A joint team of the district administration, District Child Welfare Committee (CWC) and Brahmapur Childline rescued 14 child labourers from the Pokudibandha junction and Chhatrapur area in Ganjam district on Wednesday. This was informed by Campaign against Child labour (CACl) State convener Sudhir Sabat.
The team conducted raids at several places in the Pokudibandha junction and Chhatrapur area after getting information about torture on children at their workplaces.
Sabat said the team rescued seven children from a hotel at the Pokudibandha junction on the outskirts of Brahmapur, three from a roadside dhaba and two from a wielding shop at Jagannathpur near the junction and two from Chhatrapur. All the child labourers belong to the age group of seven to 14, he added.
The CACl convener said that as in many other States, the Odisha Government should prepare a State action plan to rehabilitate and educate the child labourers. “If the State does not rehabilitate the rescued child labourers, they will again return to the vicious cycle,” warned Sabat.