A recent report on child labour rescues has found that Telangana outpaced all other states in pulling children out of unlawful employment in 2024–25. Of the 53,651 children rescued in India during this period, 11,063 were given a new lease of life in Telangana. The state not only carried out the most number of rescue operations in the country but it also topped the list of arrests made against the offenders.
While this is good news for all the vulnerable children rescued from exploitative work, their lives will still be in limbo in the absence of appropriate rehabilitation. This crucial task may be an easier one for Telangana as it already has a successful rehabilitation roadmap, thanks to MV Foundation, the Hyderabad-based, not-for-profit, which has managed to withdraw over one million children from work. By mainstreaming them into formal schools, MVF has also made 1500 villages child-labour-free. This is no mean achievement. The cornerstone of their success has been their belief that any child out of school should be considered a child labourer and that school and education were the only options for eliminating child labour. The model adopted to reach this goal is simple. First, a survey of all children out of school is conducted in each of the intervention villages. Villagers were often taken aback to see a sari-clad lady outside their homes asking about their children. But Shantha Sinha, founder trustee MVF and Magsaysay awardee for her work to eliminate child labour, had no compunctions in sitting on the floor of their homes to persuade them to send their children to school. This personalised approach helped in facilitating permission for their children to attend residential bridge course camps (RBC).
These provide short-term intensive education programmes to help children who had dropped out of school to work or those who had never been to school, fill their knowledge gaps. Then they are mainstreamed into government schools. Establishing Child Rights Protection forums comprising the community, parents, local panchayat members and school teachers, ensures children enrolled stay in school. Had it not been for this house-to-house survey, 11-year-old Amritha would have continued to work with her family as agricultural labourers.
She was reconciled to going to sleep most of the nights on an empty stomach. But her life changed when MVF came to her village to spread awareness about education. They motivated her parents to send her to the RBC. When it became known that Amritha had gone to the camp, five other children, who heard about the life-changing experience, also joined her there. One of them was working at a roadside eatery and afraid that he wouldn’t be allowed to join the RBC, ran away without informing his employer. He walked 10 km to catch a train to the MVF camp. The MVF approach has given hundreds of children a chance at second childhood by fostering a sense of community ownership to ensure the elimination of child labour. This has provided support for a large number of such children to go beyond primary schooling. Many of them have achieved their dream of becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers and media personalities. Equally vulnerable to exploitation are those reported missing as they too are at risk of being trapped in working in dangerous trades.
Over 11,400 children were reported as missing in 2024–25, according to India Child Protection, a voluntary organisation, that prepared the report on child labour rescues in conjunction with Just Rights for Children, a civil society network of over 250 organisations working in coordination with law enforcement agencies to combat child labour and trafficking. Although a large number of these missing children have been found, they face similar challenges of rehabilitation. Adapting the community-based, child-protection approach to mainstream them back to school could be life-changing for all these children.
(The author is a journalist writing on development and gender. Views are personal)
