More than one-third of child labourers in the age group of 10 to 14 are in Hyderabad-Karnataka region and out of the total agricultural labourers more than 50 per cent were in Hyderabad Karnataka region.
According to a study conducted by socio-economist, Sangeeta Kattimani, taking into consideration various studies conducted by the State government in 2011 census, out of the total child labourers of 3,27,294 in the age group of 10-14 in the state, 1,15,890, constituting 35.40 per cent were in the Hyderabad Karnataka region.
Talking to The Hindu in Kalaburagi on Thursday, Dr. Kattimani said Ballari topped the list of child labourers in the age group of 10-14 recording a total of 23,815, closely followed by Raichur (23,673), Yadgir (22,880) and Koppal district had the lowest child labour (14,122) in this age category.
Dr. Kattimani said among the child agricultural labourers, there were more of female child labourers, not only in Hyderabad-Karnataka region but also in the entire state. Out of the total child agricultural labourers of 1,23,489, the female agricultural labourers accounted for 66,242 ad the male agriculture labourers were 57,247.
In Hyderabad-Karnataka region, as against the total child labourers of 62,683, the total number of female agricultural labourers were 36,680 and the male child labourers were 26,003 in the region. Raichur had the highest number of girl-child labourers of 8,577 followed by Yadgir with 8,150, 8,080 in Ballari, and the lowest girl-child labourers were in Bidar 1,823.
As per the recent UN Report, the problem of child labour in agricultural sector was extremely acute and the report said that around 70 per cent of the estimated 218 million child labourers in the world were in agricultural sector.
She said extreme poverty, lack of adequate family income, migration of parents were the major reasons of child labour in the region. The existing acts prohibition child labour should be further strengthened to bring both the hazardous and non-hazardous industries within the ambit of prohibition of child labour to overcome this problem.
