CRY launches anti-child labour campaign

The announcement came at an event at the capital's India Habitat Centre to mark the 11th World Day against Child Labour.

"It is a way of engaging general public which can click photographs of instances of child labour, note down date, time and location and upload them to CRY's Facebook page," CRY director Soha Moitra told IANS.

CRY also unveiled the findings of the survey conducted to understand and asses the knowledge and attitude amongst people on the issue of child labour which highlighted awareness levels, perception and attitude towards the issue of child labour, knowledge on policies related to child labour.

The event also marked the start of a month-long campaign to oppose child labour. The organisation will submit a dossier of the campaign's research and findings to the policymakers at the end of month.

CRY volunteers also highlighted the reasons for work being more accessible than school for child labourers in India through a theatre performance, urging the government to raise the age of child to 18 years.

CRY has also partnered with Hindustan Times for an education initiative for working children.

The age of a child covered in the existing Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act currently stands at 14.

"We are learning what it feels to be on the other side of the fence," CRY volunteers said.

"We are lucky to be provided all the comforts but during this workshop, we were asked to put ourselves in situations of children who work," claimed Amilty, a Delhi University student and CRY intern.

Government stakeholders and dignitaries including Chairperson of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), Shanta Sinha, former Child Welfare Committee (CWC) chairperson Bharti Sharma and parliamentarian D. Raja were also present at the event.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), India has as many as 447 million children, of which 12 percent are child labourers.
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