The 'Right to Education Act' (RTE) will be put into practice from June 14, but civil society organizations have taken an initiative to use it as a tool to eradicate child labour.
The 'Right to Education Act' (RTE) will be put into practice from June 14, but civil society organizations have taken an initiative to use it as a tool to eradicate child labour.
A one-day state level discussion was held at Shikshan Mahavidyalaya, Gujarat Vidyapith on 'World Day Against Child Labour' on Saturday. Interestingly, children from various villages in the state carried out a survey on child labour, nutrition, child marriage and hygiene among others with the help of some organizations.
Talking about the event, Rajan Mohanty, Gujarat state program manager of Save the Children said, "Eradicating child labour is a big process. We need to see that children deprived of education be involved in the process." He said that they have conducted a 45-day survey in 880 villages in four districts of the state.
"It was carried out by children who later presented the results to their community elders in the village, administrative bodies and government officers at the village and taluka level," he said.
"Today on the World Day Against Child Labour we invited other civil society organizations to be part of the movement and make efforts at their level to get a positive response," he said. Sukhdev Patel, founder member of Gantar and member of Child Rights Collective Gujarat said, "Our focus is to ensure that each child get his or her childhood." He said that Gujarat, which is in the forefront of economic development, needs to ensure the same for its children.
"It is our responsibility as a citizen and the Right To Education is a tool for the same. We can return the children their childhood with RTE," Patel said. "We have discussed a civil society action plan for the same and will take it to the grassroots level. In fact, laws cannot bring change so we will be undertaking various activities round the year to make RTE a success," he said.
Ashraf Chauhan, Saath Charitable Trust's child rights project officer said, "I was involved in the survey carried that was done in 120 villages of Dholka and Viramgam talukas. We have identified nearly 2,700 children involved in child labour in some way. So, we will be working towards releasing these children through awareness programmes and education."
Leading citizens and government officials including Krishnapal Mallik, Mansukh Salla, Sudershan Iyengar, Vidyut Joshi, Mahesh Dave were also present at the discussion.
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