Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI: The city of Guwahati is facing a disturbing surge in child labour cases, with numerous instances of minors being employed in hazardous conditions, despite efforts by the Labour Department to curb the practice. The city’s construction sites, garbage disposal areas, and government projects have become breeding grounds for child labourers.
Speaking to The Sentinel, an official of the Labour Department said, “The contractors hired for government projects often recruit child labourers. We don’t directly recruit labourers, and certainly not child labourers.”
Another official said, “We have teams, but our manpower is insufficient to cover the entire city as work is going on not only in construction sites but in many other places too. We don’t have a huge team to cover everything. We rely on NGOs to help us identify and rescue child labourers. The root cause of child labour is poverty, as children are forced to work due to poor financial conditions.”
Another source said, “Our projects and tenders are forwarded to the contractors, and they themselves hire labourers for the job. We have given strict order that no child labourer will be involved in the work. But many contractors hire children to cut costs, and hence, they do not follow the rules. The Labour Department monitors this, but the contractors are so clever that they hide their wrongdoings. Recently, we caught a contractor red-handed exploiting child labour and gave him a warning. The Guwahati Municipal Corporation’s (GMC) door-to-door garbage collection is outsourced to the NGOs, which have also been implicated in the exploitation of child labourers. NGOs hire children to save money, and since we monitor during the day, they make them work at night.”
Again, an official of the Labour Department said, “The Labour Department has rescued several children from child labour, but rehabilitation remains a significant challenge. The rescued children often return to their previous situations due to economic weaknesses and lack of guidance. Many get addicted to drugs like dendrites, as they don’t have anyone to show them the right path.”
Despite these challenges, the Labour Department vows to continue its efforts to eradicate child labour. “We are increasing our surveillance and monitoring. We’re doing our best with the resources we have. We need more manpower, but we won’t give up,” the official asserted.
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