Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, May 10: An 8-year-old child labourer was reunited with her mother at the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) office here on Friday.
The child and the mother were reunited after a period of eight months.
The family belongs to a tea estate in Udalguri, Assam, where the mother works as a daily wage earner.
CWC, Itanagar Chairperson Kani Nada Maling said the case had been referred to her office in August last year by Childline, Itanagar, with the information that a child had been found in Yupia by a policeman, who had brought her to the Naharlagun police station.
The child had run away from the home of her employers, but she was not able to give any further details regarding names or address.
The CWC took custody of the child, and she was placed in the child care institution
run by the Oju Welfare Association, where she was provided with informal education.
In the meantime, the CWC informed of the matter to the Sonitpur district child protection unit in Assam to trace the parents, and also took help from an Adivasi person who had come to the CWC office regarding a different case related to child labour.
On 9 May, after eight months, the mother, Sukmanti Praja, appeared before the CWC here to take back the child.
The mother said the child had run away from home in June last year and all her efforts to trace the child had failed. She said she had later been told by a person from her own community that her child was safe in Itanagar.
The child was not able to tell the CWC who had brought her to Arunachal.
Maling appealed to the people of the state to report any child-related cases to Childline, the police and the CWC.
“We are extremely happy that the lost child is reunited with her mother. I appeal to the people to report if they find any child wandering alone or see a child with people with suspicious behavior. They may dial Childline’s toll free number, 1098,” she said. (For any child-related case, dial 1098, which is the toll free number of Childline, Itanagar.)
