The National Child Labour Project (NCLP) plans to strengthen enforcement activities in specific blocks in the district to bring down child labour.
Project Director D. Vijayakumar said that based on the guidance of the District Collector Archana Patnaik, more number of enforcement and awareness programmes will be conducted in the rural areas. In blocks such as Sulur, Thondamuthur and Annur there are many migrant workers. The NCLP would focus on such areas to bring down child labour in the district.
On Friday, Project Director of District Rural Development Agency T. Murugan gave away Rs. 30,000 as financial assistance to 11 students who had completed Plus-Two and Class X this year. They were all rehabilitated child workers.
A seminar was also organised jointly by the NCLP, Labour Department, World Vision and the District Legal Services Authority. Representatives from brick kilns, textile retail and hotel industries participated apart from self-help group and trade union members. The aim was to create awareness against employment of child workers and on the new child labour laws and to get suggestions from the industry.
During the week-long programmes that concluded on Friday, five children aged between 14 and 18 years were rescued during enforcement drives. Awareness programmes were conducted in schools and these meetings would be on till the end of this month, he said.
According to a press release from the Labour Department, handbills were distributed in several places in the district as part of the awareness programmes and signature campaigns were organised in Pollachi and Coimbatore during the last one week.
The Nilgiris
Students of the YMCA and Vivekananda schools in The Nilgiris took a pledge to end child labour. They did so by making their handprints on a board kept for the purpose on Friday at the YMCA school, said a release from the organisers.
Ooty YMCA, Ooty Town People’s Awareness Association and a few other organisations had organised the function at the YMCA primary school. YMCA Secretary L. Max Williard Jayaprakash presided over the inauguration function. Head of the Awareness Association Janardhanan spoke on the dangers of child labour.
Students also spoke on the ill-effects of child labour.
