50 Unpaid Child Laborers freed in India
Associated Press
December 28
NEW DELHI, India — Twelve-year-old Bhola worked more than 15 hours a day for two years without being paid or allowed to visit his parents. On Thursday, a local non-governmental organization freed him and 49 other such children.
The children, all boys ages eight to 14, are sons of poor farm laborers in eastern India's Bihar state. They had been brought to New Delhi to work in small factories making elaborately embroidered fabric called zari.
The embroidery requires working with glittering synthetic fibers and tiny needles, with which the children often hurt themselves.
"We freed these 50 children after some frantic parents came to us saying that they were unable to get in touch with their children," said Kailash Satyarthi of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or Save the Children Mission, the group that freed the young workers.
Despite India's growing economic power, child labor remains widespread there. An estimated 13 million children work, many in carpet-weaving or more dangerous industries like glassmaking, where such labor has been banned since 1986.
Earlier this year, India also banned hiring children under 14 as household servants or workers in restaurants, tea shops, hotels or spas.
But such laws are still flouted in small factories and businesses throughout the country, including dangerous firecracker-making plants. The children are usually poorly paid, underfed and often beaten.
Critics of India's child labor laws say the bans have had limited effect because they do little to realistically address the poverty at the root of the problem.
For the children, the issue is not as clear-cut as many outside India would think. They come from bitterly poor families and have little or no access to primary education. In many cases they are their families' sole breadwinners.
On Thursday, the newly freed children told reporters they had often been slapped and whipped with leather belts.
"For two years these children have worked for free," said Satyarthi. "This is a sort of slavery."
"There are a million such places where the child labor laws are laughed at," he said.
Charges have been filed against the owners of the factories where the children worked, but all three had apparently absconded. No other details were immediately available from the local police.
Bhola, who goes by one name, said he had worked from 8 a.m. to midnight most days, with two short meal breaks. At night, 15 to 20 boys slept in the same workroom.
"If we made mistakes, the owner would beat us with a belt and we would be given food once early in the morning and then at the end of the day," Bhola said.
His father, Ram Munyasa, had agreed to send him to New Delhi based on a middleman's promises that his son would get an education and a monthly salary of at least 3,000 to 4,000 rupees, or $65 to $80.
"Every few months, I would ask him why my son wasn't sending any money and I would be told that his work hadn't started yet. Finally I had to come to Delhi searching for him," Munyasa said.
Next to Bhola sat Ashraf, who said he is 11 but looked much younger. The Save the Children Mission has yet to find his parents. Until then, he will stay in a children's home. When asked what he wanted to do now that he is free, he said, "I want to go home to my mother."
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/28/asia/AS_GEN_India_Child_Labor.php
Tough child labor laws proposed
By Jyotsna Singh
BBC News, Delhi
December 22
The Indian government is proposing a complete ban on employing children below the age of 11.
Women and Child Development minister Renuka Chowdhary told the BBC that the move is aimed at providing basic education and health to all children.
Recently, India banned children under 14 from working as domestic servants or in food stalls.
Official statistics show India has 12 million child workers, but NGOs say the numbers could be as high as 60 million.
"The idea behind the proposal is to ensure the right to education and a life of dignity to every single child as enshrined in our constitution," Ms. Chowdhary told the BBC.
Right step
The proposal has now been sent to experts and the state governments for their opinion.
Children below the age of 14 are banned from a large number of hazardous industries and have been recently banned from being employed at homes and food stalls too.
But millions of children continue to work in other sectors not categorized as hazardous industries, such as making handicrafts, and on farmland.
NGOs working for the welfare of children say it is a step in the right direction.
But they say the government should raise the cut-off age and ban all child labor below 14.
"It is an irony that India is trying to match global standards in everything else as a fast growing economy, but it is adopting a separate standard on an important issue such as child labor. It will damage India's reputation internationally," Kailash Satyarthi of the Save the Childhood foundation told the BBC.
Rarely enforced
Experts say India has emerged as the second fastest growing economy in the world in recent years and can ill afford to ignore international opinion on key issues such as child labor.
India has laws in place to prohibit and regulate child labor, but activists say the ban is rarely enforced.
