Child labor ban in India goes unheeded
A Save the Children study has found a year-old ban in India on hiring children under 14 as household servants or at food stalls has gone largely unheeded.
The BBC reported the study found millions of such children continue to be employed for such tasks and are routinely subjected to various abuses, including being denied food, beatings and even sexual abuse.
The BBC quoted official estimates saying India has more than 12 million child workers. Of them, about 200,000 work in such banned tasks as domestic servants or in teashops, restaurants, spas, hotels, resorts and other recreational centers.
However, the report said, groups working with children say up to 20 million children work as domestic servants and in food stalls despite the ban.
Anuradha Maharishi with the Save the Children told the BBC she recently met a 12-year-old girl in Calcutta who’d been working as a domestic servant for two years, cooking for five family members and cleaning the three-story home. The family poured burning hot food on her hands one day because of a delay in serving dinner, the report said.
The girl managed to escape and Maharishi’s group helped her return to her own family. // Copyright 2007 by United Press International
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