11 rescued child labourers placed under protection, rest returned to employers

EMPLOYERS TO CARE FOR RETURNED CHILDREN UNTIL PARENTS TAKE THEM BACK; CHILD WELFARE COMMITTEE TO TAKE CASE FURTHER
AMEET OBEROI
GANGTOK: “Out of the 42 children employed as domestic help in private homes rescued by the CID branch of Sikkim Police yesterday, 11 were found to be in need of urgent help and protection and have been placed at two protection homes,” informed DIG [Range], N Sridhar Rao. While six boys have been placed under the care of local NGO Subha Laxmi Organisation, the three girls have been kept at Mamtalaya, he informed.
The remaining 31 [14 of whom are above the age of 14] have been returned to their respective employers, who have signed an undertaking that the children will be provided access to basic education and also be given vocational training with all the expenses borne by the employers. The 17 under-aged children will stay with their employers until their parents arrive to take them home. This, the DIG explained was done because there were no short stay homes in the state to house them.
Out of the 42 children rescued yesterday, 23 are girls, all aged between 10 to 17 years. All the children were medically examined after they were rescued from residential areas of Development Area, Arithang, Sichey, Chandmari, Diesel Power House, Vajra and then handed over to the two NGO’s to be looked after. While three of the children were from Sikkim, the rest were brought from West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Dooars area, the DIG further informed.
“We had information that there was rampant abuse in certain areas of the capital, and even some NGO’s had made complaints regarding the matter alleging that some domestic helps had been physically abused and could also have been sexually harassed and so the decision to raid the areas was taken,” the DIG said.

A child had complained of being ‘touched’ in the ‘wrong way’ by her employer, triggering the action, it is learnt.
The motive behind the raid was to look into the violation of Section 3 of Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act of 1986 and also the infringement of the Article 2 and 3 of the Indian Constitution with respect to Right to Education. These laws protect children under 14 years of age from labour of any kind and grant them the right to education.
A Challan, instead of an FIR, was filed with the Child Welfare Committee, who will now look into the matter and see what steps need to be taken in regard to the children. The matter is related to the Labour and the Social Welfare Departments and this had been done suo-moto by the police, the DIG said.
The children have been brought to Sikkim mostly through agents as people do not know where to look for domestic servants and if there has been any trafficking then we will look into that aspect as well, the DIG informed.
It remains to be seen what action is taken against people who employed children as servants despite knowing that this was against the law. The allegations of abuse also need to be investigated further.