| A total of 41 children, including 9 girls, rescued in a fortnight |
Freedom: Children rescued from a hosiery unit near Tirupur on Friday.
TIRUPUR: Ten children were rescued from a stitching unit at Vavipalayam, in Nerupperichal village on the outskirts of Tirupur on Friday. Four more were rescued on the same day from other units.
This is the first incident in recent times such a large number of children are being rescued from a single unit. According to sources, based on a tip off the authorities conducted a raid at Lakshmi Stitching Centre, run by K. Ramamurthy (41). The job-working stitching unit involved in innerwear manufacturing for a domestic brand.
Ten children, including two girls in the age group of 11 to 13, were rescued from the unit. All of them are children of quarry workers.
Led by Revenue Divisional Officer B. Murugesh and K. Kaliannan, a team of officials conducted intensive raids for the last two weeks.
Mr. Kaliannan said that so far they had conducted raids in 2,923 establishments, mostly garment units, hotels and bakeries here, and rescued 41 children, including nine girls. The children were handed over to Kovai Child Labour Abolition Support Society (Kovai CLASS) for rehabilitation.
Except three, all the 38 were employed at hosiery units, particularly those involved in the production of garment meant for domestic market, he added. A case has been filed against Ramamurthy under section 3 of Child Labour Regulation and Abolition Act, 1986.
Though child labourers are not employed largely by export units because of social accountability code by importers to place orders and third party verification of its compliance, there has been widespread complaints against domestic units for employing children.
Trade unions and non-Governmental organisations have been demanding officials of the departments of labour and factories to curb the practice.
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