SRIKAKULAM: Task force teams, comprising personnel from the Integrated Child Protection Scheme, Anti-human Trafficking team, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and National Child Protection Project, have rescued 43 child labourers from different areas of the district, during raids conducted under the Operation Muskan-4. Of those rescued 34 were boys and nine girls.
Out of the 43 children, 27 were rescued from various shops and hotels, where they were working and the rest 16 while they were migrating to other areas as daily wage labourers.
A 14-year-old has been the latest to be rescued during the drive under this operation. He was rescued from a tyre-repairing shop at Ranasthalam, where he was working, on Wednesday. Witnessing the boils on the hand of the boy, child protection officials have booked a case under the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act against the owner of the tyre shop.
In a separate drive, two children, working in a roadside hotel, were restored to their parents by the task force teams. A case has been filed against the hotelier under the JJ Act.
This phase of the Operation Muskhan, which began on July 23, will be completed by July 29. The rescue programme, which had continued for a month in previous years, had been cut down to a week this year.
Four rounds of the Operation Muskhan and two rounds of Operation Smile have been conducted in the district since 2015, said K Venkata Ramana, the district child protection officer. While 149 children were rescued during the Operation Muskhan-1 in 2015, 240 were rescued during the Operation Muskhan-2 in 2016, 376 in the Operation Muskhan-3 in 2017 and 43 so far this year under the fourth phase of the same operation. Altogether 808 children have been rescued under the Operation Muskhan.
Similarly, while 21 children were rescued under the Operation Smile-1, conducted in 2015, 228 children were rescued under the Operation Smile-2 in 2016. In all, 249 were rescued under the Operation Smile, said Venkata Ramana. Besides these two operations, child protection officials, in association with various line departments, had conducted several special drives, in which in all 1,414 children were rescued from different work sites in the district.
While majority of the rescued children have been restored to their parents, others have been shifted to bridge schools in the district, said the district child protection officer.