children, strategies and behavior modification techniques for undesirable behaviors. He has a fine understanding of the factors leading to maladaptive behaviors among the children and adolescents. He has participated extensively on seminar and workshops focusing on psycho-social intervention with disturbed children including the children in need of care and protection as a result of absence of any parental figure. He has comprehensive knowledge on various aspects connected to children with special needs. He has very good understating of the needs of the children in various juveniles home and observation homes, as he had made several visits to such homes for protection of children’s rights.

On the subject of child health, Dr. Yogesh Dube has organized various medical camps, seminars with child specialists and medical practitioners. He delivered awareness on mother and child health, nutrition, immunization, early development. He has organized various programs and seminars for the benefits of poor children who residing in poverty stricken rural and urban slum areas in the country. He constantly strives for balanced nutrition values in the children and timely immunization for pregnant mothers for healthy babies. He has successfully advocated for the quality anganwadi centres and nutritional rehabilitation centre (NRCs) for the malnourish children with state and national machineries. He has also taken initiatives for the renovation, modernization & establishment of health care system in various parts of the country including the 100 bedded hospital in Gorakhpur for patients suffering from Japanese encephalitis/AES, many primary health care centers etc. He also organized various public hearings focusing health issues of the children.

Dr. Yogesh Dube has worked on the issues of street child, children’s residing on railway platform, orphans eradication of bad habits like smoking of bidi, cigarettes, chewing pan and gutkha by the children of adolescence age. He has successfully counseled the importance of healthy life styles and children homes for the needy. He has successfully encouraged many of such children to improve their life, living standard by staying in shelters and orphanage. He has also worked on rehabilitation program for such children through inclusive approach.

He carried out various interventions in multi-sectors impacting the children’s survival, development, protection and participation. Concentrated efforts to reach to remote and marginalized children in village communities ensued into great satisfaction. He has intensively worked in various states including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Delhi & NCR region, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Dr. Yogesh Dube’s core achievements can be summarized as followings:

“World Day Against Child Labour” Campaigns: In collaboration with ILO and UNICEF, Dr. Yogesh Dube organized ceremonies to observe the “World Day Against Child Labour” for 3 consecutive years at the national level to highlight the practices and challenges in different forms of child labour in the country.

Child Labour Rescued in Hazardous Industries: Hazardous work, which is one of the worst forms of child labour and harms children’s physical, mental or moral health, was successfully intervened, campaigned and advocated by Dr. Yogesh Dube in several hazardous child labour industries like Carpet, Bidi, Mining, Quarries, Brick Kilns, Glass, BT Cotton, Fire Crackers etc. His rigorous attempts have effectively geared the District and State administrations to initiate State Action Plans in numerous States throughout the country. He has successfully addressed two largely invisible forms of child labour i.e. domestic child labour and migrant child labour in various States through direct intervention, campaigns, child welfare committees and mass media.

Advocacy for Policy Level Changes: Dr. Yogesh Dube made substantial efforts in advocating the policy level changes in laws relating to Child Labour, Juvenile Justice, Integrated Child Protection Scheme and Domestic Child Labour Welfare Plans. He has also advocated for Child Baal Samities, mid-day meals, child education and rehabilitation of children in need of care and protection at the State and National level. He took up various issues on child right with various political parties.

Mapping of Child Labour: Dr. Yogesh Dube had persuaded the State governments and District administrations in focused States to carry out proper mapping of the child labour in their respective geographical boundaries in a time bound manner. The prime purpose of such mappings was to bring attention on the extent of child labour and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it. Apart from the child labour issues he has also focused that the migrant working children are also victims of child trafficking and to protect the rights of such children he has actively voiced on issues of regulatory framework for the migrant workers and anti-trafficking action plans by the administrations.

State and District Level Task Force on Elimination of Child Labour: Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Meghalaya, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are among the States, where State and District level Task Forces have been formed with the prime objective of elimination of child labour, on the directions and resource assistance by Dr. Yogesh Dube.

Raids & Rescues: With his successful attempts, many trends were unfolded when it comes to bonded child labourers including the supply of children as bonded labourers to Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Gujarat from poverty stricken states like Bihar, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The intrastate phenomena were also unearthed like supply of children to brick kilns in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Dr Yogesh Dube had played key roles in rescuing large number of children through direct intervention and children were successfully repatriated and rehabilitation.

Core Committee on Child Rights: The Core Committee on Child Rights was formed to curb the child labour in six child labour endemic districts (Aligarh, Firozabad, Moradabad, Sant Ravi Das Nagar (Bhadohi), Sonebhadra and Varanasi) of Uttar Pradesh. Dr. Yogesh Dube has successfully served the committee in the capacity of Chairperson for a substantial time period and achieved various milestones on Child rights issues.

Committee on Elimination of Child Labour in Mining & Quarries: Dr. Yogesh Dube has also served as Chairperson, Committee on Elimination of Child Labour in Mining & Quarries. The Committee had regular meetings for the protections of children’s rights and rehabilitation of child labourer. He has worked extensively with the child labour issues in Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya.

