The horrific incident of police rescuing 11 children who were kept as bonded laborers on a potato farm in Kapurthala district shows that the future of the children of poor families in our country is in whose hands. Such human traffickers and middlemen have to be dealt with strictly, otherwise the future of the country will remain tarnished. The two agents who brought these children from Bihar have also been accused of sexually abusing a girl and forcing her into prostitution.
A few days before this incident, a case was registered against the owner of a packaging company in Maharashtra’s Thane district for employing child labour. Various laws have been made to prevent child labor, but this practice is still not being eradicated in our country. Under the Child and Adolescent Labor Prevention and Regulation Act-1986, employment of children below the age of 14 years in any occupation is prohibited; Apart from this, children below the age of 18 are prohibited from engaging in hazardous occupations. There are strong provisions in the Child Offenders (Protection and Protection of Children) and Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Acts, but these are rarely implemented, resulting in no significant change in behavior at the societal level. could
Timely action on complaints related to child labor is required to curb this menace and effective coordination between central and state government agencies is also important in this regard. In most of the cases, it has been seen that due to extreme poverty, parents send their children to this path so that the family can survive. By doing this, not only the education of that child is stopped but sometimes they get involved with wrong people. This also raises questions about the effectiveness of child welfare schemes. No child’s future can be allowed to go to waste as it is a huge loss to the entire country.