Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Child Trafficking in Orissa increasing

Umi Daniel

Five minor tribal boys from Rayagada district were rescued by the railway police from the railway station at Bangalore on 13th February. All the boys are in their teen belong to Hikriguda and Mardijhola villages from Dumernali Panchayt under Bissam-Cuttack block in Rayagada district. According to the statement of the rescued boys, a person called Madhav has allured them for migration to south in order to earn better wage and lifestyle. He first brought these boys by a truck to Rayagada and later boarded a train to Balugam in Orissa. Afterward, a person named Gandhi has appeared at Balugam and accompanied the boys throughout the train journey to Bangalore. None of the boys had any idea as where they are heading towards.

The group arrived in Bangalore on the early hours of 13th February and while the boys were waiting at the railway station platform, the police got suspicious and detained the children and quizzed to know the reason behind their coming to Bangalore. Since the children were unable to understand any language other than Oriya, the boys were later handed over to the CWC, Child Welfare Committee, under the Women and Child Development department of Govt. of Karnataka and shifted to the Children’s home.

The CWC has published the details about the children in the local news paper in Bangalore. Based on the news, Concern for Working Children, a Bangalore based NGO has visited the Balamandira (children’s home) and seek to interact with the children but fail to communicate with them because of language problem. Subsequently, the CWC informed Migration Information Resource Centre (MiRC) Aide et Action, Bhubaneswar to help establishing communication with the boys to know their details. Consequently we have requested one Mr. Kamaskhi Panda from Orissa who stays in Bangalore to help communicating with the children. Now CWC has been able to access all details about the boys and communicated to MiRC. Immediately the information were passed on to the local press and the District Collector of Rayagada for appropriate action. Information last reaching indicates that, the parents of the boys have been informed and attempt are being made to facilitate safe return of the boys.

This issue is not an isolated case where children's are being lurred and taken to far off place to work in various hazardous industries like, poultry, seed farms, apparell factories, doestic work and various such sectors where the labour of the child can be exploited. The Government of India is coming up with ICPS ( Integrated Child Protection Service) in line with ICDS to take proactive measures to protect the rights of the children. This will allow the government to set up child rights protection committees and keep a vigil on movement of children to other states and coordinate joint operation with other State government and district to rescue and rebailitate the victims.

1 comment:

  1. The governments of states like Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand should be proactive in these cases as children from these places get trafficked easily and a committee and monitoring should be efficient as otherwise people from these tribal populated states will be mainly targeted.

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