Nagpur: In an attempt to tackle child labour in the state, Maharashtra labour minister Hasan Mushrif on Saturday appealed to people to dial 1098 to prevent child labour.
Mushrif said, “Child labour is a very unfortunate practice in the society. We need everyone’s support to end the child labour. People should dial 1098 helpline and inform us.” He added that the name and other information of the informant will be kept secret.
If children under the age of 14 are found to be working instead of going to school, people should use the helpline to inform, the minister appealed. He also promised that the Maharashtra government will provide such children free education.
As per the global estimates released by ILO and UNICEF, over 160 million children, including 97 million boys and 63 million girls were forced to do child labour at the beginning of 2020. This implies that every one child out of ten was a part of this practice.
Child labour remains to be one of the most serious issues across the globe. In 2015, world leaders had adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to work towards ending all kinds of child labour by 2025.
