Hundreds of child slaves rescued in India

Police raids of Hyderabad workshops find children as young as six who are malnourished and traumatised.

Children carry baskets of coal at a roadside depot in the East Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya in India’s north-eastern. Roberto Schmidt / AFP / January 30, 2013

New Delhi // Indian police have rescued hundreds of child slaves, some as young as six, during days of raids on workshops in the city of Hyderabad.

Police discovered 120 children, some of them sick, underweight and traumatised, during the most recent raids late on Thursday on bangle-making and other workshops, as part of a city-wide crackdown on child slavery, the officer said.

“They have chronic skin diseases and were underfed. They are in trauma and visibly shaken,” said V Satyanarayana, deputy police commissioner for south Hyderabad.

“They were kept in dingy rooms with no ventilation and exposure to harmful gases.”

The children complained of being forced to work 16 hours a day without breaks, and were threatened with violence and no food if they disobeyed orders, the officer said.

Many of the children were transported from the impoverished northern state of Bihar last year after their parents sold them to traffickers for between 5,000 rupees (Dh296) and 10,000 rupees, rescuers said.

Police began a massive clampdown last week against dozens of workshops, tucked away in Hyderabad’s narrow alleys, after tip-offs from child rights activists and police informers.

About 220 children were rescued last week when police stormed similar workshops in the city’s south, Mr Satyanarayana said.

Thirty-one traffickers and agents have been arrested and charged with child slavery, while police are making efforts to reunite children with their families, he said.

TV footage taken after the raids showed cramped and dirty workshops with no windows and discarded children’s clothes. Children were seen huddled in a room, looking bewildered and being watched over by police officers.

Some four million Indian children work as domestic helpers, in roadside restaurants and in factories making clothes and other items, according to government figures released last year. Activists say the actual figures are much higher.

Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his efforts to halt child labour, including the trafficking of children to be kept as slaves.

* Agence France-Presse