Minister of State for Women and Child Welfare Umashree has said that the government will set up a committee to study issues related to sex workers.
Speaking to presspersons after a review meeting of the Department of Women and Child Welfare here on Monday, Ms. Umashree said that some wanted to legalise sex work and there were questions on how to rehabilitate sex workers.
“It is a very sensitive issue. I do not want to say more about it. We will constitute a committee to do an in-depth study into the matter,” she said.
Cases of malnutrition, among children up to three years of age, have been reported among poor families. Most of the women worked in cashew factories and had little time to feed their children, despite food supplements supplied by anganwadis. The factories will be told to arrange creches, where the children could be fed, Ms. Umashree said.
The district administration had been asked to approach local small industries and factories and ask them to provide funds for anganwadis, she said.
She said funds under the Bala Sanjeevini Scheme will be released for the district and treatment will be provided to critically malnourished children belonging to below poverty line families at Kasturba Hospital in Manipal, under the scheme.
The government was continuing with the Bhagyalakshmi Bond Scheme — introduced in 2006 with the aim of improving sex ratio, eliminating gender bias and ensuring education up to first-year PU for the girl child — and more funds would be allocated for it, she said.
Nearly half the gram panchayats in the district did not have village-level rehabilitation workers and the chief executive officer of the zilla panchayat has been directed to appoint them.
