Students of various schools and homes appealed to the Government to take measures to protect ‘Child Rights’. Many children are subjected to cruelty in industries and in residential areas and are suffering the torture in silence, they said.
Victims rescued by the officials and NGOs, students and inmates of homes celebrated ‘Child Rights Day’ organised by the Krishna District National Child Labour Project (NCLP), in association with Women Development and Child Welfare and some NGOs in the city on Sunday.
A domestic help, P. Varalakshmi (name changed), said even as the Government framed several Acts to protect child rights, violence against children was continuing. In some places, employers are engaging girls, aged below 12-years as servant maids, and are behaving inhumanly with them without providing proper food and clothes.
In some cases, the owners and their children are sexually exploiting girls and are suppressing their voice. Even educated people are resorting to crime on children, said a rescued child labour, Ramu (name changed).
The participants raised slogans urging the Government to take measures to prevent corporal punishment in schools and cruelty against children.
They demanded severe punishment to those booked under the Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act and on those involved in sexual assault cases on young girls.
The students asked the Government to constitute a Commission to protect child rights and implement the Right to Education Act in all educational institutions strictly.
Later, they performed cultural programmes to enlighten the public on child rights.
Prizes
Nine students won prizes in the essay writing competition organised by the NCLP in connection with ‘Child Rights Day’.
Students of Koneru Basavaiah Chowdary Zilla Parishad High School, Patamata -- G. Hemalatha, M. Tulasi and M. Pushpa – won first, second and third prizes respectively.
Three students – B. Soni, V. Sneha and R. Sudeepa – of Bishop Hazaraiah High School and Jhansi, D. Durga Prasad and P. Ramana Babu of Care and Share High School, Rajarajewari Peta, won prizes.
NCLP In-charge Project Director D. Anjaneya Reddy and WD&CW Project Director N.V. Raghava Rao distributed prizes to the winners.
