‘No entry for children’

Bringing children to office is not a great idea — that is, according to the Kerala State Human Rights Commission.

In an order issued on April 4 this year, the Commission asked the State government to direct government offices to stop the practice (wherever it exists) of allowing employees to bring their children to work.

The Commission took suo moto notice of the matter, as during the summer vacation, many parents brought their children to their workplace.

The Commission pointed out that in many offices, children were seen playing with computers. And, files and papers were being used for drawing and colouring.

In a telephonic interaction with The Hindu from Bangalore, P. Mohana Das, acting chairperson of the Commission, justified the “interim order”.

“I do think it’s a violation of human right as parents are doing more harm to their children by bringing them to office during the summer vacation when they should be occupied with other activities,” said Das.

The order included a message for government organisations.

“Many government organisations do not have proper provisions for taking care of children of working parents. So, the children end up at the parents’ work stations,” he said.

Children below the age of 10 years needed care and attention and these organisations must make provisions to take care of them. If not, they should discourage parents from bringing them to office. It might be difficult to make such provisions at a village office or an office with limited staff, but big government offices like the Secretariat must offer these provisions, said Mohana Das.