The Child Help Desk at the Egmore Railway Station has rescued 224 children between April and September.
A large number of them were brought in for child labour. This was announced on Thursday at the inauguration of the ‘Childline Se Dosti Week’ celebrations, to be held from November 14 to 20, at the railway station.
Of the 224 children rescued at the railway station between April and September this year, 196 were boys and 28 were girls. A total of 148 children were in the 15-18 age group, 66 were in the 9-14 age group and 10 were below 8 years.
“A total of 83 children rescued were brought in for child labour,” said Virgil D’ Sami, executive director, Arunodhaya.
A total of 108 were from other districts and 36 were from Chennai. “We rescued 80 from other Statesincluding 23 from Bihar, 14 from Uttar Pradesh and 10 each from Odisha and Jharkhand,” she added. The other children were from States like Assam, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and New Delhi.
The Child Help Desk was set up at the Egmore station in 2015 by Arunodhaya, Centre for Street and Working Children, in collaboration with Childline India Foundation, Ministry of Women and Child Development and Ministry of Railways. Since its inauguration, it has rescued and rehabilitated 2,084 children.
As part of the week-long celebrations, the Child Help Desk will be creating awareness on child protection. This will be done through visibility boards, Suraksha Bandhan band drive where children will tie bands on the hands of policemen and passengers, outreach programmes in trains, pamphlet distribution, caps photo frame and cultural programmes.
