The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Multi-stakeholder approach to eradicate child labour mooted

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 15, 2007
ePaper

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Multi-stakeholder approach to eradicate child labour mooted

Special Correspondent

Complex problem has to be tackled from all sides
Focus on children employed in farm sector

CHENNAI: Chief Secretary L.K. Tripathy on Thursday called for a multi-stakeholder approach towards eradicating child labour.

Addressing representatives of NGOs and government departments at a workshop conducted by the Labour Department, Mr. Tripathy said the problem was complex and had to be tackled from all sides. Stakeholders should evolve their own action plan to eliminate child labour, as the government had done.

They should also assess where the State stood in terms of eliminating child labour, he said.

Further, deliberations should go into the concept of ‘freeing the children’ and facilitating their entry into the mainstream, the Chief Secretary stressed.

Once a child goes to school, it should be provided an appropriate education. The child should also be allowed to learn at his/her own pace. He highlighted the achievements of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme in Tamil Nadu, adding that it had put the State way ahead of others in achieving its targets of literacy and engaging children.

Surina Rajan, project manager, INDUS Child Labour Project, ILO, said this year the focus was on children employed in the agricultural sector.

Seed companies

A number of seed companies were employing children, exposing them to the harmful effects of pesticides. It was rampant in States such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat.

Special mention

She congratulated Tamil Nadu for being consistently ahead in bringing down the number of child labourers. Collaboration with the education department seemed to have worked wonders she said. Thomas George, Officer-in-charge, UNICEF, said interventions in Tamil Nadu had been very effective, making special mention of the work being undertaken in Krishnagiri district. He recommended that the Government should focus on providing free and compulsory education till Standard X, instead of its current target of Standard VIII.

Sri Nageshwar, executive director, Group Industrial Relations, Simpson, said big industries were not directly involved in employing children, but when work gets sub-contracted, the rules were not stringently followed.

A number of medium and small-scale industries were accommodating the steady supply of child labourer, he said.

Labour Secretary R.K. Khanna, Labour Commissioner A. Sukumaran, T.M. Jawaharlal, Secretary, Employers Federation of Southern India and C.S. Venkataratnam, director, International Management Institute, Delhi, also spoke.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu