Govt: Right to education to be implemented from April
The Union government on Friday told the Supreme Court that with the implementation of Right to education policy, in accordance with constitutional provisions, child labour, child trafficking and child prostitution would come down in the country.
Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium appearing before a bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Patnaik said the Right to education had been notified and would be implemented from April 2010.
Subramanium submitted a study report that enumerated the upliftment of deprived children in the country including child labour force, circus performers and child prostitutes.
Bachpan Bachao Andolan, a voluntary agency, submitted that the government should set up an institute to train the children who would be rescued from the circus.
An institute named ‘National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children’ should be established to exclusively work on missing persons with a view to monitoring and recovering children in a professional manner.
Four NGOs Prajawala, Guria, Sanlaap and Saarthak submitted that prostitution in the country should not be legalised.
On the query of the court for legalising prostitution, the NGOs said in countries like Netherlands, Victoria in Australia, the number of prostitutes had gone up by three times after it was legalised by their respective governments. The SC, on December 9, 2009, had asked the government to consider legalising prostitution if it was unable to curb it effectively.
The court’s remarks came while dealing with a PIL regarding child trafficking, filed by the NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan and an intervention application moved by Childline.
“When you say it is the world’s oldest profession and you are not able to curb it by laws, why don’t you legalise it?” the bench had asked Subramaniam. “You can then monitor the trade and rehabilitate and provide medical aid to those involved.”
