Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Call for change in mindset of parents

Staff Reporter

Steps mooted to eradicate child labour menace

TACKLING A SOCIAL EVIL: B. Sushila, Executive Director of the Institute for Chartered Computer Professionals in India, delivering the inaugural address at the two-day UGC-sponsored national seminar on "Strategies for Eliminating Child Labour in India " at GRG PSGR Krishnammal College for Women in the city on Thursday. — Photo: S. Siva Saravanan

Coimbatore: Poverty-stricken parents should change their mindset and stop looking at children as a source for earning money, B. Sushila, Executive Director of the Institute for Chartered Computer Professionals in India (ICCPI), said on Thursday.

Speaking at the inaugural function of a University Grants Commission-sponsored two-day national seminar on Strategies for Eliminating Child Labour in India, organised by the Economics Department of the GRG PSGR Krishnammal College for Women, she said that child labour was not a social issue concerning India alone. In fact, such a social evil was prevalent in a number of developing countries and a recent study by UNICEF had revealed that nearly 50 per cent of the children across the world were being denied basic rights and their childhood.

Children who were brought up in unhealthy conditions, denying them of their rights, would become a cause for concern and liability on the society, she cautioned. Either poverty or parents' addiction to liquor had been a major cause for child labour since the families wanted some avenue to earn money.

Calling for a plan of action to end child labour, she stressed the need for educating the parents on the need for giving children right to education, nutritional diet and so on. "None has the right to deny children their right to childhood," she said.

Eradication of child labour cannot be the responsibility of a few select organisations. After addressing the issue of poverty, all agencies concerned, especially the government, educational institutions and voluntary organisations, should join hands to evolve ways and means to ensure that education was made affordable and accessible to all sections of society, she said.

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