The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Bonded labour conviction rate `encouraging'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 11, 2006
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Bonded labour conviction rate `encouraging'

Staff Reporter

13,175 people have so far been rescued: NHRC member "

803 of the 884 employers against whom cases were filed had been convicted"

INTERACTION: Justice Y. Bhaskar Rao, member, National Human Rights Commission, interacting with children, who were released from child labour recently and are studying in a transit school, in Kancheepuram on Thursday. Pradeep Yadav, Kancheepuram Collector, and Lakshmi Dhar Mishra, special rapporteur, NHRC, are also seen.

KANCHEEPURAM : National Human Rights Commission member Justice Y. Bhaskar Rao has said the conviction rate under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, in Tamil Nadu was encouraging.

Speaking to reporters here on Thursday, Mr. Rao said that 803 of the 884 employers against whom cases were filed under the Act had been convicted. A total of 13175 persons have so far been rescued from bonded labour in Tamil Nadu.

Around 2.86 lakh people had been rescued from bonded labour throughout the country and 2.68 lakh rehabilitated till March 31, 2006. The whereabouts of the others were not known.

In Kancheepuram district, 678 people had been rescued, Mr. Rao added.

Rice mills and brick kilns were the two main industries in the district where employees were absorbed as bonded labourers. In other parts of the State, bonded labour exist in agriculture, salt industry, blue metal quarrying, dyeing, fire works, silverware manufacturing, floriculture, plantation, mat weaving, handloom and power-loom industries, gem cutting and cotton roll manufacturing units, said the Deputy Director, Adi Dravidar Welfare Department, Devaraj Dev.

Later, Mr. Rao, along with the special rapporteur, NHRC, Lakshmi Dhar Mishra, visited a transit school run under INDUS Child Labour project in Kancheepuram town and interacted with members of 45-Irula community families residing in Kizhkathirpur hamlet, near here.

Speaking on behalf of the community, Mr. Sampath said they were released from bonded labour in a brick kiln unit at Panapakkam in Vellore district due to the initiative taken by a Kancheepuram-based non-governmental organization, Makkal Mandram.

The rescued families pooled in a sum of Rs.9000, each, from the relief amount distributed to 22 families to start a brick kiln unit on their own in a 2.50 acres of poromboke land allotted by the government in nearby Mangalpet village.

However, their erstwhile employers in the same area thwarted the Irulas' effort by setting fire to the thatched storeroom and a second-hand lorry bought for transporting bricks, he claimed.

They managed to save the lorry and later disposed it off. "The money acquired from the sale of the lorry has been deposited in a bank along with the relief amount", Mr. Sampath said

Mr. Rao asked District Collector Pradeep Yadav to initiate steps for revival of the brick kiln unit run by the Irulas and take action against those standing in the way of their rehabilitation.

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