NGO holds signature campaign against child labour
Chennai: Elections are round the corner and manifestos, full of sops. But all of them are silent on abolition of child labour, a menace Government hoped to eliminate by 2007.
On Friday, Peace Trust, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), carried out a signature campaign to support abolition of child labour. Its members raised a white banner near Napier Park, distributed leaflets among passers-by and urged them to sign on the cloth.
The NGO has been rehabilitating about 50 such children annually for the past 20 years.
Ramachandran, a field researcher of Peace Trust, said: "We will hold this campaign twice a month, mainly in the industrial belt. We hope to collect around 25,000 signatures, which will be submitted as a petition to the State and Central Labour Secretaries. This should become a movement."
He said employers must become more sensitive as they bear the moral responsibility of employing young children. "One can often see young children engaged by big textile shops to load and unload material on Ranganathan Street. There are children who work in welding shops as well as the `invisible children' — those employed in domestic work."
Children are also employed in the agarbati industry in Hosur, for beedi-rolling in Tirunelveli, making appalam in Madurai as well as in the stainless steel industry in Korokupet.
"If one includes part-time child labour as well, there are an estimated 11 crore children employed across India," the volunteer explained.
He said rehabilitation of rescued child labour should be properly monitored. It should be ensured that those still employed are withdrawn and that children do not drop out of school to join back the labour force.
As Child Labour Act, 1986 defines `child' as one who has not completed 14 years of age, employers often forge medical certificates to bypass government regulations and retain the children, Mr. Ramachandran said.
He said the law should be more stringent so that people are unable to employ children.
India has refused to ratify an International Labour Organisation Convention that seeks to prohibit the `worst forms of child labour' and defines a child as one below 18 years of age.
http://www.hindu.com/2006/04/29/stories/2006042917220700.htm |
