new delhi: Proceeding with the aim to eradicate child labour in the Capital by 2023, the Delhi Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) has now asked agricultural produce market committees (APMCs) in the city to ensure that transporters and vendors they work with do not employ children.
The child rights body had earlier this month hinted that they would be reaching out to market associations like the APMCs to help them with their mission and in a meeting held recently with respect to addressing issues of child labour in light of the pandemic, DCPCR officials met with heads of five APMCs.
Officials said that the commission shared the problems and their magnitude based on reports from human rights arms of organisations such as the United Nations. The importance of working towards specifically preventing child labour as an outcome of the pandemic was discussed
at length.
Moreover, the meeting also led to attendees agreeing that APMCs should work towards ensuring that all children supporting their respective family enterprises at the markets be sent to schools for holistic education.
According to a meeting document, "APMCs to issue notices, spread awareness among the people so as to reduce the employers in the process. They would also ensure that vendors, transporters that they are working with should not be employing child labour."
The child rights body said it will share the contacts of schools around the Mandis so that children can be enrolled in those schools or follow-ups on their attendance can be taken if already enrolled. The DCPCR added that it will also share posters and banners with the produce markets to display and share with responsible people.
"In the meeting, points like children supporting their parents who live in the areas under the APMCs and children being trafficked to work in smaller shops around the Mandi areas like tea stalls were raised by meeting attendees," one official in the know said.
The commission sensitised the attendees about the moral and legal aspects of child labour and further discussion was held on immediate compensation and sealing of compounds, back wages to be paid by the employer, criminal proceedings against the employers and their landlords.
"The Commission also shared the plans that are being made to build awareness about various government schemes that families in financial distress can benefit from so that their children are not sent back into labour," the official said.
The commission was represented by Anurag Kundu, Chairperson, Ranjana Prasad, Member DCPCR and Ashma Gupta (Consultant). "We are making all our efforts to reach out to every stakeholder and bring them under one umbrella to fight the menace of child labour," Kundu told Millennium Post, adding that the DCPCR and APMCs had jointly decided to fight the menace of child labour and that the APMCs are committed to ensuring no child is put to work in their respective areas.