The Samaritans of Uttar Dinajpur a Selective Study of the Role of NGOs in Eradicating the Menace of Child Labour

Abstract

The Samaritans of Uttar Dinajpur: A selective Study of the role of NGOs in eradicating the newlineMenace of Child Labour , within its span of ten chapters including Introduction and newline Conclusion attempts to make a comparative assessment of the anti-child-labour newline(humanitarian) activities of the different NGOs based in Uttar Dinajpur, and the district s newlineonly government organisation (Office of the N.C.L.P.) (Karnojora Raiganj) working on newlinechild-labour. newlineThough the period of research undertaken in 2020 was severely affected by the onset of the newlineCovid-19 Pandemic, the researcher even before her Ph.D.-registration had been working newlineon comparative statistical analyses of the number of child-labourers identified, rescued, and newlineresettled by the Uttar Dinajpur-based NGOs and governmental organisation. The researcher newlinehas had visited the offices and working-areas of all the 13 NGOs which, in 2020, are newlinefunctioning in the district of Uttar Dinajpur of the state of West Bengal in India (out of a total newlineof 149 registered NGOs functioning presently in the said district). newlineThe researcher has consulted data regarding child-labourers of the district as available from newlinedifferent population-census-statistics, newspapers, publications, and official-records of the newlineNGOs, and has come to observe that from approximately 53,000 child-labourers who were newlineworking at various areas of the district of Uttar Dinajpur in 2012, the number has fallen to newlineapproximately 15,000 in 2020 (that too, including all the underage-workers employed in all newlinethe sectors of child-labouring as is possible). This steep and noticeable fall in the number of newlinechild-labourers in Uttar Dinajpur could be attributed to the sincere and effective functioning newlineof the different NGOs in the district. vi newlineWhile working on her Ph.D.-thesis and while collecting relevant data, the researcher came to newlinenotice that only one governmental organisation in the whole district is directly involved in newlineidentifying and rescuing child-labourers: the Office of the N.C.L.P.