Child labour persists despite law, say LS members

New Delhi, Dec 13 (UNI) Supporting the amendment bill on the Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Lok Sabha members today said that despite so many laws against child labour, it still persisted and conditions of children were deplorable in the country.

Earlier, Union Minister of State for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury introduced the bill for discussion in the House.

Initiating the discussion, M S K Bhawani Rajenthan (DMK) said the post of the Chairman should exclusively be reserved for a woman as only a woman who was also a mother could understand the problems of the child in a much better way and would be keen on finding solutions to them.

She said apart from this, two other posts should also be reserved for women in the Commission.

Dr Sebastian Paul (Independent) said despite so many laws against child labour, the very fact was that it still persisted in the country.

Suresh Prabhu (SS), supporting the bill, said the bill needed some more amendments and should include the clause that whoever headed the Child and Women department should be the Chairman of the Commission.

Ms Archana Nayak (BJD) said that despite so many efforts, the conditions of children were deplorable in the country.

Chingara Sundaram (CPI) said law should be made in such a way that it should become mandatory for parents to send their children to schools.

Mrs Sumitra Mahajan (BJP) said the bill should have taken care of children of the Jammu and Kashmir region also.

Mrs Tejwasawani Sreramesh (Cong) said that even today, over 15 per cent of the commercial sex workers were children and hoped that this bill would try to take care of this issue.

Rasa Singh Rawat (BJP), Pratibha Singh (Cong), Shailedra Kumar (SP), Mrs Rubab Sayda (SP), Verkala Radhakrishnan (CPIM), Mrs Kiran and Maheshwari (BJP) also participated in the discussion.

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