A total of 3,470 children have been rescued from different parts of Telangana under Operation Muskaan Phase-V, which was conducted from July 1 to 30. Of them, 72% of the children were rescued from labour work, while the remaining were rescued from begging.
The operation was conducted jointly by the police, the Telangana Women and Child Department, Labour Department and others. It is conducted twice a year, each lasting for one month in January and July.
“Of the rescued children, 309 were from Bihar, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka,” said K.R.S. Laxmi Devi, Joint Director of Telangana Women Development and Child Welfare Department, at a press conference held here on Wednesday. It includes five children from Nepal too.
While 2,992 children were reintegrated with their families, 109 were sent to Children Homes as family members or guardians were either not found or traced, the official said, adding that the highest number of children were rescued from Hyderabad, followed by Adilabad and Shamshabad. The next spell of the Operation Muskaan would be conducted in January-2020.
From 2015 when the operation was initiated, the third highest number (3,470) of children were rescued in July 2019, while the highest of 4,619 was between January 1 and 31, 2016, followed by 4,033 between January 1 and 31, 2017.
While a few children who were reintegrated with their families returned to labour work earlier, Ms. Laxmi Devi said they did not come across such cases in the latest operation.
88 CCIs shut down in TS
From 2018, a total of 88 Child Care Institutions (CCI) in Telangana, which were run by NGOs, were shut down for not providing basic facilities to children. Currently, there are 463 CCIs in the State. Officials from the State Women and Child Welfare Department said while some CCI managements have shut down the institutions on their own, some were closed after inspections by the department teams. Joint Director Laxmi Devi said in case of two CCIs, they were shut down after children were abused. She added that some of the CCIs did not provide electricity, toilets and other facilities to children.
