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Three child labourers found in posh apartment complex

Staff Correspondent

Raid follows tip-off from mediapersons; one aged less than 10

Children were employed as domestic help
One boy placed in CWC custody

MANGALORE: They should have been at school and on the playground and with their parents. Instead, the three children were working as domestic help in a posh apartment complex till their rescue during a joint raid by officials from Childline and the departments of Labour, Primary and Secondary Education, and Police on Sturrock Road in Attavar here on Thursday. One child is younger than 10 while the other two are aged around 15.

District Child Welfare Committee member Geo D’Silva said that if children aged less than 18 are not staying with their parents, then their guardians must be certified as “fit persons” by the committee according to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000.

The officials were tipped off after a few presspersons got wind of the child workers and brought it to the notice of the District Child Welfare Committee. Neighbours said many more children could have been found in the apartments had the owners of some flats not locked their houses and fled.

Household chores

The youngest child was found in flat C-802 owned by Abdul Rehman, an industrialist. The child, son of a daily wage worker from a village in Davangere, told the investigating officials that he was made to do household chores such as washing clothes, cleaning dishes, sweeping and mopping. His alleged employer, however, refuted this charge.

Even as the operation was on to rescue the boy, mediapersons received an anonymous call saying that there was a minor girl employed in the house of a doctor-couple in flat A-202. The 15-year-old girl, traced in the apartment of Lakshmi Manjira and Murali Krishna, told the officials that she had been working there for three years.

Dr. Manjira initially refused to cooperate with the officials saying that she had done nothing wrong as she was also sending the girl to school. But she relented when Childline official Shiny Pradeep listed the various clauses of the Juvenile Justice Act she had violated by employing the girl.

More boys

Meanwhile, the 10-year-old boy, who was being interviewed by the officials, said two boys from his village were employed in another flat. The officials rushed to A-1002 and found the two there. While one of them claimed to be 19, the other said he was aged less than 15 after sustained cross-questioning. The underage boy, who appeared to be under pressure from his employers standing next to him, said he had been working there for a year. However, neighbours claimed that he had been working there for at least three years.

The 10-year-old is in the custody of the District Child Welfare Committee while the other two were left behind as they are older.

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