What is the status of child or bonded labour in our country?
It is hard to believe that today India has nearly 20 million bonded labourers of which 35 per cent are children under the age of 14 years. Sadly, this practice of slavery continues despite the fact that both the bonded and the child labour prohibited by the Indian constitution. The children between five to 15 years of age suffer most in this cruel system. Robbed of any childhood, their small fragile hands often charred and bloodstained, they toil between eight and 12 hours a day. The problem has become so endemic that there are hardly any industry in India, from carpet manufacturing to gem policing, lock-making to bangle-making, handlooms to brick-kilns and stone-quarrying, where child and bonded labourers are not being employed. These children are denied their most fundamental right to a childhood free from labour in which the are given the opportunity to be educated and to grow up and discover themselves enough to express and fulfil their talents.
