New Delhi: At least 181 children have been rescued from factories in the city in the past 30 days. Of these, 54 were rescued on Wednesday alone in central Delhi's Anand Parbat. Six factories were also sealed during the operation led by SDMs of Patel Nagar and Civil Lines, labour department, Delhi Police and NGO Sahyog Care for You.
The rescued children are all aged between eight and 17 and hail mainly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Rescue workers found them working in factories producing plastic toys, fans, doorbells and other items. The children said they earned Rs 100 per day while working 12-hour shifts without breaks.
"The rescue operation revealed a horrific scene. We found children working in plastic factories, living and sleeping in the same dingy spaces where they worked. They were forced to seek respite on makeshift cardboard beds, positioned dangerously close to the machinery itself in almost all these cases," said Harish Kumar, a rescue worker.
"These children who work in plastic moulding are constantly exposed to toxic fumes from burnt plastic. Their health is severely compromised, affecting both their quality of life and life expectancy," he added.
"We consistently find such children in a state of severe undernourishment, their bodies visibly weakened. Most were trafficked from impoverished families in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar villages to work in Delhi-NCR," Kumar told TOI.
The labour department recorded statements from the children about their wages while a team of doctors conducted health checks. The child welfare committee has also ordered the children to be placed in care facilities.
"Delhi High Court has mandated quick trials for such cases and back wages to be paid within three months of rescue. We request the district magistrate to help these children with rehabilitation and compensation as early as possible," said Shekhar Mahajan, general secretary of Sahyog Care for You.