Chasing birds in the hill jungle Jawadhu Tamil Nadu on August afternoon, Sakthi Kumar was 13 years old and his friends TirumuThy and Prabhu were approached by a middle-aged man who offered them clothes, money and cellphones.
The stranger gets a trio to accompany him on his motorcycle and they rise four and a half hours to reach the Siruvachur cotton field in the region district.
Children pay a heavy price to give up on the iminging of the award that seems easy.
They are made to work hard from dawn to dusk in fields – ranging from cotton that carry out manually to harvest the product.
Every year, during the cotton season starting in August to January, Malayali tribal children from Kalvarayan, Jawadhu and Hills Vellimalai are traded to work in unforgiving conditions in villages spread in Kallakuruchi and Salem.
They arrived at the fields around 4 in the morning to eliminate the select from the flower that grew in the line identified as a woman.
Child labor covers the flowers issued with plastic strips to avoid pollen contamination, collect pollen grains from a series of other flowers in the row chosen as men, clean them on the flowers released and make them fertilize.
“If we work from morning to 6pm, we get Rs 300,” said Sakaki Vel, a 15-year-old boy who worked there last year.
“If we rest other than lunch, or if the plants don’t produce enough Bolls, they cut our fees.” Sakshi, TirumuTy and Prabhu are students of Mahakshmi, who taught at the government managed by the government in Arasave.
Over the years, the 36-year-old has knocked the village door, alternatively begging and rebuking parents until they agreed to send their children to school.
When school reopened after a long pandemic break, at least 200 students did not appear.
This happens that they work on Siruvachur cotton farms, attartors and thalavasal.
At least 25 of them, including Sakaki, have been captivated without the knowledge of their parents.
When the children did not return home, parents combed Jawadhumalai forests and then reached P to Nandakumar, MLA of Anaikattu.
A few hours later, they got a call from Sakshi, who told them from the telephone borrowed that he and the children worked on a cotton farm owned by one R Gunasekar in Siruvachur.
When Tii contacted Gunasekar, he denied cultivating cotton, let alone hiring Murugan, Director of the Director of Childline’s project in Tiruvannamalai, said 250 children from Jawadhumalai had worked in Siruvachur in recent months.
“The numbers can run into hundreds if we start counting children from other parts.” Tiruvannamalai SP A Pavan Kumar claimed the rescue operation was carried out recently as last month.
“We intercept the bus that brought children from Jawadhu Hills.
Local officials are always ready to take complaints.” Mahalakhmi said the owner of the influential land and broker continued to explore the hills for child farming.
“Their nose is trained to feel poverty and despair.” The police allegedly failed to take action against human traders even though they were often warned.
Murugan Childline said there were examples of children traded for a year.
“Brokers pay a down payment of Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 to the children’s family and promise to send them back with more than Rs 30,000 for one working year.
This, of course, fake.” Sakaki and his friends quietly fell on the depot.
The Tiruvannam Bus After a month used for the work that catapulted.