The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : 11 child workers sent to government home

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 29, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

11 child workers sent to government home

By Tejas Ewing

CHENNAI, MARCH 28. Police raided the factory of a prominent printer late on Saturday night, and took into custody 11 allegedly underage child workers.

The police action was based on an anonymous call received by Childline 1098, saying that children were working at the printing press with heavy machinery and dangerous chemicals.

Two employees of Childline went to the factory on Arcot Road, and asked the Mess Manager about children working there. According to the Childline staff, he replied: "There are many children here at the factory." Childline staff then contacted G.U.G. Sastri, the Joint Commissioner of Police, South. Eight officers from the Kodambakkam police station were sent to the factory from where they took the child workers into custody. The children have been lodged in a government home, under the custody of the Child Welfare Committee.

A police First Information Report (FIR) has been lodged, and according to Mr. Sastri, cases will be filed under the Juvenile Justice Act and the Child Labour Act. "We will bring charges against those responsible, and involve the proper authorities, such as the Labour Department."

According to a spokesman from the company involved, the workers were aged 15 to 18, and "looked very small." They came to the factory of their own volition, and were hired because of their desperate situation, he said.

"All of our workers come from the same area, in Tirunelveli." He said their parents and other family members also worked at the factory, and that the Managing Director of the company knew all of them personally, since he was from the same area.

Complex cases

Vidya from the Indian Council for Child Welfare, Tamil Nadu, says the case underscores an inherent difficulty in pursuing cases of alleged child labour. "These cases become very complex, because the parents and the employers are often intricately linked." Often, the parents voluntarily send their children to work, and the employer is the only one who can contact the parents. "It becomes difficult to sort out what is in the best interests of the child, and what the truth is, because many parents end up taking the side of the employer, since they do not want to lose their jobs or the income that their child is generating."

In such cases, when the parents and the employer are, in effect, working together it may become difficult to even prove the age of the children. For this reason, she believes that enforcement of child labour law is imperative.

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