This Article is From May 12, 2009

Children campaign for 'child labour free home'

Children campaign for 'child labour free home'
Chennai:

While campaigning came to an end in Chennai, school children on vacation are canvassing for an issue our politicians have forgotten - eliminating child labour.

It is a door-to-door campaign of a different kind where children are not asking for votes.

Every home they visit, the children are sticking a stamp on the doors, which read "Child labour free home", in case the family does not employ anyone below 18 years of age.

Thanks to this initiative around fifty families have so far committed to not employ children. And there's an incentive - a stamp on their door that they can be proud of.

"I teach a boy every evening at home. He has stopped his construction work," said a lady.

"If a child, decides to stop working we'll give free education in our school," said Mrs Y G Madhuvanthi, Correspondent, Y G P School.

Actor Kamal Hassan has joined this campaign, but he had to face a tough question. Was he a child labourer, when he took to acting at the age of six?

"In the case of a film, a child's role cannot be done by others if it has to be realistic. But employing children for cleaning plates or work like that adults can do, that's child labour," Kamal Haasan clarified.

Child labour continues in many forms but no political party has made it an issue in this election. Perhaps our politicians should take a lesson or two from these tiny tots on the real issues they should be talking about.

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