Many parents say they are too poor to support their children and are forced to send them to work - sometimes as young as five or six - in other people's homes or in factories.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6203699.stm
South Asia Regional Meeting of Global March says "Keep the Promises Up High!"
December 17
Global March Against Child Labor Regional Secretariat Kathmandu organized jointly with the International Center on Child labor and Education (ICCLE), Washington, D.C., the South Asia Regional Strategic Planning Meeting on Child Labor in Kathmandu on December 16 and 17, 2006. The participants were welcomed by the Director of CWIN Nepal and Regional Coordinator of Global March South Asia Mr. Gauri Pradhan.
The meeting concluded by reminding the Governments of South Asian Region to keep the promises up high in regard to redirecting millions of children from exploitation to education.
Mr. Subas Nembang, Speaker of the Nepalese Parliament, said: "Even though we are party to many international conventions and successive governments enacted laws related to the children, they are still exploited, sexually abused and new forms of abuses like adoption, child pornography are coming up against them."
Mr. Nembang added that the commitment of the regional meet would ensure the improvement of the status of children within the region.
Speaking on the occasion Mr. Kailash Satyarthi, Chairperson of the Global March Against Child Labor said that South Asia offers the biggest challenge and at the same time the biggest hope that child labor elimination is possible.
He appreciated the recent steps taken by the Governments of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India that will enable fighting the curse of child labor. He counted these as the first few encouraging steps, such as free education for girls in Pakistan and text books for all children, mid-day meals in a select number of states in India, the generous contributions and willingness on the part of the Federal Government to expand it to states with credible means and intent, declaring the employment of children in domestic work as illegal in India, and providing modest Taka 100 to every girl in Bangladesh as incentive to attend full time school and realizing full attendance. He said that these are encouraging signs.
He also cautioned that a lot still has to be realized in these countries. Children are rampantly engaged in various activities and in many situations the governments have preferred to stay in a state of denial. In India the rampant use of children in agriculture by MNCs and their local associates is disturbing.
In Nepal the large scale trafficking of children to India, the complete displacement of children because of ongoing low intensity warfare in side Nepal, and complete collapse of the school system and related infrastructure are very serious concerns.
The conflict in Afghanistan and Eastern part of Sri Lanka has exposed children to grave risks and has also allowed children to be forced into war.
Mr. Satyarthi also mentioned that children in agriculture still happen to be the largest source of employment of child labor and largest percentage of hardest to reach children because of long hours of forced work.
Mr. Satyarthi mentioned that child trafficking is another area where there is need for long term concerted joint action on the part of the Governments in the region.
He welcomed the suggestion on the part of the Minister of Education, Government of Pakistan to hold a joint meeting of the Ministers of Education and Labor of the South Asian Association For Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Kathmandu at the earliest to address this problem jointly. Mr. Satyarthi mentioned that Global March will shortly organize such a meeting and proposed that this is a great opportunity for International Labor Organization (ILO) to open a new frontier of joint action in the South Asian Region to address this problem at a higher political level of action.
Mr. Satyarthi also mentioned that the South Asian child labor situation is biggest challenge to the realization of education for all goals and the achievement of the MDGs. He said that the largest percentage of out of school “hardest to reach children” happen to be from this region. He said that it is up to the donors of the EFA and Fast Track Initiative to deepen their knowledge that we cannot bring all the children to schools till the time that we have specific mechanisms and strategies in place to bring visibility to the conditions of these children who are out of the national plans and ongoing EFA efforts and corresponding FTI mechanisms. If the Donors Governments want value addition to their investments in EFA then they need to ask where are the missing 15-20% children who are hardest to reach and what are the Governments doing to bring them to schools. Mr. Satyarthi said that ILO-IPEC needs to work with the Ministries of Education to facilitate technical skills and support to bring these children under the EFA plans and outreach strategies by assisting the Governments.
Dr. Sudhanshu Joshi, Executive Director of International Centre for Child Labor and Education, said the meeting would focus on finding out where the South Asian Regions stand on the Global March against Child Labor (GMACL) and its challenges in the region specifically as it is one of the most unique alliances of the global trade unions and the NGOs.
