Shobha Raghuram of the South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE) became a member of the Working Group on 'Education and Child Labour' set up by India's National Commission for the Protection of the Child (NCPCR). During her time there she produced a comprehensive report, in collaboration with Puja Jain, entitled "Abolition of Child Labour, Social Exclusion and the Girl Child".

Dr. Shantha Sinha, Chairperson of NCPCR, writes in her Preface: "This excellent report ... penned with force and substantiation is about taking sides for children and their right to education."

She continues: "The authors underscore that the structural causes of poverty can be seriously altered if this inhuman exploitation is ended and all children need never again have to sell their labour for their survival and endure social exclusion, because they cannot join the more privileged in the classrooms across the country. It is against the half- hearted commitments of the State through law, allocation of budgets and policies that condones child labour and finds excuses for the perpetuation of child labour."

Source:

• http://www.saape.org.np/resources/publications/ncpcr_final_report.pdf