Thiruvananthapuram: A bill to prohibit child begging and child labour will be tabled in the Assembly soon. The Bill will have a clause that would allow authorities to conduct DNA testing on people who are found to be using children as beggars, and who supply child labourers. The Bill will recommend stringent punitive measures against persons if their DNA results prove that they are not parents of the kids they carry around. The Bill will also have punitive measures against violence, child abuse, and the lodging of children in unhygienic conditions.
This was stated in the Assembly by social justice minister K K Shylaja on Monday. The minister was responding to a submission raised by CPM MLA Ayesha Potti who wanted begging and child labour abolished in the state. “Children are being kidnapped and employed in dangerous professions or pushed into begging,” Ms Potti said. “It has also been widely reported that the internal organs of these children are taken out, and children used for begging have their faces disfigured,” she added.
The social justice minister said that Operation Sarana Balyam initiated in Pathanamthitta had rescued 11 children from child labour. “These kids were mostly used to sell trinkets along the path to the Sabarimala shrine,” Ms Shylaja said. After the operation was extended to other districts, 29 more kids were rescued, taking the number of kids saved to 41. Most of the children rescued were from Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Uttarkhand and Rajasthan.
“We managed to track down the parents and had sent the children back with them. As for kids whose parents could not be traced have been lodged in social welfare homes in the state and their education is taken care of,” the minister said. Among the rescued were six from the state, three boys and girls from Alappuzha and Pathanamthitta districts. “They are now being sent to school from child rescue homes of the state government,” the minister said.
