29 child labourers rescued from units in Udhna, Anjana

Surat: The district child labour task force including the labour department, anti-human trafficking cell and the city police on Tuesday rescued 29 child labourers employed in jardoshi units in the city’s Udhna and Anjana areas, respectively.
Official sources said that the task force team had received information about these units using children as labourers.A joint team of anti-human trafficking team, labour department, NGOs and the police raided the spots and rescued 12 children below 14 years of age and 17 adolescents.
The children were employed to do hand embroidery, or ‘Khatli work’, in the units from 8 am to 10 pm. They were paid monthly wages between Rs 3,000 and Rs 8,000 by their employers. All the rescued children hail from Bihar and stayed in the units itself.
Talking to TOI, assistant labour commissioner, Ashish Gandhi said, “We have rescued 29 child labourers. We have started working with the anti-human trafficking cell. Till now, we were not taking any actions against the adolescents. On January 9, we had raided in the same areas and rescued 19 children.”
Gandhi further said that earlier the labour commission would issue notices to the adolescent child labourers and take prohibitory action against children below 14 years.
“Now, with human trafficking activities on the rise, we are taking joint action with the anti-human traffic team to track and rescue both adolescent and child labourers,” he added.
According to Gandhi, police complaint has been registered against the these jardoshi units’ owners, identified as Murtaza Alam, Mohammed Khalil, Mohammed Jaibul and Taslim Saiful.