When education fails in its mission

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, OCT. 1. A public meeting on ``Deaths of child labourers in suspicious circumstances'', organised here on Monday, showed that children were employed in the homes of educated and successful members of society.

``Case studies'' and first-person accounts of two girls who were ``rescued'', presented at the meeting, showed that educated employers routinely brutalised the children they employed.

The body of 10-year-old Malisha (the name has been changed) was found in a drain near Bhoodala Ring Road in Davangere, in January this year. The Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL), an NGO, said that an investigation showed that she was raped and killed.

Her sad story formed one of the six ``case studies'' presented by the CACL. The organisation said Malisha had been employed as a domestic servant by a local businessman. A case was pending in a court in Davangere, and the employer had not been arrested, the CACL said.

The ``jury members'' at the meeting which was described as a ``public hearing'', were Prof. Ravi Varma Kumar, an advocate, Prof. Babu Mathew of the National Law School of India University, and Ms. Nina Naik, President, Karnataka State Council for Child Welfare. The Commissioner of Labour, Bangalore, was present as an observer.

The case studies showed that the employers allegedly involved were a factory owner, a district health officer, a businessman, a coffee planter, a lawyer, and a corporator from Bangalore.

Each of the case studies dealt with a minor girl from an impoverished family. The girls worked like slaves and were barely paid wages. They were not allowed to visit their families.

In each case, the employers were suspected to have had a hand in the death of the child worker, and the investigation was done by police. In one case, involving the death of a 13-year-old girl in the house of a district health officer in Mysore in 1997, a Corps of Detectives inquiry, instituted four years after the death, found that the girl committed suicide, the CACL said. The other cases were pending in the courts, it added.

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Section  : Southern States
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