Brussels/New
Delhi, 26 March 1999 (ICFTU OnLine):
Tuesday, 16 March 1999 marked the
end of a long nightmare for seven children from the
state of Bihar in India. The NGO "South Asian
Coalition on Child Servitude/Bachpan Bachao
Andolan" (SACCS/BBA), based in New Delhi,
succeeded in freeing the children from the textile
workshop where they had been locked up for
several months. They worked between 12 and 14 hours a
day, seven days a week, weaving carpets or saris
(Indian dresses), their only payment being two meagre
meals a day. The youngest child was just seven years
old. The liberated children are now in a centre run
by the NGO near Delhi. They will soon rejoin their
respective families, whom some of the children have
not seen for three years.
Their personal hell began in a
similar way to that experienced by several million
Indian children. One day a man arrived in their
village. He said he was looking for workers for his
workshop and made an offer to the parents to employ
their children, whom he promised to pay a decent wage
and give them training that would turn them into
qualified workers. As proof of his "good"
intentions he offered the parents the sum of 200
rupees (roughly $5). In the context of the abject
poverty that is rife in the State of Bihar (in
north-eastern India), this proposition came as
something of a godsend to illiterate villagers who
had never heard of the inhuman working conditions in
some sweatshops. People like this do not understand
the point of school and are convinced that they are
making the best choice for their children and for
themselves by letting them go. What is more, nobody
had ever come to offer them money before the
completion of a job, which merely reinforced their
faith in their unknown benefactor.
However, the dream of a better
life rapidly turned into a nightmare. The wages were
never paid and in quite a few cases the parents have
no idea where their children have been taken. It is
then that a life of slavery begins for the children,
who are at the mercy of bosses to whom they have been
sold by a middleman, at a price of approximately
1,000 rupees ($25).
They are locked up in the
workshops where they work, eat and sleep. The seven
children who were freed last Tuesday never received
the promised wage of 200 rupees promised to them by
the middleman. "They were treated like
animals", says Shri Satyarthi, the president of
SACCS/BBA, who recently received the human rights
prize from the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Their meals were of poor quality,
they were beaten if they made a mistake in their
work, cried or asked to see their parents again. As
punishment, sometimes they were made to stand in
painful positions for hours on end.
Shivshankar, who is 14 years old,
and his two friends Vijay Kumar and Chander were
among the group of seven children who were freed on
Tuesday. They told us about "Holi day" (a
public holiday in northern India celebrating the end
of winter), saying: "our employer took his
children and his entire family to the feast in
the village. We asked him for two or three rupees to
go along and play as well, but he turned a deaf ear.
We were forced to continue weaving carpets just like
on every other day".
The parents, who soon woke up to
the fact that they had been abused, turned to the
regional offices of the NGO "SACCS/BBA" to
ask them to look for their children. Knowing that in
some cases they have been taken to a small village
1,000 kilometres away, it is easy to imagine how
difficult it is to find traces of them. However,
Shivshankar's mother knew where her son was working.
So she went to see the employer, although he had the
nerve to demand 1,600 rupees ($40) in return for
freeing him. The distraught mother managed to
scrabble together this sum, a fortune to her, thanks
to members of the family chipping in, but when she
went back to see her son's boss, he demanded another
200 rupees. She was shattered, and contacted "SACCS/BBA".
Senior officials at the NGO then
organised a raid on the sweatshop to free the
children, accompanied by police. When they arrived,
the employer had hidden the little 7-year-old Kahir
in a box, which they had to break to get him out.
Over the last 18 years,
"SACCS/BBA" has freed 50,000 children from
slavery. However, these children are merely the tip
of the iceberg, and it is estimated that several
million children in India are still suffering the
same fate. "The problem is particularly rife in
the carpet-weaving sector, where 98% of the
produce is destined for sale abroad. Each year it
earns India hard currency worth 600 million",
Shri Satyarthi said at a press conference held on
Thursday, 18 March in Delhi and attended by the seven
children who had been saved, although they are still
traumatised by their experience. The ruthless
employers are rarely worried, because the children's
parents are simply relieved to be reunited with their
children and are reluctant to embark on legal
proceedings, fearing reprisals from the mafia-like
groups behind the whole child slave trade.
The Indian government maintains
that it intends to mount an offensive against the
rampant problem of slavery in the country. When will
it back up these words with actions?
Samuel Grumiau (in New Delhi)
