NHRC Workshop on Elimination of Bonded Labour with focus on illegal mining in Shillong

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is organising a day long workshop on elimination of bonded labour and childlabour system with focus on illegal mining in Meghalaya at Yojana Bhawan Auditorium, Shillong, Meghalaya, on February 8, 2019. Justice P C Ghose, Member, NHRC, will chair the workshop being organised in collaboration with the Government of Meghalaya. It will start at 9:30 am. and conclude by 3:30 pm.

The workshop assumes significance in the light of coal mining without necessary permissions in Meghalaya despite a ban by the National Green Tribunal in 2014. On December 13, 2018, workers in a local ‘rat hole’ mine in Jaintia Hills region of Meghalaya struck an aquifer (an underground source of water) which flooded the 370-feet-deep structure trapping at least 15 of them.

Impulse, a local NGO fighting child labour in Meghalaya, estimates that there are around 70,000 children who work in the mines, either digging for coal or loading thousands of trucks bound for the energy-hungry industrial sector across India and into neighbouring Bangladesh. Most of the underage workers have allegedly been illegally trafficked into the region from Nepal and Bangladesh by agents working for mine owners.  Desperate families are promised handsome salaries in exchange for their children’s work, but they often have no idea that they will end up living in dangerous slave like conditions.

The objective of the workshop is to exchange of ideas and experiences amongst the participants on the issues related to bonded labour, child labour, migration and human trafficking. The workshop will also be addressed by Dr Justice Aftab Hussain Saikia, Chairperson, Meghalaya Human Rights Commission,Jaideep Govind, Secretary General, NHRC, and Yeshi Tsering, Chief Secretary, Government of Meghalaya among others, according to an NHRC release.