Hi Mridulika,
It's been great to see your opinion and your true concern for child labor. I too feel the same. It's been really painful to see children in domestic work. We meet so many of them in our daily life. We sometimes offer money or food. But is that all they need? Definitely not.
When I was in school, we were taken to our nearest corporation school to teach them. One incident provoked me. I was asking each child what they want to become. Each one answered as usual, "I want to become a doctor, an engineer," but one child told me, "I want to become rich." Rich? I smiled and asked why. He replied, "I will buy a new uniform, bags every year. I want to wear shoes, not torn slippers with pins. I will go in a school van and say bye-bye to my parents when the van is moving. I will eat a different variety of foods each day." Like that, his list added many more things which are usual for us and very unusual and beyond his reach for them. He thought being richer than him would solve all his woes. He is not to be blamed. The disparity is shaking his life. After a year, I learned he dropped out of school to help his brother in the construction line.
In Chennai, a few school children go to each and every house to get details about whether any child labor is employed. If so, they make them reconnect with their parents. They even stick labels in each house as "This house has not employed any child labor." We can take up some initiatives too. Post or mail me further at sivambika@gmail.com. Let's do our bit.
And thanks, Binu, for the PPT.