Reality of child labour rescue ops

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New Delhi: Two years ago the name of 11-year-old Taybul appeared on a list of child workers rescued by the Delhi government from a zari factory. Taybul was supposedly sent back to his home Kathihar in Bihar in was reunited with his parents.

But the reality, as a CNN-IBN Special Investigation found, is quite different.

“My son was rescued, came home and stayed a few months. But no one came or helped. So he went back to work,” says Taybul’s father Atabul ur Rehman.

That rescuing child workers is just a publicity stunt for most NGOs is a fact confirmed by a social worker who has been part of many rescue operations.

During one operation he says only 90 children out of the 400 rescued were sent back home to Bihar, and less than 40 of them actually reached home.

Within months the children were back at work, often at factories that were raided by the Delhi government.

When the Special Investigation Team met the owner of Ashik zari house where it feared many children were employed, the revelations were shocking.

My business in worth Rs 18 crore and all my stocks are stored here. There are many workers in the factory but I can’t have them work out in the open. Police raids happen regularly,” admitted the owner Ashik.

Domestic child labour is also one of the more serious consequences of the problem and families tend to accept child labour because of the additional income.

It’s not surprising that when child workers are rescued from factories where they are illegally employed, they go on a defensive.

“I want to work. So what if it’s a compulsion of sorts. If I don’t work how will I eat?” asks a child labour Raju rescued from a rubber factory.

There have been just 500 convictions for employing child labour in the last 20 years. Clearly the Government is unwilling to put a comprehensive rehabilitation policy in place.

So the question on Child Labour Day is how long will the Government pay lip service to the ban on child labour at the cost of many a child losing his childhood and innocence?