The Scourge Of Child Slavery In India

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With over 60 million child slaves, India's growth story is void and meaningless till the problem is tackled head-on.

India is the world’s sixth largest economy by GDP. It is also the fastest growing economy in the world. This economic success, in part, emerges from and continues to grow from a horror story that haunts the nation – child slavery. Over 60 million children work in hazardous conditions as child slaves in the world’s fastest growing economy.

Fine silk production, often purchased by rich and affluent sections of the society, is a case in point. A 1996 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report exposed the reality of India’s finest silk. Children, employed for their small hands, were put to work pulling silk off the cocoons of silk worms. They did so by dipping their hands in boiling water, a part of the process to extract silk from the worms.

In the 1990s, Kanchipuram, a city in Tamil Nadu, used up to 50,000 child slaves in the silk industry. Consequently, it was bestowed with the sobriquet – the ‘city of child slaves’.

A 2003 follow-up report by HRW detailed the children’s condition:



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1 Comment

  • 10 years ago, my Oxfordshire village raised £16,000 to fund a revolving loan project for young people who had been in debt bondage slavery in the carpet industry in Jharkhand. Integrated Village Development Trust delivered the project through an Indian NGO called AID. Its effect shows that child slavery is not only bad for the children themselves but for the Indian economy too. Once these young people were trained, given apprenticeships or loans to set up small enterprises like tyre and battery replacement, they thrived. They even paid back the interest-free loans so that others can be helped and the most successful employed other teenagers who had also suffered child slavery.

    Child slavery is a blight on the reputation of India but it also holds back enterprising young people who can grow the Indian economy.

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