Haridwar tops list of rescued child labour

Himanshu Kumar Lall

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, July 17

The holy city of Haridwar tops the list of rescued children who were employed as labour. Of the 104 children recently rescued under “Operation Smile” of the state police, 33 were from Haridwar.

Upon inquiry, it was found that 19 rescued children were registered as missing in police stations of different states while there was no complaint of 85 children.

Seventy-nine children have been reunited with their parents and the process is underway to rehabilitate 25. The majority of them are victims of human trafficking and were forced to do domestic chores or other works in the industrial sector.

ASP Mamta Vohra, who is the nodal officer of “Operation Smile”, said their teams raid different areas on a regular basis to check the child labour menace in the state.

“Hotels, bus stations, railway stations, religious places and small and big industrial units are their major target, which employ children for doing small works,” she said.

She said 40 police teams had been formed to conduct raids across the state.

Child labour refers to the employment of children in any work that deprives them of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful. Checking human trafficking and child labour remains a challenging task for the law enforcement agency in the state.