CHENNAI, India: As schools break for summer, human traffickers across India are convincing impoverished parents to send their children to work over the holidays in factories and farms, campaigners said.
Anti-trafficking groups are urging the government to crack down on child labor during the two-month break, warning that many children never return to school once they start working.
“In this season, playgrounds and neighborhood shops become hunting grounds for traffickers,” said Kuralamuthan Thandavarayan of the International Justice Mission, an anti-trafficking charity.
“They track children from poor families and convince parents that it is a waste of time to allow their children to play or stay home when they can earn instead.”
There are an estimated 10.1 million workers between the ages of 5 and 14 in India, according to the International Labour Organization.
More than half of them toil on farms and over a quarter are in the manufacturing sector embroidering clothes, weaving carpets, making matchsticks and bangles.
“In many villages, with both parents out working, teenagers at home during summer break are lured by recruiters looking to hire cheap labor in the (textile) mills,” said Joseph Raj of the non-profit Trust for Education and Social Transformation.
Other children join their parents in brick kilns, where they work between November and June, when the rainy season begins. The recruitment and payment systems in these kilns trap seasonal migrant workers in a cycle of bonded labor, according to a 2017 report by the rights groups Anti-Slavery International and Volunteers for Social Justice.
Wages are low and often paid at the end of the season, and families are forced to put their young children to work to make 1,000 bricks a day, which allows them to make the minimum wage, said the report.
“Agents promise to bring the children back to the village in time for the new academic session. But the problem is that many don’t return,” said Krishnan Kandasamy of the National Adivasi Solidarity Council, an advocacy group.
Tamil Nadu state government data showed that nearly 30 percent of the 1,821 people rescued from debt bondage in 2017 were children.
“It starts out as children helping their parent, but slowly they take on more work that involves longer hours,” Kandasamy told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
He said his organization has already rescued 456 bonded laborers in the southern states of Tamil Nadur, Karanataka and Andhra Pradesh this year, many of them children.
“We are increasingly finding children in mango orchards, jasmine flower farms, brick kilns, rag-picking centers and out grazing cattle,” said Kandasamy.
Traffickers recruit child labor as Indian schools break for summer, campaigners warn
Traffickers recruit child labor as Indian schools break for summer, campaigners warn
Venezuela’s furious street forces ready to ‘fight’ after US raid
- As proud defenders of the Venezuelan leadership’s socialist “Bolivarian revolution,” the ousting of Maduro has left them furious and bewildered, convinced that he was betrayed by close allies
CARACAS: When explosions boomed in the night and US warplanes roared in the sky over Caracas, Jorge Suarez and his companions rushed fearfully for their guns.
For these members of the “colectivos” — armed loyalists of the leftist leadership — the US raid that ousted Nicolas Maduro as their president was the most dramatic challenge yet.
“We’re not used to it — it was like a best-seller, like something out of a movie,” said Suarez, in black sunglasses and a cap bearing the slogan: “Doubt is treason.”
“We took to the streets, waiting for instructions from our leaders.”
As proud defenders of the Venezuelan leadership’s socialist “Bolivarian revolution,” the ousting of Maduro has left them furious and bewildered, convinced that he was betrayed by close allies.
“There is frustration, anger and a will to fight,” said a 43-year-old member of one collective the Boina Roja — which translates to Red Beret — who identified himself only as Willians, in a black cap and hooded jacket.
“It’s still not really clear what happened...What is clear is that there were many betrayals,” he added — pointing to implausible failures in Maduro’s defenses.
“We don’t understand how the anti-aircraft system failed. We don’t know what happened with the rocket-launch system.”
- Policing the transition -
Established in their current form under Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez, the colectivos are tasked with keeping social order on the streets — but accused by opponents of beating and intimidating rivals.
They have closed ranks behind Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s former deputy who took over as interim president.
She has pledged to cooperate with US President Donald Trump over his demand for access to Venezuela’s huge oil reserves — but has insisted the country is not “subordinate” to Washington.
Willians said the colectivos were resisting certain post-Maduro narratives, which he dismissed as mind games — such as “that Trump might bomb again, or that Delcy Rodriguez is with the United States.”
They respect her ideological pedigree — Rodriguez is the daughter of a far-left militant who died in the custody of the intelligence services in 1976.
“I don’t think anyone would betray her father,” said Alfredo Canchica, leader of another collective, the Fundacion 3 Raíces.
“You can betray the people, but not your father.”
Colectivo members declined to be drawn out on how the post-Maduro phase might play out under Trump and Rodriguez, however.
“We don’t believe the threats that the Americans are going to come, dig in and take us out,” said Canchica.
“They’ll have to kill us first.”
- Maduro ‘betrayed’ -
Feared by opponents as a rifle-wielding, motorbike-mounted shock force, the colectivos are welcomed in some neighborhoods where they are credited with preventing crime — and where authorities hand out subsidized food parcels.
Speaking at the Chato Candela baseball stadium in the working-class 23 de Enero district, Canchica rejected the negative image they have gained.
When opposition demonstrators and some world powers were accusing Maduro of stealing an election in July 2014, “we stopped the shantytowns from rising up,” he said.
The colectivos also claim to run sports programs, coordinate with hospitals and transport networks, and visit traders to keep price speculation in check.
Fiercely committed to the “Chavista” cause, they felt the sting of betrayal in Maduro’s capture.
“The betrayal must have come from someone very close to our commander” Maduro, said Canchica.
“It was so perfect we didn’t notice, and we still don’t know who betrayed us, how they betrayed us — it happened so fast.”
In his office with images of independence hero Simon Bolivar, Chavez and Maduro on the wall, and books, bullets and a sound-wave bomb on the table, Suarez bitterly recalled watching animated reconstructions of Maduro’s capture published online.
“It makes you angry,” he said.
“Despite all the support Commander (Vladimir) Putin, China and North Korea have given us militarily, how can we react in real time when (the US) has more advanced technology than we do?“
