The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Dharmapuri News : Drive to combat child labour

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 27, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Dharmapuri

Drive to combat child labour

By Our Staff Reporter

DHARMAPURI, SEPT. 26. The district administration is employing a two-pronged strategy to eradicate child labour in the district, which includes a special enrolment drive for school age children and dropouts and a targeted implementation of development programmes for the parents of working children by dovetailing existing Government schemes.

The Education Department will carry out the special enrolment drive targeting a hundred per cent enrolment in schools, which will strive to avoid an increase in the number of child labourers.

SSA survey

A recent survey by the Sarva Shiksha Abiyan (SSA) found 10,125 child labourers in the combined Dharmapuri district, with 4,035 child labourers in Dharmapuri alone.

The total number of dropouts and `never enrolled' as per the survey was 43,728. Around 1,441 children studying in National Child Labour Project (NCLP) schools had been mainstreamed into regular schools so far.

The Collector, Ashish Vachhani, said "all identified child labourers will be rehabilitated by providing education with the help of volunteers of the NCLP, SSA and Valarkalvi Thittam."

He said that as many as 681 child labourers identified in the age group of 5-7 were being directly admitted to regular schools and SSA centres. Similarly, around 3,199 child labourers identified in the age group of 8-14 were being directly admitted to NCLP special schools.

Efforts would be made to ensure that schools had all basic amenities like water supply and toilets (separate for girls) that would encourage children, especially girls, to continue studies. Residential schools would also be started for children of migrant labourers and bonded child labourers.

He said that since poverty apart from illiteracy being the main cause of child labour, it was necessary to raise the economic standards of the parents of working children by exploiting various Government schemes.

The parents of the rescued child labourers would be given priority in the existing poverty alleviation and self-employment schemes with mothers of child labourers being encouraged to form women self-help groups to supplement their income.

Mother groups

Mother groups were also formed to closely monitor the rehabilitated child labourers. They were also given priority in the ongoing food-for work programme in the district.

Apart from rehabilitation of the child labourers to mainstream regular schools, sustained awareness campaigns by cultural groups were regularly performed block-wise in child labour-prone areas, shops and establishments creating awareness about the evils of child labour he said.

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