Hyderabad: Bangle factories in Telangana prefer kids from states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh as their local counterparts lack discipline and punctuality. Kids as young as six years old were rescued from bangle factories in the state.
The children are brought in to the city to work in bangle and plastic dana (pearls) factories. Some are engaged in brick-making. Many rescued children were from Patna, Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Mohammad Imtiyaz, district child protection officer, said, “We rescued 1,500 children between 2015 and 2017. The child labour in bangle factories in the state reduced after we constituted a child labour task force to curb the child labour from other states. We have also conducted meetings with other states to take more precautionary measures against the bangle industry.”
He added, “Our survey found that bangle factories prefer kids from other states because local kids are less disciplined and irregular in their jobs. The task force is stationed at railway stations to monitor the movement of child labour. Due to this, child labour has reduced a lot.”
Shashikant Gaurav, head of Pratham Council of Vulnerable Children (PCVC) for AP and Telangana, said, “We have observed that many kids from poor families in Bihar move to Hyderabad. The caste system and lack of education are the other reasons. We visited 500 villages in Bihar as part of our campaign against child labour.”