He added that as child labor perpetuates poverty, it is important to invest in education for children and bring them out of the labor market.
"In the past five years, the governments have become conscious about the existence of child labor in their respective countries," he said.
He reminded that donor coordination is necessary first step in harmonizing various ongoing efforts on education, poverty alleviation and elimination of child labor and detailed the progress made towards the establishment of the Global Task force on Child labor and Education with Secretariat in ILO Geneva. He said that donor harmonization is essential prerequisite and UNDP has a very important role in this regard at the national level.
The Deputy Resident Representative of the UNDP, Nepal Dr. Sri Ram Pandey elaborated the efforts undertaken in Nepal by the UNDP and the Government in addressing the issues of poverty alleviation, adult unemployment and the distortions in the labor market because of the rampant child labor problem. He said that there is a clear co-relation in Nepal on the extent of poverty, adult unemployment and prevalence of child labor. These distortions require immediate steps to correct to bring fairness in the labor market and realizing the agenda of decent work environment.
Major conclusions and recommendations of the meeting
• Education has to be interlinked with child labor and poverty to deal with the issue of eliminating child labor.
• There should be genuine partnership between the government and the civil society and non governmental organizations. (Genuine partnership is a partnership where space and ownership is provided to the partners ensuring their participation right from planning, implementation and monitoring)
• There should be mainstreaming of child labor issues in national development process.
• There should be encouragement of unionization in informal sectors and make link with Trade Unions so that there should be no more child labor exploitation.
• The meeting strongly felt the need of strengthening of the networks and alliances in the regional and national level in order to combat the child labor.
• There should be consultations in local and national level to make the issue more indigenous.
• There should be effective child labor inspection system in the government Mechanism.
Recognizing the South Asia as a motherland of innovative campaigns and movements, the regional meeting agreed to keep the movement vibrant in the coming days to create the social pressure to keep free the world's largest poverty stricken and child labor area.
Participating Organizations and Networks
- Global March Against Child Labor International Secretariat
- Child Workers in Nepal (CWIN, National Coordinator of GM, Nepal)
- Bangladesh Manobadhikar Sangbadik Forum (BMSF is an alliance of 600 Journalists in Bangladesh)
- Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF a network of 235 NGO’s in Bangladesh working on child rights issues)
- Bangladesh Institute of Labor Studies (BILS an association of 13 national trade union organizations in Bangladesh)
- PEACE, Sri Lanka
- M. V. Foundation, India
- Peace Trust, GM National Coordinator, India,
- Bachpan Bachao Andalon, India (BBA today represents a convergence platform of numerous stakeholders including the teachers union AIFTO (All India Federation of Teachers Organization), AIPTF (All India Primary Teachers Federation), various NGOs, human rights groups, and trade unions numbering almost 750 members).
- Society for Protection of Rights of the Child (SPARC), National Coordinator of GM in Pakistan
- Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS Centre of Trade Unions with 4.5 million members in India)
- GMACL – South Asian Regional Secretariat c/o CWIN – Nepal
- International Center for Child Labor and Education (ICCLE), Washington, DC
Pakistan's gleaming surgical instruments tarnished by child labor
By Hans Greimel
Associated Press
December 14
SIALKOT, Pakistan – The ceaseless sound of tapping metal echoes through these muddy, garbage-strewn alleys where thousands of workers in crumbling brick hovels churn out one of Pakistan's most successful exports – surgical instruments.
Home to more than 2,000 instrument makers, this city is one of the world's top producers of high-precision scalpels, forceps and retractors, almost all of which are bound for emergency rooms in the United States and other rich countries, where they help to save lives.
Yet, most patients a world away are unaware that these tools are tarnished by the toil of children working in dank workshops clouded with metal dust and earning just a few dollars a month.
That is starting to change, thanks to a U.N.-backed initiative to put child laborers back in school.
While the program underlines Pakistan's growing determination to tackle one of its biggest social scourges, it highlights how difficult eradicating child labor can be in a country where per capita income is $736 a year.
“I like to work,” says 12-year-old Kabir Qadeer, who has done odd jobs at a dental instrument maker for the past year-and-a-half for $18 a month. “I had no interest in school and quit. So my mother told me to get a job.”
