Makkala Masothsava Samiti held a meeting on Tuesday to pressurise the district administration to take up the resolutions passed by the Samiti members during the Makkala Masothsava 2006.

Addressing the discussion held at YMCA hall, Child Welfare Committee (CWC) member Renny D’Souza said that in spite of the CWC making several attempts to make the district administration take actions to implement the 12 point resolutions take up last year, no action has yet been taken.

During the meeting it was decided to pressurise the district administration through powerful methods as the participants unanimously agreed that children must be made a part of the quest to fight for their own rights.

It was decided to assemble school children from various parts of the district outside Deputy Commissioner’s office to put forth their demands. Another plan that was agreed upon was to carry on a card campaign under which several schools will be approached and the children will be made to write letters to Deputy Commissioner in large numbers demanding for the implementation of the resolutions.

Mr D’Souza said that apart from the three request letters written to deputy commissioner, the resolutions were submitted to the politicians across the political spectrum for immediate implementation, which too did not yeild actions.

He added that one of the main demands in the resolution was to set up Special Juvenile Police Unit and appointing a Child Welfare Officer in every police station to handle various child related issues.

He said though a representation was given to the then Superintendent of Police B Dayananda regarding the SJPU, no action was taken up. He said that Udupi district took up the need for a SJPU much later and with the keen interest of the Udupi district SP, the unit has been formed and is functioning well.

Another important point that the resolution spoke of is the need to conduct the ‘Makkala Grama Sabhe’ systematically in every Gram Panchayat level and forming one ultimate Child Rights Watch Committee instead of having several committees to respond to the child related issues. In this regard too no action has been taken yet.

Mr D’Souza said that though the officers have already declared the district as a child labour free district, child labourers are seen toiling and begging on the streets day and night. He said that the officers must take keen inetrest in spreading awareness on Child Labour itself instead of creating fake records.

The resolution demands that the Right to Education Bill prepared by the Central government must be tabled at the Parliament to ensure free, compulsory and quality education to all the children.

Mr D’Souza said that though there is a rule that free education must be provided to every girl child in every government school, there have been instances of the schools collecting an amount of Rs 500 to 600 from parents as donations.

He said that district administration, which is vehemently supporting the land acquisition for SEZ and other projects must look into the child related issues attached to the same. “With land acquisition, thousands of children will be displaced from their homes, affecting their childhood, education and life on a whole. It will increase cases of school dropouts and child labour,” he added.

Several educational experts, representatives of voluntary organisations and others participated in the meet.