The Child

Ten year old Taya sews garlands of marigolds in the busy roadside gutteroutside her family's hut. Every day, she and her father enter the bustling streets of the city to sell their floral offerings.

Together they make 30-60 rupees per day - about $1-$2. The money helps feed the family one meal a day.

Taya limps painfully on her right foot, the result of an unattended injury incurred when she was run over by a taxi. She has never been to school and anyway, her father says she will be married within the next few years.

Sangeeta, 11, from Tirunelivelli in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, works about 16 hours a day rolling bidis (cigarettes) on a dusty factory floor. She says her desperately poor parents pledged her to the owner for a loan of 3,000 rupees (about 115 dollars).

As a bonded labourer she earns 2 rupees (eight cents) for rolling 1000 bidis a day, even though she should be getting 22 rupees (90 cents). The owner deducts the difference for the loan. Sangeeta has been working for 4 years already and the loan is still not paid.

The bidis she makes retail for 3 rupees each, yet there are no kickbacks in terms of conditions or health. Sangeeta has developed a chronic cough from the wet tobacco leaf.

Neither her nor Taya have ever been to school and probably never will. The United Nations estimates that there are between 73 and 115 million Indian child labourers like Taya and Sangeeta who are cheated out of play, education and health, who are denied a childhood.

Child labour is illegal in India and the constitution guarantees all children an education until the age of 14. Yet in the face of hunger and poverty there are no constitutional rights. The poor of India take whatever they can get. They have no choice but to send their children out to work.