THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has called for the modification of Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, to weed out ambiguity in the understanding of child labour. The Act should be called Child Labour Prohibition Act, the national commission has proposed.
“Now that the RTE is in place, it is time we took an uncompromising stand against child labour. Now, it cannot be said certain occupations are banned for children and certain others could be allowed in a regulated manner or in other words a distinction cannot be made between hazardous and non-hazardous industries. Anything that stops the child from going to school should be banned, whether hazardous or not,” NCPCR Chairperson and Magsaysay Award winner Shantha Sinha said.
She was delivering the inaugural speech at the seminar on ‘Overall picture of children in Kerala: Emerging Issues and Challenges’, organised by Kerala Mahila Samakhya Society here on Sunday.
Shantha Sinha said that RTE Act would not allow for half-measures. “By school it does not mean any part-time arrangement. It means a school that runs full-time, for the whole six hours. And a child has to be there and nowhere else,” the Chairperson said.
One of the major amendments proposed is the retitling of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act to Child Labour Prohibition Act. The NCPCR has also sought a redefinition of the term ‘child’.
As of now, a child means a person who has not completed his fourteenth year of age.
The Commission wants child redefined as a person who has not completed eighteen years.
The national commission also wants the definition of ‘child labour’ to be incorporated into the Act. The NCPCR wants the new definition to include occupations that have been kept out of the Act’s purview such as agriculture and allied activities, home-based work or family-based work, fishing or any kind of work that interferes with the child’s right to education and leisure.
Shantha Sinha said that there were increasing instances of children being abused in the name of culture and tradition.
”If there is a tension between culture and child rights, we have to be on the side of children. We cannot justify violence against children in the name of culture or tradition,” she said and added; “It is time we created new cultures that would give children the circumstance to realise their fullest capacities.”
The Chairperson said that an atmosphere should be created where children could feel assured their voices would be heard.
“We have had to deal with a number of cases where a child gets humiliated at school but would return home and not speak about it to their parents. Children have even committed suicide after being punished at school,” she said and asked: “What is it that parents have done that children will not tell the truth.”
Shantha Sinha felt that it was the ‘unequal’ equation between the child and the adult that was at the root of the child’s silence.
“We must recognise that children are equal to, and not less than, adults,” the Chairperson said.
Shantha Sinha was here to release a report by the Kerala Mahila Samakhya Society on sexual abuse of children in tourism areas.