The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Child labour: figures not right, says CACL-K

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jul 03, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Child labour: figures not right, says CACL-K

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: Officials of the Education and Labour departments, members of the Campaign Against Child Labour (Karnataka) and other voluntary organisations met in Bellary on Saturday to assess the problem of child labour in the mines.

CACL (K) and Mines, Minerals and People in a survey done in April estimated that over 2 lakh children are employed in the mines.

Balraj, Block Education Officer, Hospet, said the administration in a survey done in March had identified 1,000 children who were out of school, and 400 of them had been brought back to school, he said.

Taking a serious view of child labour in the mines, the National Human Rights Commission had asked the State's Women and Child Development Department to send a report. In a communiqué to the department on June 7, the commission had given the department two weeks to respond.

But the district administration initially denied the existence of child labour in the mines.

The Labour Department claimed that there were only 5,000 child labourers in Bellary district.

The meeting on Saturday was brought about by protests from voluntary organisations following the denial of child labour by the district administration.

"How can they say that there are only 5,000 child labourers in the district? We will show them that they are wrong," said Harish Jogi of CACL-K.

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