20 child labourers rescued in Delhi

Twenty child labourers were rescued from three different factories in the national capital, police said Friday.

The Delhi Police and the labour department with the help of NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) rescued the 20 children in multiple raids and three factories were also sealed Friday.

Eight boys were freed from a bindi-making unit in Nand Nagar, Shahdara in east Delhi and the rest, including a girl, were rescued from a nail polish and utensil polishing unit in Samaypur Badli industrial estate of west Delhi.

"The children are aged between 10 and 16 years and had been trafficked to Delhi from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Nepal. They usually worked for 12 hours a day and many of them even for 24 hours at least once in a week," said Kailash Satyarthi, founder of BBA.

"They were not fed adequately and were paid a meagre salary or nothing at all," he added.

After being rescued, the 20 children were sent to Mukti Ashram, a BBA-run rehabilitation centre as directed by the child welfare committees of the respective district from where they were freed.

Satyarthi added that there are an estimated 50 million child labourers in India and Delhi was fast emerging as a hub for these children.