While the ongoing Operation Mukti is being conducted with full fledged power of the city police and the anti-human trafficking unit along with several other stakeholders involved against child begging, a case of alleged child bonded labour was registered in Vasant Vihar Police Station on Tuesday.
According to the one of the stakeholders, operation Mukti is focused only on child begging. This raise questions about the probability of more bonded labours or child labours working in the city and outskirts, while the authorities focus only on children involved in begging.
According to the stakeholder who spoke on condition of anonymity, “The operation is a brilliant initiative, but it’s working on a specific aspect, that is child begging. There are number of children who are being trafficked from the border areas of Uttarakhand and other states such as Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar to Dehradun.
Most of the children who are trafficked are either working as bonded labourers or child labourers. This is an aspect that the authorities have completely failed to take into account.”
“Among the 292 children identified during Operation Mukti, 126 were from outer states. Police spoke about the DNA testing and police to police verification of any suspicious case, but so far they have done neither.
We also need a policy change. In India there are more than 20 laws for begging prevention. All these laws criminalise the victims but do not have any rehabilitation process. What we need is an amendment in the anti-begging law. Provisions of rehabilitation should be added.”When asked about this matter the Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Nivedita Kukreti said, “Action month against child labour is already ongoing. The labour department is in-charge of it and we are providing all possible support from our side.”