It was recently agreed that as a result of The All India Trade Union Congress charting out a detailed plan involving labour unions to counter the problem of child labour, a District-level workshop, comprising union representatives, would be conducted at Tiruvannamalai.
Accordingly Trade Unions will conduct dramas, street plays, rallies and meetings in an attempt to evolve public consciousness about child labour and to create awareness about the hazards to society associated with it.
But the vital role contemplated to address this problem, is that of direct intervention at schools to try and identify possible dropouts and make sure they are sustained at school.
It was emphasised official Government statistics show a softened estimate of the child labour force and that whereas NGOs estimate child labourers in Tamil Nadu to be around 1.4 million, Government statistics show it as only 120,000. It is believed that the anomaly in statistics is because the Government does not document child labourers working in hazardous industries (e.g. firework manufacturing).
1 comment:
The government saying that there are only 120,000 children working in Tamil Nadu?! How laughable. I would say with confidence that any child over 5 or 6 years old that is not in school, is most definitely laboring all day long. Families simply cannot afford to survive without the added income. So the grass roots issues have to be addressed. However, it is a good sign that most Indians consider education a good thing, and sacrifice a lot to keep their child in school. As more and more city girls are also getting good jobs after education, people are becoming more open to letting the girl child go to school too.
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