Kochi: After a lull, children are being trafficked into the state in increased numbers with migrant labourers acting as middlemen in a majority of the cases. What is startling is that while the minor children are employed in houses or shops, it is often the middlemen who end up pocketing their monthly wages leaving the child with only food for their hard work.
This was revealed when Child Line, Ernakulam, and the police rescued four such children in the last one week. While a 13-year old girl from Theni in Tamil Nadu was rescued from a house on Ashramam Road in Kalady, two minor boys hailing from Assam were rescued from two houses near Plakudy bridge in Kodanad. A minor boy, originally from Thirunelveli in Tamil Nadu was found employed in a bakery in Kandakadavu in Kannamali.
While two persons have been arrested, two others are on the run for employing minor children. “The children told us they were being given only food and made to work hard for upto 12 hours a day. An analysis of such cases over the last year points to migrant labourers behind the trafficking especially from the states of Assam, Bihar and Tamil Nadu,” sources said.
The parents let them go with the middlemen for a fixed period, say three years, for sums as paltry as Rs 50, 000, they said. Child Line officials say instances of minor children hailing from the state being used as child labourers are on the wane, however. In May last year, a total of 29 minor boys in the age-group of eight to 17 years hailing from various northern parts of the country were rescued from Ernakulam Town Railway station.
Meanwhile, the number of cases of runaway children landing at major railway stations of the state is on the decrease. “While we handed over 26 such children in 2012, 19 in 2013 and 12 in 2014, there were only four cases last year. No such child was found in railway stations so far this year,” an official of Ernakulam Railway Protection Force said.
