The Child Labour Eradication Coordination Committee, a body of many central trade unions, today urged the West Bengal government to move the Centre for elimination of child labour and ratification of the ILO Conventions 138 and 182.
A delegation of the committee today met the state labour minister, Purnendu Basu, urging him to take up the issue with his Union counterpart Mallikarjun Kharge.
The delegation regretted that although the Centre had in the past assured the ILO that it would ratify the two conventions, nothing moved thereafter.
While the convention 138 deals with the issue of minimum age for admission to employment, which has been ratified by 161 ILO member-states, the convention 182 deals with the worst forms of child labour which has been ratified by 174 ILO member-states.
The head of the delegation and INTUC leader Kanak Debnath said, "Conventions 138 and 182 are the most widely accepted conventions, but they are yet to be ratified by India."
Quoting Census report 2001, Debnath said out of 1.26 crore child labour in India, the state stands sixth in position of their employment and that too mostly in hazardous occupations.
In West Bengal, a large number of such workforce are from pan, bidi, cigarettes, construction and hotel sector, which are all hazardous in nature, he pointed out.
Earlier, a workshop on "Eradication of Child Labour", organised by the joint committee of All Central Trade Unions, was inaugurated by the WBPCC President Pradip Bhattacharya here.
On June 12, the World Day against child labour, the central trade unions would jointly organise a rally in the city to highlight the issue and submit a memorandum to the state's Governor M K Narayanan, Debnath said.
