More child workers freed as crackdown continues

MUMBAI: Nearly 200 child workers, some as young as eight, were rescued from bangle factories in Hyderabad over the last week, as part of a crackdown that will continue until the end of the month, police said on Tuesday.

Most children rescued were aged between 8 and 14 and came from Bihar, West Bengal and Assam, said officials who are part of “Operation Smile”, a national movement to tackle child labour and missing children.

“We are investigating the nexus between the employers and the traffickers,” said Swathi Lakra, additional commissioner of police in Hyderabad, who is monitoring the rescue operations.

“In many cases, parents are only too willing to send their children for work, which works well for the traffickers.”

Earlier this month, around 200 children, most of them aged under 14, were freed from a brick kiln about 40 km from Hyderabad, capital of Telangana state.

Activists said Telangana and Andhra Pradesh had become hubs for child labour and child trafficking.

But the rescues have brought the numbers down.

“Over 2,000 children have been rescued from Hyderabad alone since 2015 and the numbers in each drive have gradually been declining,” Mohammed Imtiaz Raheem, Hyderabad district’s child protection officer, said.

— Thomson Reuters Foundation