Old City turns child labour hub

​Hyderabad: The city has turned into a notorious hub of child labour, throwing the caution to the winds. Not a day passes without a train load of child labourers landing in the city.

Most of these children are brought in from northern States like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar and even from north-eastern States of Assam and others.

These children work mostly in bangle factories, plastic industry, cooler-making factories, and paint industries though they cause physical and mental impairments to children. A number of these factories are located in the Old City and hardly any industry adopts safety measures.

These children, who are below 14 years, work without a murmur though they are paid meagre salaries. This is the reason that the unscrupulous factory prefer to bring in children from far off.

There are at least fifty gangs who bring these children to the city to work in various factories. The gangs reportedly come into agreement with the parents of these children to make them work for six months to one year. While some poor parents send their children to work in these factories, some other children are kidnapped and forcibly made to work.

Most of these factories are situated in the narrow lanes of Bhavaninagar, Gajulabanda, Kanchanbagh, Falaknuma, Hussaini Alam, Talabkatta, Charminar, Chhatrinaka, Chandrayanagutta, Mailardevpalli, and other areas. At places, these children are forced to work for 18 hours a day. They set up CCTVs to closely monitor the child labourers. Torture of child labourers is rampant for even minor violation.

Last year, South Zone police during the cordon and search operation identified the child labourers and informed the Labour Department. However, after sometime everything resumed normalcy and the child labourers continued their work.

In a joint operation by The Hans India/HMTV and North Zone police, it was found out that these child labourers are brought in to the city by trains. The Guwahati Express which arrives at Secunderabad railway station at 4 am every Saturday dumps these children along with the casual labourers. By the time the train arrives, a large number of brokers throng the area to take them to the work places.

The North Zone police following instructions from DCP B Sumati rounded a large number of brokers, and took into custody four child labourers and 40 minor boys. DCP Sumati said that counselling would be conducted for the labourers and criminal cases would be filed against the brokers who engage children in factories.

It is high time the government acted tough on the industries which engage children in their workshops.