UDUPI: In the dead of the night, scores of women labourers from North Karnataka are getting ready for work. At 2 am, they troop out of their homes to offload the catch from fishing boats at the Malpe fisheries harbour. After this, they load the fish on to trucks for transportation.
While they are toiling away, the tender dreams of their children are shattered. Since they cannot leave behind their children at home, far from their workplace, the workers take their kids to the harbour. Since there is no monitoring by the authorities, the labourers make their kids work as well for some extra income.
The local authorities on Thursday ‘rescued’ 17 child labourers, all girls, and produced them before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC). However, by evening, they were sent back to their parents.
The authorities have only managed to scratch the surface of the problem.
Suneetha, who was rescued, lives in Uddihal village in Gangavathi. Her mother moved to the village to look after her ailing father. She told to TNIE, “I returned to Uddihal six months ago to see my husband. I have taken a loan of Rs 46,000 for treatment of his kidney.
I also took a loan of Rs 2.5 lakh for my elder daughter’s marriage. So I made my daughter stay at a relative’s house in Malpe. When the adults go to work at the harbour, I also used to take my daughter. Instead of sitting idle, my daughter worked as well.
Her earnings are helping us as we have a lot of mouths to feed.” Sharada, whose daughter was among the rescued kids, hails from Ballari and resides in Kodavoor. She said that her daughter was recovering from a head injury and, on Thursday, she had taken the girl to the harbour to consult a doctor.
“As I was working, my elder daughter told me that officials had taken away my other daughter. I had told her to sit near a tea shop and not to do anything, but officials charged me of engaging in child labour,” she rued.
The Udupi district Child Labour Protection wing’s project director Prabhakar Acharya told TNIE that parents argue that they get their kids to work to make ends meet. However, this amounts to delinquency as per the JJ Act. Child rights activist B K Narayan said that the authorities should conduct similar exercises regularly.