Karnataka - Bangalore   

Most child labourers rescued in Bangalore are from Bihar

Bangalore: Rakesh, who looks no more than eight or nine, tells matter-of-factly that he worked from 8 in the morning till 12.30 at night at a leather bag factory in Ranasinghpet from where he was rescued on May 9. Rakesh was among the five children from Bihar, aged between six and 11, produced before Child Welfare Committee (CWC) on Monday. This takes the total number of rescued children from Bihar at the boys’ home run by the Department of Women and Child Welfare to 20.

Most of them are children of landless agricultural labourers who were either brought to Bangalore by middlemen to work or who ran away from their villages and ended up on the railway platforms in Bangalore. CWC Chairman Vasudev Sharma said that there was an increase in the number of child labourers from Bihar coming to Bangalore in the recent past. In many cases, those who had been sent back with escorts had returned after a couple of months, he added. “We would like to know what the Bihar Government is doing about these children,” said Mr. Sharma. “Of 10 children rescued from a railway platform, two are invariably from Bihar,” said Raheem of Sathi, an NGO.

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