Month-long awareness drive on child rights begins in Hailakandi

HAILAKANDI: A month-long awareness drive on child trafficking and child rights has begun in Hailakandi district along with the rest of the state coinciding with the World Day against Child Labour on Friday.

Disclosing this, Member of Assam State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (ASCPCR), Ajoy Kumar Dutta said the month-long awareness drive beginning today would be carried out across the district in coordination with CDPO, Childline, Labour, Health, Social Welfare and other line departments.

"The month-long drive will focus on eliminating child labour, as the commission is much concerned about the well being of the children of the state," said Dutta, adding that there is high probability that migrants who have returned back to the state due to prevailing COVID-19 pandemic may get exposed to various forms of abuse and exploitation.

Dutta said the focus is on creating a protective safety net for children by way of prevention of trafficking as it paves the way for child labour and child marriage and also providing linkage of the children of migrant labourers returning in droves to various social protection and development schemes such as RSTC, sponsorship, foster care and ensuring their enrollment in schools.

The ASCPCR member stated that the commission's planned strategic intervention for a long term effect is towards creating a safety net for the children. "Creating a database of children of vulnerable families and linking them to the social security schemes on the one hand and strengthening the child protection mechanism to deal with child-related cases on the other is the commission's long term planned strategic intervention," quipped Dutta.

Dutta, who is on a nine-day visit to Barak Valley, said that he had visited on Friday the landslide-hit Mohonpur Grant under Hailakandi revenue circle to get first hand account of the condition of the affected families and their children. The ASCPCR member said that he would place the findings in the review meeting with the district administration on Tuesday.

Dutta informed that he would visit the facility quarantine centres on Monday to oversee the arrangements being made by the district administration for the children of the migrants housed there. He pointed out that he has not received any complaints regarding violation of child rights in the quarantine centres.