Nearly 200 child workers, some as young as eight, were freed from factories that produce bangle jewelry in Hyderabad in southern India over the last week, as part of a crackdown that will continue until the end of the month, police said on Tuesday. Most children were aged between eight and 14 and came from the poor northeastern states of Bihar, West Bengal and Assam, said officials who are part of “Operation Smile,” a non-profit that tackles child labor and missing children.
Earlier this month, around 200 children, most of them aged under 14, were freed from a brick kiln about 25 miles from Hyderabad, where over 2,000 more have been freed since 2015. In 2015, the International Labour Organization put the number of Indian child workers aged between five and 17 at 5.7 million, out of 168 million globally.
— source telesurtv.net