Pics by: Hemanath Padubidri
Daijiworld Media Network—Udupi (SM)  

Udupi, Jun 13: The district administration department, Udupi District (Zilla Adalitha), Legal Services Authority, Udupi district, labour department, and Child Labour Yojana Sangha, Udupi district, mutually organized ‘World Day Against Child Labour’ at Atal Bihari Vajpai Auditorium, Rajathathri, Manipal, on Tuesday June 12.
 
Prabhakar Achari from DDPI gave the welcome speech. The function was presided over by S A Prabhakar Sharma, who also released a dove during the function. Nagendra S Madhyastha (DDPI ) inaugurated the function by lighting the lamp.

Gokuldas Nayak, municipal commission, took an oath along with every one present there stating that they would not support child labour in any form.
 
In 2002, the International Labour Organization (ILO) started ‘World Day Against Child Labour’ in an attempt to end child labour. In the year 2000, the state child labour department introduced ‘action plan’ - Protocol on Prevention, Rescue, Repatriation and Rehabilitation of Trafficked & Migrant Child Labour. It says that a child is not allowed to work under any circumstance..
 
This year, in Udupi, NGOs and Spoorthy, an organization working against child labour, have planned to start a school for children who were used for child labour. The school has been approved and is ready to begin. The previous year 7,500 organizations were raided and no child labour was found. From the past two to three years, no child labour was found in Udupi but recently three cases were found but the ages of the children were not known.
 
Special guest G S Revankar, Veerasenadhikari, Thwaritha Vilevari Nyayalaya, said that the state and central government is working seriously on child labour and right to education for kids.
 
Rita Mattha, women and child welfare, said that women’s organizations have facilities to give shelter to children and also provide adoption opportunities to childless couples. She urged the people to co-ordinate the NGOs and other such organizations. 
 
Sharma said that in his experience, in a district PDO, village officers and child labour commission provided fake certificates about being 100 percent free from child labour. He repented about such officials and said he would like to see Udupi be actually free of child labour.