Response sought in the Dian case along with trafficking of child labourHigh Court Serious; Asks the Government to RespondReport of the India Committee of the Netherlands and Stop Child Labour Campaign handed over(Rajasthan Patrika, August 17, 2015)  Recognizing the seriousness of trafficking of children from the tribal belt of the Division to BT cottonseed plots of Gujarat by the traffickers, the Rajasthan High Court has asked the state Government to respond. The Court made its comments in a public interest litigation despite the tall claims made by the state Government about the development of the tribal areas. The recent report of the India Committee of the Netherlands and Stop Child Labour Campaign was handed over to the Court today. It is noteworthy that Rajasthan Patrika had published a report on 13th August titled ‘Shining clothes being woven with exploitation of the innocent’ on trafficking of children from Udaipur, Dungarpur, Banswara and other areas to Gujarat. Taking cognizance of this report in an ongoing case related to continuance of tradition of Dian, the bench of Justices Govind Mathur and Jayshri Tkakur issued notice to the state Government. The advocate in the case Sanjeet Purohit informed that the Court took cognizance and asked the Government to respond. Mr. Purohit informed that the report on child trafficking and migration has been presented before the Court. This exposes the claims of the State Government about development of the tribal belt. This is the report: According to the report of Dr. Davuluri Venkateswarlu, a large number of children from Udaipur, Dungarpur and Banswara are being trafficked to cottonseed plots of Gujarat. This study has been carried out in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. According to the report in the year 2014-15, 273,000 children in Gujarat and 29,000 children in Rajasthan were found to be working on cottonseed plots of Gujarat. Of these 110,000 in Gujarat and 13,500 children in Rajasthan were below 14 years. Of the workforce in Gujarat, 47.8 percent were seasonal migrants. Absent Task Force: The state Government has constituted a Task Force under the District Administration to monitor trafficking. A dozen departments are included in it. However, this year the Task Force has not been activated. Every year a high level meeting of senior officers of Rajasthan and Gujarat is held to track the situation. This meeting has not been held for last two years. |
India Committee of the Netherlands - August 18, 2015