The Hindu : Kerala / Thrissur News : Steps intensified to contain child labour

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 09, 2005

Kerala

Kerala - Thrissur

Steps intensified to contain child labour

By T. Ramavarman

THRISSUR, FEB. 8. Steps are being intensified to prevent child labour in the district in the wake of reports that children from Tamil Nadu are being `sold' here as domestic aides.

District administration officials said efforts were being made for a coordinated action of voluntary organisations like the Child Line as well as the officials of the administration, police, labour, social welfare and other related agencies.

Rehabilitation

They told The Hindu here that the primary attention was on getting the children released and rehabilitating them. The rehabilitation was being done in Government juvenile homes or rehabilitation centres run by voluntary agencies.

Pointing out that it was very difficult to locate children engaged as domestic aides, the Additional District Magistrate, Rajan, said the help of the activists of Child Line and other voluntary agencies were being sought for this.

"I have told them to locate and get the children released from the houses where they are being employed in an informal way. If they face any problem, they will be given police assistance."

The DySP, Gopinathan, who is associated with Child Line, said the focus so far had been on getting the children rehabilitated. But in future, strict action would be taken against those who were `selling' and employing them.

Even though it was difficult to get a clear picture about the number of children engaged as domestic help in the district, it could be safely said that their number could be much more than 1,000, the Child Line coordinator, Jerly James, said.

She said most of the children were being brought from Salem in Tamil Nadu and poverty appeared to be the main reason forcing them to accept the work.

In many cases, either their parents or the immediate guardians were found to be even accompanying them to the houses where they were to be deployed as domestic help.

"The agents get about Rs. 5,000 per year as `wages' of the children. The money is never handed over to the children, but the agents come and collect it regularly. The parents are obviously being given a share of it," Child Line activist, P.S. Lejin, said.

She said earlier her fellow activists used to contact the Child Line volunteers in Salem to repatriate the children from that region.

Awareness programme

Ms. James said in Thrissur, the deployment of children as domestic help was high at Kodungallur and Ollur. "We have already conducted an awareness programme on this at Kodungallur, and another one is planned shortly at Ollur."

She said there was a spurt in the flow of information on the deployment of children as child labourers to the Child Line after the recent media reports on the `sale' of children.

When contacted, the District Labour Officer (enforcement), Nagarajan, said his department had no jurisdiction in interfering in the cases related to deployment of children as domestic help.

"We can interfere only when the children are found to be deployed in factories, shops, farms or in such workplaces. That too only in cases where the children are under the age of 14."

"But we are collaborating with the activities of the Child Line and similar agencies as the deployment of children for domestic work is a social problem," he said.

Meanwhile, the State Social Welfare Department is yet to constitute the Juvenile Justice Board in the district even though the panel for this had been sent from here early last year.

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