90% of kids rescued last year were from child labour: Report

NEW DELHI: Nearly 90% of the 44,902 children freed from the clutches of exploitation in over 27,000 operations between April 2024 and March this year were rescued from child labour, according to a report. The children were rescued by a collective of voluntary organisations in collaboration with authorities.

The highest number of rescue operations (23,530) were related to child labour, followed by cases of sexual exploitation (2,766), and begging (1,092). Telangana reported the highest number of child labour rescues (11,063), followed by Bihar (3,974), Rajasthan (3,847), Uttar Pradesh (3,804), and Delhi (2,588). As many as 2,971 children were rescued from sexual exploitation, with West Bengal standing out at the top with 1,005 rescues followed by Bihar (454), Odisha (232), Maharashtra (194) and Rajasthan (191).

The report, prepared by voluntary organisation India Child Protection, has drawn from data gathered by Just Rights for Children, a civil society network of over 250 organisations in across 26 states and UTs working in coordination with law enforcement agencies to combat child labour and trafficking as an organised economic crime.

Focusing on how prosecution acts as a tipping point to end child labour, the report highlighted that legal action taken in 27,320 operations, showed that in majority of cases that is 35% (9,595) FIRs were registered - seen as a the most critical step in ensuring that those who are exploiting are prosecuted. In another 25% (6,959) cases were filed as General Diary entries, which are initial police records.

In addition, around 23% of legal actions involved orders from child welfare committees (CWCs) or were filed under Form 17 of Juvenile Justice Rules, both of which focus on immediate care, protection and rehabilitation of rescued children. In 14% cases, challans were issued by labour departments, mainly in cases of child labour, serving as administrative penalties. The report said a very small proportion (less than 1%) were orders from district magistrates or sub-divisional magistrates, and only about 2% of cases had no clear legal action recorded.

Just Rights for Children national convener Ravi Kant said despite gaps, prosecution action, crucial in creating strong deterrent against trafficking and child labour, is getting stronger in India.

The report also highlighted that 5,809 employers and traffickers were arrested as part of these rescue operations and 85% of these were in child labour-related cases. Telangana, Bihar and Rajasthan reported the highest arrests, while states like UP and MP had fewer arrests despite high rescue numbers - highlighting enforcement gaps. The report also draws attention to missing children data, citing that is not uncommon for children classified as missing to be subsequently rescued from exploitative labour situations.

Nearly 11,409 missing children were identified by the civil society network in 11,068 FIRs over 2024-25. Of them, 8,749 children were reported to be traced by March-end this year. States such as West Bengal (3,509), Maharashtra (1,149), and Bihar (1,306) reported the highest rescues of missing children, pointing to active coordination with child tracking systems.