Child Smuggling – Selling Children for a Buck

Below is an article from the Times of India describing how police discovered some children being trafficked in Bihar. For every child rescued probably hundreds of others suffer as indentured servants or essentially slave labor. Just a reminder that the enslavement industry is active every minute of every day.

Children working in a brick factory

12 MINORS RESCUED FROM TRAFFICKERS

KISHANGANJ, BIHAR, July 26, 2008: Close on the heels of the incident of 20 bonded child labourers being rescued from a train here on July 21, as many as 12 children, who were being trafficked, were rescued by the railway protection force (RPF) and Government Railway Police (GRP) forces at Kishanganj railway station on Thursday night.

One tout Asrar Ahmad was also arrested. Two of his accomplices, however, pulled the wool over the eyes of RPF and GRP personnel and slipped away, sources said.

The rescued children are in the age group of 6 to 10, except two, who are about 14 years, said RPF sources.

RPF sources said the small children were huddled together on platform no 2. They were awaiting the Jodhpur-bound Jodhpur-Guwahati Express to arrive so that they could board it. The train was, however, running behind schedule. Meanwhile, RPF Inspector S K Prasad, accompanied by some personnel, was walking on the platform at 8 pm when he spotted the group of boys huddled in a corner on the platform. As they began to quiz them, they shuffled.

A person posing to be their custodian, appeared claiming that the children were being taken to school. But on a little more probing, it became clear that the man was a tout and a trafficker.

The RPF and GRP personnel took him into custody. The rescued children including Kalam, Ishtehar, Arshad and Mohd Kalim disclosed that they hailed from villages in West Bengal.