Rights group exposes child mining scandal

(June 09,2010) At least 70,000 children, mainly from Bangladesh and Nepal, are working in hazardous and inhumane conditions in mines, in the Jaintia Hills area of the Christian-majority state of Meghalaya in northeastern India. An international human rights group and an Indian NGO have urged national and international bodies to investigate. India has many mechanisms to address child labour but they are ineffective in the Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya, said Kazuko Ito, secretary general of Human Rights Now - HRN, a Tokyo-based international human rights group.
An HRN team recently collaborated with a Meghalaya-based NGO, to study the child labour situation in the Jaintia Hills. The team visited three coal mines and interviewed 45 people, including child workers. Ito said they found most children were below age 14 and work in extreme danger with few safety measures. They cut coal in deep underground holes with little air supply. The team quoted some elders as saying middlemen duped the children promising easy money for simple tasks.
The NGOs want international monitoring bodies to look into the matter. They also want the Indian government to sign a bilateral agreement with Nepal and Bangladesh to prevent child trafficking and prosecute offenders. The groups also want international business communities to stop buying coal from Meghalaya until the mine owners stop using child labour.