Bangladeshi child labour in Meghalaya's coal mines

Young children from Bangladesh have been found working in coal mines in the Indian state of Meghalaya. The coal in these mines are rich in sulphur content, injurious for the health, even more so for children.
An average of 10,000 people, mostly children, are trafficked annually into India's Northeast region with a good number smuggled in from Bangladesh, Nepal and other South East Asian countries, surveys by NGOs reveal. Most of those trafficked are then engaged as cheap labour in coal mines of Meghalaya, tea gardens in Assam and prostitution.
“The region, besides being a transit point of human trafficking, has also emerged as a destination point. We have rescued a number of children hailing from Nepal and Bangladesh in Assam and Meghalaya who were trafficked and to work as cheap labour,” says Hasina Kharbhih, Team Leader of Impulse NGO. “Cross border trafficking is very much relevant in NE, with the region sharing borders with five countries. Some large international trafficking gangs are in operation in the region,” she says.
A Nepali minor girl, who was trafficked to Assam along with three others, was rescued by Impulse from a house in Assam and repatriated home on September 17. Two other boys, who were trafficked from Bangladesh and were working in the coal mines of Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya were also been rescued and were likely to be sent home soon.
While trafficked children are often booked under the Illegal Migration Act, Impulse feels the Juvenile Justice Act or the proposals of the SAARC Convention on Trafficking could be applied to repatriate the victims to their homes, the NGOs say. Many of these children are trafficked in connivance with their parents.
It is estimated that Nepalese children constitute 20 per cent (40,000) of the estimated 200,000 Nepalese prostitutes in India. “It is estimate that some 6,000 to 10,000 girls are trafficked annually from Nepal to Indian brothels and a similar number are trafficked from Bangladesh. About 27,000 Bangladeshi women and children have been forced into prostitution in Indian brothels,” a Childline India Foundation report says.
The average age of girls trafficked from Bangladesh and Nepal into India has fallen over the past decade from 16-18 to 10-15 years. With India sharing a 4,222 kilometre border with 28 districts of Bangladesh, most of it open with rivers crisscrossing it, traffickers take advantage of this to smuggle in their hapless human cargo.