Today, Qadeer is back at school – albeit for only two hours a day after his seven-hour shift – under a program sponsored by the U.N. International Labor Organization and the Surgical Instrument Manufacturers Association of Pakistan.
Launched in 2000, the program is modeled after a similar initiative that has won international acclaim for reducing child labor in Sialkot's booming soccer ball and sports equipment industry, which supplies companies like Nike and Adidas.
When the program wraps up its second phase at the end of this year, it will have taken more than 2,600 of an estimated 5,000 child laborers out of the surgical tool industry.
The next phase, through 2008, will target the remainder.
“We felt it was our responsibility to do something,” said Syed Waseem Abbas, senior vice chairman of the surgical instrument manufacturers association, and chief executive of Professional Hospital Furnishers.
No children are employed by the group's 2,300 members, according to the International Labor Organization.
The problem, however, lies with subcontractors that do as much as 70 percent of the finished product for bigger companies. There are 2,000 of these tiny workshops, sometimes employing only a couple of people each and often operating below the radar of monitors. Precision work on heavy equipment such as lathes is not usually done by children, but they are routinely employed in jobs such as cleaning and sorting.
Nike's recent clash with its Sialkot supplier of hand-stitched soccer balls shows how child labor often slips through the cracks. Last month, Nike canceled orders from Saga Sports after accusing the company of farming out work to subcontractors that used underaged workers.
International outcry about surgical instruments is quiet, by contrast, partly because Sialkot's medical goods are resold countless times by international wholesalers.
Sometimes equipment made here is even stamped “Made in Germany” at the request of middlemen worried about Pakistan's image – further obscuring their origin.
Sialkot's roots in surgical instruments stretch back centuries to the Punjabi swordsmiths of the Mogul empire. But it got its modern boost during World War II, when British colonial authorities called on the city's craftsmen for badly needed medical supplies.
Nowadays, the city pumps out 100 million instruments a year, and the United States and Germany are its biggest markets. International buyers may pay Sialkot suppliers $2 for forceps that eventually fetch upward of $60 when sold to a hospital, Abbas said.
The gap is part of the problem, say some labor rights activists.
Fairer trade would give Sialkot companies a bigger slice of the final sale and allow them to raise pay and improve working conditions of their employees.
“The solution lies in purchasers promoting fair trade, rather than a simple, 'We won't buy child labor.' This only makes the poor poorer,” says Mahmood Bhutta, a doctor in Britain who has written on surgical instrument labor and is trying to set up a fair-trade supplier.
But many poor Pakistani families rely on incomes from their children to get by. UNICEF estimates there are 3.6 million working boys and girls under age 14 in Pakistan, mostly engaged in carpet-weaving, brick-making, agriculture and deep-sea fishing.
“The problem with our country is that we accept child labor as a way of life,” said Fazila Gulrez, spokeswoman for the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child. “There's not a single economic sector in Pakistan where children are not employed.”
Kabir is among those apparently satisfied with the status quo.
Gathering half-finished dental probes from the grit-covered factory floor, he says he can't wait to turn 15 so he can graduate to the grinders, lathes and other machines reserved for his elders. His boss, who started work at 14, has promised $1.60 a day then.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20061214-1041-pakistan-instrumentsoftoil.html
Child labor depriving kids of education, says study
The Peninsula
December 10
DOHA – A study conducted by the Qatari Supreme Council for Family Affairs (SCFA) has drawn attention to the issue of child labor in the country, which it said, has been depriving a number of children from school education.
Though there are no exact figures available in this regard, the high number of school drop outs points to the prevalence of this social phenomenon, especially in the rural areas, the study noted.
The Qatari law has made education free and compulsory for all Qatari children. The SCFA study urged the authorities concerned to ensure that this law has been fully enforced.
It noted that financial difficulties might be forcing several families to send their children for difficult jobs at a very early age.
The impact of this on the health and upbringing of the child requires serious attention.
The study underlined the need for creating awareness among the parents, besides taking other necessary steps to check the phenomenon.
It is also necessary to identify the school drops outs in the country and bring them back to the educational process through the literacy and adult education program.