Addressed the Issues of Child Trafficking: It was the intensive efforts of Dr. Yogesh Dube that interstate child trafficking, intrastate child trafficking and international child trafficking was highlighted at various levels especially at Indo-Nepal Border. A comprehensive frame of recommendations was developed and shared with concerned Ministries and State bodies to combat the trafficking of children for labour and other exploitative forms to ensure the protection of children’s rights. He has also advocated through meetings and deliberations for effective framework for the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTUs) in the country.

Safeguarded Vulnerability of Children in Natural Disaster: Being a known fact that children become further vulnerable to exploitation during disasters, Dr. Yogesh Dube took timely initiatives to ensure safeguarding the vulnerability of children during the recent catastrophe in Uttarakhand. It was Dr. Yogesh concentrated efforts that initiated processes for series of schemes and programmes for disaster affected families in Uttarakhand. He has also undertaken the issues of effective implementation of RTE Act, 2009 in civil unrest areas with senior officials at state and national level. Dr. Yogesh has also initiated steps to safeguarding the rights of the children affected due to violence and displacement in Muzzaffarnagar district & Shamli distirct, Uttar Pradesh.

He has also been part of various training cum capacity building programmes conducted by various prominent organizations including National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD). Dr. Yogesh Dube has also interaction meetings and deliberations with UNICEF in its programmes, consultations and campaigns to broaden the prospect of child rights.

Redressed Grievances on Child Rights Violation: Dr. Yogesh Dube has successfully handled numerous complaints on child right violation belonging to various States. Besides direct complaints, a number of Suo-Moto cognizance were also undertaken by him to address the violation of child rights by administrative authorities, police, schools, hospitals, policy/scheme implementers among others.

Regular Interaction with the Judiciary: Dr. Yogesh Dube had frequent interaction with Indian Judiciary System, State Legal Authorities, Bar Councils for effective promotion of child rights in the country. He had regular meetings and deliberation with different district and state Judiciaries on child rights, Juvenile Justice Act, etc.

Worked on Issues of Juveniles Languishing in Prisons of Different States: The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 directs that in no case a juvenile in conflict with law shall be placed in a police lockup or be lodged in a Jail. During his visits to Tihar in Delhi, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Jaipur, Moradabad, Dhanbad, Agra and many other districts, inspections were carried out by Dr. Yogesh Dube, to District/ Central Jails to find out if there were any juvenile kept in Jails due to wrong recording of age during the investigation. Among the under-trials as well as convicted inmates in these Jails numerous inmates claimed that they were below the age of 18 years on the date of offence for which they have been accused. However, only few of those inmates told that they had documents to prove their claim, but majority of them did not have any proof of age. It was found as gross violation of Juvenile Justice Act and Child Rights. Though, the spot recommendations were provided by Dr. Yogesh to Jail officials but it was also decided to take up the matter with NHRC so that direct investigation in all the Jails located in all the States be carried out to ensure that no juvenile languish in Jails and also ensure the safety of women and health, nutrition, education and welfare of their children who are permissible in Jails. It was his intervention, that NHRC took a Suo-Moto Cognizance of the matter and issued detailed notice to all the Chief Secretaries and Administrator of the States and Union Territories to report compliance pertaining to different provisions of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Rules, 2007 and Rule 12 of the Rules 2007. Dr. Yogesh had also visited Tihar Jail to review the status of juveniles in Jail.

Addressed Children’s Health Issues: Dr. Yogesh Dube achieved various milestones in the sector of children’s health with special focus on immunization, malnutrition, disability, Japanese encephalitis/acute encephalitis syndrome, child labours working in highly polluted environment, water & sanitation aspects impacting the health of the children in rural and urban sectors in many States of country.

Addressed the Issues of Children with Disabilities: It has been well established that children suffering from different kinds of disabilities are often overlooked for their needs and concerns. Dr. Yogesh Dube has frequently advocated with State Authorities, for children with disabilities including rehabilitative measures being taken, barrier free environment created at various levels, integration of these differently abled children into mainstream, provision of aids and appliances, provisions of vocational training, awareness being generated on child rights in disability sector, state wide surveys of the disabled children to set up new institutions and to develop education rehabilitation for them, various services for autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and multiple disabled, provisions of home based education, and to a large extent the provisions of special educator in schools. During his most meetings with state and/or district authorities, spot recommendations were issued to all the concerned departments to comply with the needs and rights of the disabled children. He has also stressed on effective implementation of provisions under RTE, Act for children with special needs.

Interaction with other National & State Commissions: Dr. Yogesh also maintained a regular interaction with other National and State Commissions including The National Human Rights Commission, The National Commission for Women and other statutory Commissions.

Besides above, he also initiated various national level deliberations & movements including safeguarding child rights movement, homes and institutions for children in need of care and protection, streamlining the CHILDLINE functioning, catering to the energy needs through solar energy in extremely difficult terrain, proper repatriation of children at railways and enhancing Inter-ministerial cooperation towards better child rights in the country. He has been part of majority of the key Public Hearings and other state level Commissions. His concentrated efforts actually lead to the effective implementation of the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) in many states.