The need for proper rehabilitation of child labourers by providing them education and aiding their families financially was emphasised by speakers at a training programme on ‘Child labour for government Labour Inspectors and Factory Inspectors' here on Wednesday.
They were addressing the inaugural session of the three-day programme being conducted by the Tamil Nadu Institute of Labour Studies in association with the Noida-based V.V. Giri National Labour Institute.
In his presidential address, P. Karupasamy, Additional Commissioner, Labour, said the judiciary needs to be sensitised about child labour. “We need to ensure that the children do not have to go through lengthy legal procedures,” he said.
Talking about the National Child Labour Programme, he said that there were around 500 schools providing free education with free food and uniforms to around 18,000 rehabilitated child labourers across the State.
Helen Sekar, Course Director, V.V. Giri National Labour Institute, said though Tamil Nadu had successfully produced and implemented a replicable model for other States to follow by substantially reducing child labour in the past decade, there was need for proper documentation of the processes involved in rehabilitation of the child labourers. She added that a significant number of children still worked in hazardous zones in Coimbatore, Namakkal and Perambalur.
Stressing the need for a convergence approach to deal with child labour, she said that every district needed to address it in a specific way. “What we need now is a child-centred approach to the problem because sometimes people are aware but not sensitised enough,” she said.
K. Balaraman, Director, Tamil Nadu Institute of Labour Studies, said that around 30 labour and factory inspectors will participate in the training programme that will train them to identify the violators of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, and also make them aware of the existing rehabilitation schemes.
