JAIPUR: The 40 rescued children, who were set to work in bangle-making factories here, were bought from their parents in Bihar for around Rs 4,000 each, child commission officials have claimed.
The commission has kept the children in quarantine and questioned a renowned NGO why the child panel was not kept in the loop regarding the kids being brought from Patna to Jaipur in a train. While a FIR has been registered, no one has been arrested in the case of child trafficking yet.
Rajasthan state commission for protection of child rights chairperson Sangeeta Beniwal said, “The NGO officials claimed that before the children boarded the train in Bihar, they had information that they were being brought for labour, but instead of informing local police, they got in touch with railway police, which makes no sense. Moreover, the NGO also could not explain as to why we were not told about this matter when they had prior information. I have also asked them to give details regarding these questions along with the reason for not deboarding the children or informing the authorities at the railway stations between Patna and Jaipur.”
The boys aged between 8-15 years old are now being accommodated at the government-run shelter here.
“The NGO had written to the railway police when the children boarded the train on June 30 as if they had already planned that they will be rescued in Jaipur. The children are quite young and being looked after at the shelter,” added Beniwal.
In the past two years, approximately 3,000 children have been rescued from labour in Rajasthan out of which majority were boys and over 1,000 persons have been arrested since 2019.
Close to 1,000 children who were rescued hailed from states outside Rajasthan and were brought here under various pretext to work in hotels, factories and other forms of employment and experts claimed that majority of children were brought from Bihar.
The commission has kept the children in quarantine and questioned a renowned NGO why the child panel was not kept in the loop regarding the kids being brought from Patna to Jaipur in a train. While a FIR has been registered, no one has been arrested in the case of child trafficking yet.
Rajasthan state commission for protection of child rights chairperson Sangeeta Beniwal said, “The NGO officials claimed that before the children boarded the train in Bihar, they had information that they were being brought for labour, but instead of informing local police, they got in touch with railway police, which makes no sense. Moreover, the NGO also could not explain as to why we were not told about this matter when they had prior information. I have also asked them to give details regarding these questions along with the reason for not deboarding the children or informing the authorities at the railway stations between Patna and Jaipur.”
The boys aged between 8-15 years old are now being accommodated at the government-run shelter here.
“The NGO had written to the railway police when the children boarded the train on June 30 as if they had already planned that they will be rescued in Jaipur. The children are quite young and being looked after at the shelter,” added Beniwal.
In the past two years, approximately 3,000 children have been rescued from labour in Rajasthan out of which majority were boys and over 1,000 persons have been arrested since 2019.
Close to 1,000 children who were rescued hailed from states outside Rajasthan and were brought here under various pretext to work in hotels, factories and other forms of employment and experts claimed that majority of children were brought from Bihar.