It also called for an in-depth study on the issue and prepare statistics on school drop outs.
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=
Qatar+News&month=December2006&file=Local_News200612108846.xml
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Child trafficking: Now in a Yemeni cartoon
By Huda al-Kibsi
Yemen Observer Newspaper
December 9
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Rafah al-Ashwal with her winning picture |
Cartoons are often associated with amusing or light topics. But a new cartoon created by a program sponsored by UNICEF is tackling a very serious subject. The animated film, “Ahmed’s Back,” deals with the topic of child trafficking, the act of kidnapping children to sell them into some form of servitude or slavery. Its creators hope that the cartoon will help spread awareness of child trafficking, a problem that plagues Yemen and its neighbor, Saudi Arabia.
The cartoon will show the importance of children’s rights, said Mariam al-Shawafi, the secretary-general of the Shawthab Foundation for Childhood & Development, at the Yemeni-Saudi conference on child trafficking held several days ago at the Movenpick Hotel. “It is the first educational cartoon film to consider the child trafficking phenomenon in Yemen,” she said. “The film is the SCD’s idea, funded by UNICEF and expected to be showed in January.”
SCD has carried out many programs that support children’s rights, and fights the violence against them. Al-Shawafi participated in the recent conference, along with two of the SCD programs, in activities organized by the child protection program in UNICEF and in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor. The conference was held under the title “The Media Education on the Child Trafficking Phenomenon.”
“The idea of the film is to emphasize children’s needs for protection, and their rights to obtaining information, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Yemeni law on child rights,” said al-Shawafi. The foundation supports the continuing growth of its specialists. So the SCD has insisted on supporting its head manager in creating a master’s program on children’s rights.
The program is the first of its kind in the Arab World, said Lamia al-Eryani, the head manager of SCD. “This may give the foundation the opportunity to step in with positive ways in the child rights cases, according to universal methods and international norms aiming at enabling the child to take his rights.” “The film has a general aim, which is to participate in opposing child trafficking. It also aims to educate the community about the real danger of child trafficking.
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Children compete to create film-worthy artwork |
It wants to transfer the information to the children in the simplest and most effective ways, and to allow the children to participate in the film by drawing characters, narrating the story, and suggesting names for the characters, to participate in decreasing the phenomenon.” In April, 2006, the foundation announced in newspapers a competition for the best cartoon of a Yemeni family.
Five governorate participated in the competition: Sana’a, Aden, Hajjah, Hodeidah, and Taiz. Five participants from each governorate were selected and listed, leaving twenty participants. A team of special artists, such as Mohammed al-Yemeni and Adel al-Mawri, and two children, went to those governments to collect these paintings and evaluate them. “We insist on involving children in everything, even the plans and decisions,” said al-Shawafi.
Reportage was made about child trafficking and what children think about the cartoon’s role in education. On June 28, 2006, the winner was announced in a celebration attended by 120 persons, including 30 children. The winner was Rafah al-Ashwal, who won YR 100,000, funded by the UNICEF. A workshop was created by a committee of psychologists, sociologists, young artists, and cartoon specialists to evaluate and see what the paintings needed, and then completed them before they were sent to Cairo to be used in creating the cartoon characters. The SCD got the idea for the film’s story from a children’s story writer.
The story is a children’s idea, and was given to the writer to form it into a narrative. SCD looked for a cartoon production company in Egypt, Syria, and Kuwait, and finally chose the Akhnatoon Egyptian Company to produce the film. The SCD has also visited the Akhnatoon Company through Mazen Shoja’a, the project organizer, to sign the contract with them. Other preparations for the film included the designing of minor characters for the film, writing the scenes, and having it reviewed by the production company and the Shawthab Foundation.
It was then set to music and prepared for vocal dubbing. In the conference, al-Shawafi also talked about one of the important programs created by the SCD, which is a seven-meter high mural made by the children’s pictures. With participation of 120 kids from different categories (street children, worker children, orphans, handicapped children, and students), a lecture took place that described the resistance to violence against children, and the real danger of trafficking children out of the country. After the lecture, the SCD received around 120 emotional pictures drawn by the children in Al-Sab’een Park.
