Indian police rescues 400 child labourers in factories

According to report, Hundreds of children working in hazardous factories in southern India have been saved by police to be reunited with their families.

Police say they have rescued some 400 children in a series of raids on leather tanning and plastic factories in Hyderabad over the past ten days.

The children, mainly boys, hail from India's Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal states, and have today been returned to their hometowns on special trains. 

Police say they found the children working long hours in deplorable conditions, despite a nationwide ban on child labour.  

'We found the children confined to their work place in inhuman conditions,' said V. Satyanarayana, a top police official in Hyderabad.

 'They were forced to work for nearly 12 hours a day without any respite.'

'Many of the children were suffering from skin and other diseases as they were forced to work in unhygienic and unventilated dark rooms,' Satyanarayana said. 

He said their employers would monitor them with video cameras and any child who stopped working would be beaten.

Police in Hyderabad have arrested five men accused of supplying children to the factory owners. 

Raids on factories to check for child workers will be carried out twice a month, a labour welfare official said.

'We are taking effective measures to eradicate the mafia behind bringing children from other states to work in hazardous industries in Hyderabad,' R.V. Chandravan said.

India has laws aimed at fighting child labour by making education compulsory up to age 14 and prohibiting their employment in hazardous occupations. 

Despite the laws, grinding poverty still causes many children to be pushed into work, with factory agents promising their wages to their parents. 

The 2011 census found that about 4.35million children between the ages of five and 14 were employed across India.