All agencies including the Government, non-Government agencies and media need to work collectively to eradicate child labour from the society, said experts attending the 25th anniversary function of the United Nations Convention on Rights of Children (UNCRC) organised by the Unicef and the Campaign Against Child labour (CACl) here on Tuesday.
At the inaugural session of the function, guests Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities Kasturi Mohapatra, Odisha State Social Welfare Board (OSSWB) Chairperson Nibedita Nayak, Unicef programme manager (child protection) laxmi Narayan Nanda, CACl national convener P Joseph Victor Raj, former CACl national convener Ranjan Mohanty, CACl State convener Sudhir Sabat discussed about the Government’s role and responsibility to protect children.
Three other sessions were held to discuss about the role of international NGOs, media and civil society organisations (CSOs) in eradicating child labour from the State.
On role of media, Hindustan Times bureau chief Priya Ranjan Sahu said that only media could not stop child labour problems; the State Government should take suo motu cognisance of all the reported or unreported cases to give justice to the underprivileged children.
Hemanta Kumar Pradhan from The Pioneer said Government agencies, NGOs, media, CSOs and common people should work united to curb the dangerous social problem. “If common people pass information to the Government agencies like the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), NGOs operating Childlines, the police and the media about child trafficking and child labourers, it would be easy to take immediate step to crack on the racket,” said Pradhan.
Journalist Dillip Subudhi, Surendra Patra and Santanu Barad and columnist Kedar Mishra emphasised on the State Government’s role to address the issue.