After collecting all of the pictures, the SCD arranged them in a big mural. Similar murals have been created in many schools, hospitals, social houses and children’s gatherings at public parks throughout this year. About 120,000 children have benefited from this mural, in which they learned about resisting violence against children and the real danger of child trafficking. One child wrote what he had learned on the blackboard of his school. “No for violence against children. No for child trafficking.”
http://www.yobserver.com/article-11355.php
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Child labor is a way of life
By Alaa Shahine
The Mercury, South Africa
December 4
Mohamed Gad walks barefoot through the muddy tannery, seemingly not bothered by the acrid odors of chemicals and the stink of unprocessed skins.
He places piles of shaved leather on a cart, pulls it across the workshop and unloads the lot next to the coloring drums where the leather is cleaned and tanned using chrome.
Tall and well-built, Gad joined the tannery just before he turned 15, after having worked in several menial jobs for four years after leaving school.
"The school was failing me every year and still charged me money, so I quit," he said while arranging the leather on the cart.
"Now I want to learn this craft to make money out of it."
Helping Gad was Mohamed, who looked younger but was too shy to speak.
About 2.7 million children work in Egypt, or about 10% of the under-14 population, official figures show. The majority work in agriculture, mainly harvesting crops and hand-picking pests off cotton.
Hundreds of thousands of children, many of them homeless, also toil in menial jobs at tanneries and garages, or sell tissues and newspapers at traffic lights.
"There is abject poverty in Egypt, so families use children as breadwinners," said Nevine Osman, a child labor expert for the International Labor Organization in Cairo.
Gad says he earns about 320 Egyptian pounds (R400) a month, more than some state employees. He sends half the money to his family in Assiut, a poor area in upper Egypt.
Mahmoud Mortada, who runs a non-government organization helping children who work at pottery shops, said many families approved of children working.
"There is a social acceptance of child labor," he said. "People are unaware of the dangers of children working for more than 10 hours a day."
Gad's tannery is in Cairo's working class area of Magra al-Oyoun, where streams of sewage run along narrow, unpaved alleys and piles of animal waste are left to rot.
At a shelter run by Hope Village, an Egyptian non-government organization helping street children, 12-year-old Wagdy Abdel-Aziz said he was paid to roam the streets to collect plastic between dusk and dawn to avoid detection by the authorities.
The shelter hosts about 25 homeless children each day and offers them hot meals, showers and beds.
"I haven't got used to work, but it does not bother me anymore," said 13-year-old Ali Shabaan, who worked as a mechanic and a carpenter before his current job, which is to erect and furnish tents that are used for weddings and funerals.
After a meal of beans and cheese, he and the other children huddled in a small room watching cartoon movies on a computer screen and playing cards, custom-made with drawings warning against the dangers of smoking, illegal drugs and HIV/Aids.
Most children interviewed at the shelter said that they were illiterate despite having spent several years at school.
The International Labor Organization says that there are about 218 million child laborers and about 100 million legally-employed adolescent workers around the world. In some regions, the majority of those workers encountered some form of violence or abuse.
Domestic employees, young people working in the informal economy, modern forms of slavery and those doing dangerous work like mining or working on plantations are most at risk, the organization says.
In Egypt many poor families take their children out of school, fearing that they will learn no skills in the classroom and will end up jobless after graduation. Experts say that the education system is failing to meet the needs of the labor market.
The government says that the unemployment rate stands at 9.5%, but the figure is widely believed to be much higher.
Gad's boss, Rami Salama, says that he cannot afford to have adults doing menial jobs. "If you look at China, it has flooded the world with its products because of the (cheap) labor cost," Salama said.
But the emotional cost to vulnerable children who are forced to work from an early age - and sometimes exposed to sexual assault and illegal drugs - is very high.
"They are also more prone to depression, anxiety and insomnia than normal children," said Shams Labib, a clinical psychologist with Doctors of the World, an international health and human rights organization.
"They usually suffer from family problems. Those who should love and protect them abuse them," she said.
Amal Shoukry, a 12-year-old girl who has worked as a servant for half of her life, agrees. "Our parents are the reason behind this," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. - Reuters
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