The Modern-Day Child Slavery
Even after 73 years of
‘independence’ nothing better has
occurred in the lives of the people
of our country. On the contrary
their lives are worsening day by
day. The grand proclamations of
our rulers and ruling classes that
our economy is developing in leaps
and bounds cannot hide this fact
of ever growing distress of the
people particularly the rural poor.
The anti-people and pro-corporate
agricultural
policies
being
implemented by the successive
governments have pushed our
agricultural sector in to a deep
crises leading to the untold rural
poverty and distress. None of the
governmental schemes for
alleviation of poverty including the
highly touted NMGREA could bring
any relief to the impoverished rural
households.
Besides migrating to far off
places with families to eke out
livelihood and living as destitute in
those places, the rural poor are
forced to mortgage their children
for labour. Extreme poverty forced
the parents to mortgage their
children.
Such children mortgaged
occurred in Banswara and
Pratapgarh districts of Rajastan
have come in to light.
This practice of mortgaging
children for labour existing in
Rajasthan was raised in the
Rajasthan Assembly by Gulab
Chand Kataria, BJP M.L.A and
former home minister of Rajastan,
the BJP’s Kisorilal Meena did so in
the Rajya Sabha recently.
The children are being
mortgaged to shepherds or
gaderias a nomadic community with
large frocks of sheep. They belong
to south-western Rajasthan and
they take away children to central
and western Madhya Pradesh and
parts of northern Gujarat. The
Aug,Sep - 2019
children are made to look after
cattle and given bare minimum
food. In some cases the shepherds
sell the children further for running
errands at road-side hotels.
The lives of the children who
are taken away are tough. They are
not given clothes to change even
for many months. These children
develop blisters on their soles, as
they walk several miles on
barefoot. They are allowed to sleep
just only four to five hours at night.
Very often the family members of
the shepherds beat the children
over trivial matters. There is no
guarantee whether the children will
ever return to their families.
The shepherds prefer to hire
Bhil (tribal) children because they
come cheap, eat little, work hard
and are disciplined easily.
On the other hand extreme
poverty compelled the parents to
mortgage their children; since they
find no work and left with no option
to let their minor sons go for labour
as mortgaged labourers.
But as usual when this modern
day slavery is exposed the
administration pretend innocence
and state that it is the first time that
heard about such a practice of
mortgaging children for labour.
Though this very form of
mortgaging children is not
practiced, various other forms of
bondage for labour is practiced by
the rural poor in other states of our
country. From the Orissa state rural
poor households of entire family go
in to bondage of labour in brick-
klins.
From north Andhra Pradesh
districts young girls of 14 years to
16 years are sent to far off places
as labourers of bondage in cotton
ginning mills and textile mills.
Many children work as bonded
labourers in the reputed bangle
industry of Hyderabad city. Many
children are working as bonded
labourers in to the Zari and other
such industries in our capital city
New Delhi.
Many children are made to
work as bonded labouers in mica
mines and stone quarries.
It is an undeniable fact that
extreme
poverty
compels
households to mortgage the
children for the survival of the
family members.
Particularly this practice of
bonded labour is an inherent
feature of our semi-feudal system.
Modernity of neo-global capitalist
economic system co-habits with our
semi-feudal system and depends
on such despicable practices of
child-slavery for its thriving on
accumulating more and more
profits.
This state of worst affairs
warrants a powerful movement of
people to end such human
bondage of slavery demanding
improvement of the living
conditions of people from perpetual
impoverishment!
Condemnation of Encounter Killing of Com. Linganna!
Comrade Linganna, member of Telangana State Committee
of CPI (ML)-ND was brutally killed by the greyhound poli9ce squad
and claimed it as an encounter death at Pandirigattu of Gundala
Mandal on 31 July 2019. The fake encounter killing of Com.
Linganna was strongly condemned by com.Prasad, the secretary
of Telangana State Committee of CPI (ML) and Com. G.Vijaya
Kumar, member of CC of CPI (ML). They conveyed deepest
condolences to the people of Gundala area and family member of
com. Linganna.
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