Child Rights Collective in Gujarat on Sunday announced a 44-day campaign to raise awareness about creating a child labour-free India.

The campaign -- from April 30 to June 12 - will involve various initiatives to promote child rights, including the participation of non-governmental organisations and concerned citizens.

The programme coincides with International Labour Day on May 1 and will focus on addressing child labour in collaboration with the national partner network Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL).

Sukhdev Patel, Founder Director of the Census Institute and former representative of the Right To Education (RTE), National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Gujarat, said: "What we lack is data and transparency to address the problem. To address the problem, a programme was created to realise the fundamental rights of the RTE law for the eradication of child labor. Under this programme, the first rule is to delineate every government primary school in the surrounding area. And update the data of children under the age of 18 in the delineated area every year."

"This is the responsibility of the Panchayat Department. Because of the failure to do this work, no basic information is available on how many children are in school. Or how many children work as labourers? If this information is available, then there is a possibility of helping children in the state," added Patel.

Sociologist and former Vice Chancellor of Bhavnagar University, Vidhyut Joshi said: "As per Unicef, child labour has increased rapidly post pandemic and the problem is going to be worse. When it comes to gender, boys surpass girls in getting into child labour. The Gujarat government should take this into account. NGOs alone cannot meet the data, resources and cooperation required to address this problem."

One of the major issues highlighted by Joshi is that the Right to Education only covers 5 per cent of the work required to achieve a child labour-free state.

While the Constitution provides for the right to education, as of 2021, there is no census on the number of child labourers in the state. Rescue operations to rehabilitate potential child labourers are also minimal, conducted only twice a month in each district.

Patel called for greater efforts by the government to rehabilitate potential child labourers in Gujarat.

"Gujarat has always been a model state. Why not set better standards even in rehabilitating potential child labourers?" he said. [IANS/NS]