NEW DELHI: India Dwarfed by their protest placards, 50 children who worked as virtual slaves weaving Carpets marched into the capital after a two-week trek to dramatize the dismal conditions of child labor.
The children, all fewer than 14 years old, were rescued from their looms in raids by social groups campaigning for international boycotts of Indian products produced by bonded child labor.
The South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude, a group of volunteers from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, organized the march in an attempt to stir the conscience of buyers and carpet makers.
In two weeks, the 50 children and social workers accompanying those covered 1,240 miles and visited 150 villages in the poor northern Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh where the practice is ram pant.
The children sang, acted in street plays and spoke to adults and children about how they were abducted or sold into servitude by impoverished parents.
More than 1 million children work 15 to 18 hours a day in poorly lit and badly ventilated carpet factories in Asian countries, said the coalition’s Indian chairman, Kailash Satyarthi.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 5, 1993
