Focus

Some 70,000 children work in hazardous industries in Mumbai, doing crazy hours, often suffering physical abuse.


In one of the largest ever raids in the country mounted to rescue child labourers, the police in coordination with voluntary organisations rescued close to 400 child labourers from Muslim dominated Madanpura in central Mumbai.


Recent raids, as well as those in Govandi and Dharavi over the last few weeks, came after reports in the press about the story of 12-year-old Afzal, who died after being beaten by his employers in a zari shop in Govandi.


The rescued children were employed in zari, leather and steel workshops, and came from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and even Nepal. The police arrested 42 employers and will charge them under the Juvenile Justice Act, the Child Labour Act and the IPC.


As the police began their rescue operations, several hundred children were forced to run away, by their employers. Members of the rescue operation recounted tales of children being made to sit silently in locked rooms, hidden in sacks or stowed away on lofts. Imtiaz Sheikh (5), a sick-looking mal-nourished child told Islamic Voice that his employer had hidden him and his brother in a loft. “When the police came, they grabbed me, but my brother is still there in the room,” said the boy from Darbhanga district, Bihar. Through the raid and afterwards, the police were at pains to interact affectionately with the children and emphasise the fact that they were the victims, not the culprits. “We took it upon us as a social responsibility to release these children,” said Additional CP Subodh Jaiswal. “We feel ashamed that people made such small children work like this and we will ensure that every child labourer, not only in zari units, in this area is rescued,” Jaiswal promised. The police and activists reiterated that they were not targeting any religion or industry, but were clamping down on illegal child labour.


Following the reports in the press about child labour, child rights activists like Farida Lambay of Pratham, Santosh Shinde of Balprafulta and Mansoor Qadri of Saathi met deputy chief minister R R Patil and explained to him the need for urgent action from the state government. The rescued children mostly Muslim, were working in zari, leather and engineering units besides eateries. Most of them were paid paltry sums as remuneration. During one of the raids a vigilant policeman followed Mohammed Sidiqi into his Dharavi shop and found him whipping a 13-year-old boy, also his relative, with his belt for an inadequately embroidered zari fabric.


Three other co-workers aged 12 to 15, including the younger brother of Kais Siddique, the apprentice being whipped, watched fearfully. ‘’We were taken out by the police and then brought here,’’ says Siddique, a Std V student from Bihar’s Sitamarhi district. Siddique, his brow forever furrowed, winced in pain as he revealed open wounds on red, swollen arms. ‘’I am pining to return home and resume school,’’ said Siddique.


“Agents and touts mesmerise parents with stories that their child will have a bright future in Mumbai and take the children away,” says Farida Lambay. They buy the “Glittering Bombay Dream” and pay with their children ending up becoming one of the city’s most embarrassing secrets.


Some 70,000 children work almost exclusively in hazardous industries in Mumbai, doing crazy hours,often suffering physical abuse. And while the clothes and jewellery they make with their nimble fingers for trousseaus are omnipresent and their bags could well pass off for their branded counterparts, they are the city’s most invisible people.


A two-month-long crack-down, which ended with a raid releasing more than 450 child labourers in Mumbai’s Madanpura area, has brought these children out of cramped, low-ceiling sheds, which formed their sole access to city life. In three raids, the police have released 600 children. More importantly, they seem to have broken the back of unit owners. “Yahaan workshops mein dehshat phail gayi hai (There’s panic in workshops here),” says Mansoor Qadri, a child activist.


Smiling and frail, Aftab insists he is 12, although he looks no more than eight. He says he has been making bags for six years and has not been home all these years. Every day he starts work at nine and churns out bags till 1.30 am, with two breaks for small meals.


Like most of these children he has rashes on his arms and legs and a wounded knee to show for working in an overcrowded, dark pit for years.


Children like Aftab keep the wheels of these businesses running. They work in zari units, leather units, mechanic shops, make bags or do steel buffing, all jobs that require skilled hands. These children have nimble fingers for intricate work and can be paid nothing, although Aftab thinks he is paid because he gets Rs 40 every Sunday. They are kept in pathetic conditions because children scare easily and cannot protest. All of this survives because the system is so disembodied that only the sub-contractors get caught and not the actual buyers who bankroll and run the business.


They dangle the money to sub-contractors who get children from their hometowns, even cousins or nephews, with false hopes that they will rise up this chain. Actually, once these children get older, they are merely replaced in the assembly line, with nimbler fingers.


(The writer can be reached at mhl@rediffmail.com)