Childline: An Amazing Organization

I had an amazing experience learning about child labor in India on my visit this summer. You see India is one of the hot spots for child labor. In fact, nearly 20% of kids in India engage in some kind of bonded labor.

It was earlier this year that I had become aware of and had read extensively on child labor, By the time I reached India, I was ready and raring to go. I pushed my mom to find "someone", "something". She flitted from contact to contact, considering some, dismissing others.

Just as I was about to give up, an article in the local newspaper caught my attention. About 15 kids or so had been rescued from bonded labor by an organization called "Childline".  I learned Childline was basically a nonprofit organization that rescued kids from child labor, abuse, trafficking, etc. They were based in four locations around India -- one, by chance, being 45 minutes from our house in Chennai (South India). My mom managed to get in contact with Anuradha Vidyasankar, Head of the Southern Organization to learn about child labor and what Childline was doing abut it.

It was a modest office. No furnishings or decorations, a few tens of people working on computers and the rest in allocated offices. Anuradha greeted us and I was immediately struck by her warm smile and pleasant personality. Even though I am a child, she talked to me in the nicest way -- entertaining all my questions and making the conversation interesting and engaging. She ordered coffee -- and even though my mom does not approve, I managed to get away that one time!

She told me much about Childline's operations in India and the challenges they face. It is a NGO (non-profit) that has rescued more than a million kids from child abuse/labor/trafficking since its modest start 15 years ago. Their base operation is in Mumbai, India and its employees are driven not by money but by passion and moral obligation.

Their hotline is "1098", from which people can call for emergencies. Once Childline recieves the call, they determine the urgency of the situation and send out a social worker the same day or at the earliest. Once the rescue is made, begins the hard part of rehabilitating the children.

Over then next few blogs, I will share all that I learned and some stories of rescued children that Anuradha shared with me.