By IANS,
New Delhi : People, civil society and the government agencies should join hands to eradicate child labour, an official said Tuesday, adding that the menace was inter-connected with poverty, unemployment and gender.
“Collective action at the individual level along with efforts by civil society organisations strengthened by initiatives of the government are necessary to eliminate child labour in the country,” said Neela Gangadharan, secretary, ministry of women and child development.
Gangadharan was speaking at a programme ‘Justice for Children – End Child Labour’ on the World Day Against Child Labour organised by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) here.
Highlighting the various schemes by her ministry for children welfare, she informed that child labour is a complex and multi-dimensional issue as it is inter-connected with poverty, unemployment and gender.
“Child labour is a complex issue as it is linked with poverty, unemployment and it is emerging primarily from socio-economic causes and still found to exist, so eliminating child labour needs to form part of our collective consciousness and should be reflected in our daily behaviour,” she added.
According to United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), India has as many as 447 million children, of which 12 percent are child labourers.