New Delhi: Delhi government has failed to
take proper action for rescue and rehabilitation of child
labourers, the National Commission for Protection of Child
Rights (NCPCR) has submitted before the Delhi High Court.
Seeking directions to government authorities, the
child rights body informed the court that rescued children are
not being properly rehabilitated.
"There is no guarantee that all rescued child
labourers have been successfully restored to their families in
the source states. This is evident from a study of 22 rescued
child labourers in which three are not traceable and addresses
of four children were wrong," the NCPRC said in its affidavit.
It said that efforts to rescue child labourers were
not being taken up seriously by the Labour Department and
Sub-Divisional Magistrates.
"There is no definite feedback regarding proper
rehabilitation of all rescued child labourers," it said.
"Complaints about engagement of child labourers from
NGOs are not acted upon promptly. In fact there have been
inordinate delays on the part of task force to act upon
such complaints," the NCPCR stated.
The affidavit was filed to inform the court about the
steps taken by the government after a slew of directions were
given by the High Court for the rescue and rehabilitation of
child labourers in the city.
The High court had in 2009 passed a detailed order
which modified the existing provisions for better
rehabilitation of child labourers.
It had given Delhi Police extra powers, which were
earlier with the Labour Department, to effectively eradicate
the problem.
"We direct that the responsibility of lodging a police
complaint against a person, employing child labour, would lie
with the Delhi Police and not the Labour Department," it had
said, asking the police to recover Rs 20,000 from the
offenders as penalty without waiting for a "conviction order
of the offending employer".
PTI
