Sakshi Trust "RTI"

Tarannum Manjul

Lucknow, August 22: Is there a connection between the number of missing children in Uttar Pradesh and the child labourers working in various industries across the state? Based on reports from discussions in the Parliament and Supreme Court orders in the last six months, a Delhi- based NGO Shakti Vahini is all set to ask this question from the state government. The NGO will be be filing an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act soon.

According to the NGO, the state fares third in the entire country in the number of missing children and also, identified child labourers. Rishikant of Shakti Vahini said, "Some two months ago, the Supreme Court had asked all the states about the number of missing children in their state and also the number of child labourers rescued. Just three days ago, the question whether the number of missing children can be interlinked with the number of child labourers was raised in Parliament."

The NGO states that, so far, whatever reports UP has given are only about missing children. The action taken to find them, how many child labourers have been identified and what has been done to rescue them has still not be stated by the government, said the NGO. "We had recently rescued children of Barabanki district from Karnal in Haryana where they were working as child labourers. But the state government has done nothing to rehabilitate them. In fact, they have not even been sent back to their homes," said Rishikant.

Labour department officials said they were all set to launch a drive to identify the number of child labourers in the state. "The numbers keep changing as we conduct rescues quite regularly. But we will launch a drive to confirm the numbers," said Labour Secretary Dharam Singh