Delhi: 34 children working as bonded labourers rescued from Rohini

The Delhi police conducted a series of raids across the North West sub-city on Tuesday, leading to the closure of 15 establishments.

Assisted by Prayas Joint Action Committee, an NGO, Delhi police rescued 19 girls and 15 boys from child labour, with 29 of them being rescued under the jurisdiction of the Aman Vihar Police Station, while five were rescued under the jurisdiction of Raj Park Police Station.

According to Naved Anjum, a member of the team at Prayas JAC, the children who were rescued had been smuggled in from multiple states across the country. “Most of the rescued children were from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan. During the course of the raids, we also found that some of the children had been procured from nearby localities around Rohini too,” he said.

Under the supervision of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Rohini, the rescue effort involved medical check-ups for the children and their subsequent placement in dedicated facilities.

“We were invited by the Rohini SDM, where we decided upon the locations where the raids would be conducted, and then the rescue operation was launched. Multiple establishments were raided, following which the children were provided with medical check-ups and then brought in front of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC),” Anjum said.

Presently, the children have been shifted to two facilities meant to accommodate the homeless: the Children Home for Boys in Alipur and the Rescue Foundation home for girls in Kanjhawala, as decided by the CWC.

According to the police, the raids were conducted at several significant establishments, including the popular Shri Agra Petha Bhandar at Pooth Kalan and Hemant Dhaba at Sultanpuri. “Apart from these joints, we were able to rescue a couple of children from other local eateries, motor vehicle repair shops, puncture shops, and major factories in the area,” said a senior police officer.

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A member of the NGO disclosed that while some of the children were working for almost no payment, others were paid a meagre sum of Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000 a month.

To put matters into perspective, Anjum highlighted that the entire operation is mostly devised by the NGO, following which they provide the acquired information to the concerned authorities. “During the operation, the team at Prayas conducts a survey of each district, where we perform reconnaissance at a couple of hotspots. After verifying our findings, we send a report to the district’s SDM. The rescue is conducted after we receive the signal from them,” Anjum said.

Currently, two FIRs have been registered under the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act and the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act.

These rescue operations fall under the NGO’s initiative called Access to Justice.

Earlier, on August 20, Prayas JAC successfully rescued 11 children from multiple establishments in West Delhi’s Najafgarh. The NGO operates in multiple districts of the national capital, including North West, West, and Central Delhi. They also operate at the New Delhi Railway Station to look for children who need rescuing.

On the other hand, earlier in June, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, in coordination with the Delhi Police and NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, successfully tracked down and rescued 21 children from different parts of the national capital.