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* Need for immediate re-imposition of ban on Employment of women underground in Mines
Mrs. Renuka Ray : Sir I move :
“That the demand under the head ‘Department of Labour’ be reduced by Rs. 100.”
Sir, since August 1943 and December of the same year, when the ban on women working in underground mines was first withdrawn, there has been a consistent and insistent protest throughout the country against this undersirable action. The Government of India are fully aware that they have not only violated an international pledge but that they have considerably shocked and offended world opinion.
A year ago, at the request of all-India Women’s Conference, I moved an adjournment motion asking that the ban be re-imposed immediately, and my Honourable friend, Mrs. Subbarayan, also spoke on a cut motion on labour during the Budget Session on the same subject, but the plea of the Honourable the Labour Member at that time was that this was a very temporary measure only to be carried on till the next harvesting season and not for the period of the war that arrangements were being made to remedy the labour shortage, and that once these arrangements went through the ban would be lifted. Sir, the attitude was that we were creating all this song and dance about nothing since the period was to be very short. A year has come and gone and today I think the attitude has become far more adamant. The Honourable the Labour Member has made it only to clear that he does not intend to reimpose that ban. The Honourable Members of this House are only too well aware of all the circumstances and realise fully, I am sure, that the arguments that have been put forward if they had come from a merciless type of capitalist employer, could have been understood.
- Legislative Assembly Debates (Central), Vol. II, 13th March 1945, pp. 1463-66.