Date:26/06/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/06/26/stories/2008062651650300.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Workshop on child labour rehabilitation

Staff Reporter

The event is held by Grama Swarajya Samithi

Education is the main tool to eliminate child labour
Official describes the workshop as a good beginning

VISAKHAPATNAM: Child labour can be abolished only when the Government, intellectuals and NGOs take it up as a mission to end the evil, said the Head of the Department of Social Work R.D. Sampath Kumar.

At the inaugural of a one-day district-level advocacy workshop on child labour issues organised by the Grama Swarajya Samithi (GSS), Payakaraopeta, in association with Department of Social Work, Andhra University, here on Wednesday, he said providing compulsory education, rehabilitation of erstwhile child labourers and improvement of the quality of life of the family would go a long way in achieving the goal.

Prof Sampath Kumar said that though the Government was committed to banning child labour, it was aware that it could not be done in a hurry. The harsh reality was that when children stop working, many poor families would be thrown onto the roads. A professor in the Department of Social Work B. Devi Prasad said that education was the main tool to eliminate child labour.

Assistant Commissioner of Labour Yella Rao described the workshop as a good beginning to dispel darkness in the lives of street children.

In the absence of concrete information, the Labour Department officials could not go and conduct raids in homes as that could be construed as invasion of privacy. He said that NGO s could help in this regard.

National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Project Director Mukhalingam briefed about the various activities being taken up for ending the problem.

Executive secretary of GSS B. Ramu spoke.

Children of child labour schools participated in the programme.