THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It may be true that those little grim faces bearing the wear and tear of life at a young age no more welcome you in any restaurant in the city. But if you thought the city has finally got ridden of the menace of child labour, you are terribly wrong. Hapless children still work in large numbers in hotels, restaurants, bakery units and scrap shops, but are carefully kept away from the sight of enforcement agencies and the public. The head supplier of a vegetarian restaurant in the city, on condition of anonymity, said that his shop had three child workers. ‘’Nowadays, we do not engage them in supply works, after our shop was raided once. Now, we have three school dropouts from Tamil Nadu. They assist in kitchen and cleaning works,’’ he said. One of the largest employers of children today are the bakery units that have sprung up in the areas of Chalai, Manacaud and Valiyathura. ‘’The other day, one of our volunteers found a child at the Central Railway Station. He was running away from a bakery unit, where he was put to work for around 15 hours even without proper food,’’ said Fr Philip Parakkatt of Childline.Children working at bakery units are passing through a traumatic experience, both physically and emotionally. The work, which starts at 5 am, extends up to 12 midnight and sometimes more, if the shop owner has special orders for parties or receptions. In most centres, ‘kanji’ is the only food given for the three meals. Labour Department officials told ‘Express’ that they regularly carry out checking at establishments where child labour is suspected. ‘’Besides routine checking, we act on tip-offs by NGOs,’’ an official said. ‘’A majority of the children found are migrants from Tamil Nadu, Orissa, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh etc,’’ he said.Flaws in the existing laws are helping those employing children, pointed out a social worker. While a child is defined as one under the age of 14 in the RTE Act, it is 18 in the Juvenile Justice Act. In many cases, this forces us to seek the help of the police than the Labour Department, he said. Child labour does not confine to the city alone. Kovalam beach, Kerala’s claim to international fame, is another location where children are picked by shrewd employers to run errands. ‘’It is saddening to see these children in grubby clothes selling eatables and toys,’’ said Lakshmi Govind, a regular visitor to the beach with her 12-year-old daughter. Fr Jose Parakkat says the solution to the problem remains in active monitoring and intervention of enforcement agencies and NGOs. ‘’The Kerala Government should enact a piece of legislation prohibiting employing those under the age of 18 in any activity for economic gain that hinders their physical, emotional, social and educational well-being,’’ he said.
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