As many as 11 children from Jharkhand’s Chatra district were rescued from bangle manufacturing factories in Rajasthan on Wednesday in an operation conducted by Jaipur police on a tip off from Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s civil society organization, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA).
The police rescued a total of 15 children from two bangle factories and four of them were from Gaya in neighbouring Bihar. All the rescued children are boys in the age bracket of seven to 16 years – purportedly trafficked from the poverty-stricken villages of Jharkhand and Bihar.
The children were rescued with the joint efforts of Jaipur Police, victim assistance team of BBA Jaipur and members of an NGO, Prayas. During the raid, two factory owners – Ajaz Khan and Md. Khurshid Raza – were arrested. Khan is a resident of Jharkhand while Raza belongs to Bihar.
The children informed that they were working in the two units for the last six months. They also said that they were forced to work from 8 am to 1 am every day, with Sunday being half day.
During their stay, the children were given meals only two times a day. The raid was conducted after a tip off received by BBA team around a month ago. It took about a fortnight to put together an operational plan in consultation with the police. The raid was finally conducted on Wednesday and the rescue process took around two and a half hours.
After being rescued the children were produced at a child welfare committee and were then moved to Satya Bal Ashram in Vaishali Nagar area of Jaipur. Talking about Wednesday’s raid and rescue operation, BBA spokesperson Manish Sharma said, “We will continue to pursue our objectives along with all the state-level authorities concerned, including the police and the labour department”.
According to Jha, Rajasthan of late has turned into a “destination” State where children from “sending or source” States such Bihar and Jharkhand are being frequently trafficked to.