What it's all about: India

"I've signed up to do the 40 Hour Famine. Now what's all this about.. child labour, trafficking and slavery?!"

India fact file

• 7th largest country in area in the world
• 1.1 billion people
• Sub-continental country sitting between the Middle East and Asia
• 300 million people live on less than US$1 per day
• 4 out of 10 people can't read or write
• Almost half of all kids under five are malnourished

Poverty in India

India is going through an economic boom. But even with all this money, India still has more poverty than any country on earth. Confused? Here are some reasons why there's poverty in India:

• India is BIG. With so many people, it's hard to get resources spread out evenly.
• A high level of illiteracy. There are A LOT of people who can't read or write. For these people it's really hard to earn money, so they have to work in the fields, in sweat shops or picking up rubbish, just so they can buy enough food to eat.
• The caste system. India has a traditional cultural system called the 'caste system'. Although it has been outlawed, in practice it's still very influential. For the huge number of people at the bottom of ladder it's really hard to get an education or a better job.

In India, you see child labour everywhere

Caption...

Question: How do families get money if they can't read or write, or get a decent job?
Answer: They all work doing anything they can.

The cold, hard truth about poverty is that for many poor families, child labour can be the only way to survive.

Child labour means:

• Hard work, for little or no pay
• Kids as young as four or five are forced to work
• They work in dangerous places, like garbage dumps, sweatshops and factories
• They may work up to 17 hours a day, seven days a week
• Kids sometimes eat and sleep in their workplace
• They can't go to school.

Child trafficking: Tricked, stolen or sold into slavery

'Child labour' also refers to when kids are tricked, stolen or sold into slavery. When a family is poor, parents or relatives sometimes 'sell' children to borrow money from corrupt moneylenders. The kids often receive no pay, and are forced to work very long hours, in dangerous conditions, very far from home.

There are 45-80 million Indian kids working in child labour right now.

Rural children and families are often ‘tricked' into sending away their children to the city with the promise of a good job, only to find they are forced into child labour. Children can even be ‘stolen' from their families to work in factories, farms or sweatshops.

The crunch

The main reasons kids are forced into child labour, trafficking and slavery are:

• Poverty, cultural practices
• Lack of education
• People want to exploit them as cheap/free labour
• Child protection laws are not enforced.