BBA rescues 86 children in Delhi alone

India Action Week, the nation wide program against child labour undertaken by the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), has already rescued 86 child labourers from Delhi alone this year.

The program that started on the September 12 and will continue till the 18th is an initiative to mobilize the district/ state administration to release child labourers on a large scale through simultaneous rescue operations in several states of the country. The main objective is to mobilize the administrative officials to ensure proper and effective law enforcement of all child labour laws.

It  has rescued 9 children from the Model Town area in North-West Delhi on the very first day of the India Action Week followed by 56 child labourers from scrap and leather factories in Mundka gaon. 21 child labourers were rescued today from beedi, purse factories in the Seelampur area of North East District of Delhi.

BBA has been conducting India Action Week since the year 2008 across the country. During the India Action Week in 2010, rescue operations were conducted in 7 states of the country where 2150 child labourers were identified and 425 child labourers were rescued. While in 2008 almost 15000 child labourers were identified in 11 states of the country and 425 were rescued.

Chairperson, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, R.S. Chaurasia said, "We are happy that the India Action Week started with the rescue of 86 child labourers in Delhi. We hope that during this entire week we would be successful in rescuing more child labourers from the 9 identified states. India Action Week does not only mean rescue of child labourers but also filing of complaints. As such we have filed thousands of complaints to concerned authorities regarding child labourers in various parts of the country. We hope that the concerned authorities will act immediately on our complaints."

Raids are simultaneously beiong held in 9 states namely Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Two children were rescued from Saharsa Railway station and Hujipur Railway station in Bihar.