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Himanshu Bhatt, TNN, Apr 28, 2010, 10.09pm IST

SURAT: Despite tall claims of abolishing child labour by the labour department, the ill practice is still prevalent in the textile industry of Surat.

In a survey of the textile markets around the Ring Road of the city, TOI found a few hundreds of these children, deprived of education and other basic human rights, who are forced to do menial jobs in more than 50,000 shops of 140 textile markets of the city. More than half the children, who work on meagre daily wages of Rs 20 to Rs 50, are forced to work hard for 10 to 14 hours a day in inhuman conditions.

Healthier children are chosen to carry weights up to 100 kg on their backs, with most of them developing hunches by the age of 25. Some are asked to work in go-downs in darkness for 10 hours for a daily wage of Rs 50. Some smaller and little more fortunate ones have to fill up 200 to 300 boxes per day to get a salary of Rs 20 per day.

TOI found the lack of education as the prime cause of their woes. None of the children TOI met was educated and majority of them had arrived in the city couple of months ago. For most, work is a must for two square meals.

Most of them were scared to talk as they feared severe reprisal from their employers. Some just did not understand why it was wrong to work. One questioned, “My parents sent me from Rajasthan to earn for the family. What is wrong in it?”

A look at the figures of Surat city alone shows there are six lakh people, who are classified as poor as they live below poverty line (BPL). About 10 per cent of students opt out after primary education and start earning to assist their family income. In such a scenario, when we add influx of migrants from other states, about 30 per cent who arrive in the city are below 16 years of age.

A simple arithmetic shows that it is no wonder that there are a few thousand children below stipulated age, who are found working in the city.

A labourer in textile market on condition of not being named, said, “We are five persons in the family. We need Rs 5,000 minimum to sustain ourselves in the city. I earn about Rs 3,500, my wife earns Rs 600 by doing household chores. So, I have no option but to make my 11-year-old son work at a tea stall, where he gets Rs 30 per day.”

For contractors, who transport goods to the textile market, it is a matter of cost cutting. Such a contractor said, “For an adult, we have to pay Rs 125 to Rs 150 per day, but for children just Rs 50 to Rs 75 per day is enough. So, we employ them.”

News is printed in http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/surat/