The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Kancheepuram News : It doesn't stop with rescuing them

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 25, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Kancheepuram

It doesn't stop with rescuing them

By Our Staff Reporter

KANCHEEPURAM, SEPT. 24. The non-governmental organisation, Social Action Movement, which was instrumental in the release of a 11-year-old girl from child labour here yesterday, found itself in a quandary as the women police asked the organisation to look after her till the matter was resolved `amicably'.

Though bemused by the police action, office-bearers of SAM decided to take care Selvi of Namakkal. The Coordinator, Raj, said that generally when a complaint about abuse or child labour was brought to the notice of the childline wing, the affected children would be rescued and provided temporary shelter. "But in Selvi's case the police handed her over to us," Mr. Raj told newspersons here today.

Legal obstacles

Though the organisation accepted the responsibility of finding a suitable and safe shelter for Selvi, there were legal problems to be crossed before achieving the goal. First it had to be established that the girl was rescued from child labour, for which the first information report against the employer was crucial. Even if a shelter was found by some other means, the organisation would be held responsible if anything happens to Selvi in future, he pointed out.

In Selvi's case, the police had only obtained a statement from her about how she landed at the house of her employer, a written complaint from the organisation and a letter from the person who had `engaged' Selvi for domestic work, he said.

`Ill-treatment'

Mr. Raj said Selvi was rescued after the organisation received a tip-off from domestic workers in Jem Nagar that an 11-year-old girl was `engaged' for domestic work. Subsequently, he elicited information from her that she hailed from a family in a remote hamlet near Namakkal.

Her father, an alcoholic, had reportedly `sold' her to a person there, who brought her to the house at Jem Nagar last year. The girl claimed that she was not treated well by her employers.

Refuses to go back

However, Selvi was lodged in the government-recognised home for destitute children, the Guild of Service, on Railway Road here this evening on the instructions of the Collector, R. Venkatesan.

Mr. Raj said that as Selvi refused to go back to Namakkal with her father, Ullan, Mr. Venkatesan directed an official from the Social Welfare Department to get the girl back from the NGO and lodge her in the Guild of Service.

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It doesn't stop with rescuing them