Around 1.5 lakh children come every year from Southern Rajasthan to Northern Gujarat to work in BT cotton farms. These children are employed as casual labourers on daily wage basis for cross-pollination work in seed plots of Bt cotton. There are mates (contractors) who bring children from Southern Rajasthan to farmers.
Annual work cycle is for two to three months during July to September for BT cotton farms. These children are between 10 to 14 years and a large proportion of them consist of girls. In 2006 Gujarat Agriculture Labour Union (GALU) of Disha and CACL wrote several letters to the labour commission of Gujarat, requesting an investigation on actual situation of child labourers employed at these farms.
A team of 12 labour officers from labour department and rural commission along with representative from GALU and CACL conducted investigation in 31 villages of Ider Taluka of Sabarkantha District in October 2006.
But it didn't help much as the contractors knew about the investigation before we reached there. Hence, the children were either hidden or were sent to some other places.
CACL and GALU carried out an awareness campaign in Sabarkantha and Banaskantha districts in July 2007 before children actually come from Rajasthan to work in BT cotton farms.
Twenty thousand leaflets containing information regarding the CLPRA and implication of employing children on BT cotton farms distributed in the Villages and thousand posters conveying these messages prepared and displayed on important locations to spread the message.
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