CHILD SLAVERY

Evening Star, Issue 22895, 1 March 1938, Page 9

CHILD SLAVERY

STILL GOES ON IN INDIA SECUNDERABAD, February 12. Allegations that large numbers of child slaves worked in Hyderabad households were made in Secunderabad, India, at the conference of Hyderabad State women. A member, Mrs Cornelius, was moving a motion urging the protection of children. ~ • ' “ Fifty years ago,” she said, the selling of children occurred only in times of severe famine, but these day* of poverty and unemployment have also reduced a portion of the people to such dire straits that helplessly _ they, leave their children, relinquishing their claim to them or sometimes' se« them for a mere pittance.” Beginning her speech, Mrs Comeliu* said: “ You know perhaps the terms ‘ Ghulam * and ‘ Bandi ’ and the deprecatory significance the words convey. There are a large number of such existing in Hyderabad _in many households for unpaid domestic service,' They grow up in this state of bondage from childhood.

“ The acquisition of children for thi* purpose does not take place by violence, but in what passes, for an honest and open bargain of purchase and sale, or from being bom to parents in a condition of bondage.’" The speaker regretted that earlier efforts to extend child legislation to young girls had met with no success. . ’ -