19 February 2007, New Delhi: 11-year-old Devi has not yet been able to understand why she had been forced to break heavy stones in a quarry where she was born, or why her parents and grandparents were never allowed to leave the mining area in Haryana. She has never seen money or touched paper; never experienced things like electricity or tap water until she was freed in a dangerous rescue mission by the activists of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), couple of years back. She lived in the organisation's education-transit rehabilitation center for a few months, where she gathered the courage to question- "Why is there human trafficking?? Why does slavery still go on?" Devi wants to make herself loud and clear to the whole world and wants to stop this human crime now. She is joining the South Asian March Against Child Trafficking along with several other children and youth with similar tales of horror from 25 February 2007 in Kolkata. This is being by BBA, Global March Against Child Labour, in association with several NGOs, Teacher Unions, UN agencies like ILO, UNIFEM, UNICEF, UNDP, UNODC; and other civil society groups.

Rakesh is a 13 year old boy was trafficked from his native village in Saharsa, Bihar to a village near Amritsar , Punjab, in 2001. There, he lived a life of a slave along with some other children for five long years. They used to stay in a cow shed and work up to 18 hours everyday. To ensure that they worked longer hours, they were given a drug to keep them awake. Finally, BBA rescued Rakesh and the other children in 2006. Rakesh says: "I cried a lot and missed my mother everyday. I lost any hope of ever meeting her. But when I saw her, I could not even communicate my tale of woe as I had forgotten Maithili, my mother tongue and she couldn't understand my 'master tongue' Punjabi, the only language I speak now."

South Asian March Against Child Trafficking is the first ever and the largest social intervention to challenge the crime of human trafficking- the third largest illicit trade with revenues up to 12 billion USD every year. An estimated 1.2 million children worldwide are victims of trafficking for forced labour every year. Conservative estimates put that 5000-7000 children are trafficked from Nepal to India every year for prostitution. But if we count the intra-state trafficking, the figures would be in hundreds of thousands.

At the official launch Kailash Satyarthi, Chairperson Global March Against Child Labour and founder, BBA said, "The objectives of the march are to build a mass movement against child trafficking highlighting the neglected area of trafficking for forced labour. Secondly, to demand for urgent legal measures and a comprehensive policy for repatriation and rehabilitation for victims and prosecution and conviction of the traffickers."

Simon Steyne, representative of the International Trade Union Confederation in the Global March Council, and ILO Governing Body Workers' Group spokesperson in the Steering Committee of the ILO International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour said, "Trafficking of children is one of the most prevalent and heinous worst forms of child labour. The fact that children in India are trafficked from one part of the country to the other as well as from abroad demonstrates that this is not always cross border movement. Many governments around the world conflate trafficking with migration – a key reason why governments do not always protect the victims but may instead deport them as illegal migrants. But trafficking is always a subset of forced labour, because its key characteristics are coercion or deception. Kailash is right, all governments need to ensure comprehensive measures to protect the human rights of the victims and to prosecute the exploiters and abusers".

100 core marchers, with half of them being former victims of bonded labour and trafficking would reach Delhi on 22 March 2007. Thousands of people will join the march everyday in the mass meetings, public hearings and other various cultural programmes by local people. Street theatre groups, local folk music and tribal music groups would lend their support through song, dance and theatrical performances to sensitise the Indian sub continent against this fast growing crime. This innovative march will also see massive support from celebrities, politicians and important personalities who will march in sync with the children at different places of the march.

Other key places

Simultaneously, several other media events and press conference were organized at different places across the country. BBA’s chairperson, Mr. R.S.Chaurasia led the launched activities in Mirzapur (U.P.), while the national secretary, Ms Suman addressed a widely attended press conference at Agra (U.P). Other leaders including Rajendra Gunjal, Convenor, Rajasthan; Sanjay Mishra, Convenor, Jharkhand; Dr. Ramakant Rai, National Coordinator, Ethical Trade Campaign; Ms Sumedha Kailash, Director, Bal Ashram also addressed the press at Jaipur, Ranchi, Lucknow and Meerut respectively.