BHUBANESWAR : Even as addressing child labour continues to remain a significant challenge for the state government, it is contemplating to use its strong self-help group (SHG) force to identify such children.
This was revealed in the 52nd report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour, Textiles and Skill Development on ‘National Policy on Child Labour: An Assessment’ which was released by the Ministry of Labour recently. Headed by MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, the committee assessed the child labour scenario with representatives of 10 ministries, NCPCR and eight state governments including Odisha over the last two years.
Representatives of the state government, during their meeting with committee, said it is planning to involve SHGs to curb child labour in rural as well as urban and semi-urban areas. Since identifying child labourers is getting increasingly difficult owing to various reasons including ascertaining their exact age, SHGs can be used to undertake household surveys at village level and identify whether children are enrolled in schools or employed in work.
Accepting the proposal, the committee members suggested the state government to explore the possibility of engaging SHGs at every gram panchayat level, declare them as nodal SHGs and train them to identify the children engaged in child labour practice. They said the SHG members can visit each and every household and collect data about children enrolled in schools and report back to gram sabha committees, gram panchayats on a ‘mission mode’. “These SHGs can be considered as social catalysts who can also play the role of whistle blowers on child labour,” the committee stated in the report.
As per the standing committee report, the number of children rescued, rehabilitated and mainstreamed to formal education system in Odisha under the National Child Labour Project from 2018-19 to 2022-23 is 1,992.