Washington: A US-based non-governmental rights group has charged that "child slaves" abandoned to India's silk industry as bonded labour suffer burns, beatings and 12- hour work days.

"The Indian government is failing to protect the rights of hundreds of thousands of children who toil as virtual slaves in the industry," Human Rights Watch said in a new report.

Bound to their employers in exchange for a loan to their families, these children are unable to leave while in debt and earn so little they may never be free, it said, adding a majority of them are dalits.

The Indian government say there are no bonded children in India, but "they're everywhere. They are easy to find," said Zama Coursen-Neff, counsel to Human Rights Watch's children's rights division.

High-level government officials interviewed by Human Rights Watch denied that children were bonded or work in factories and said they have, therefore, shifted their focus to raising public awareness about child labour, instead of freeing children and prosecuting employers.

The Watch interviewed children, employers, government officials and members of non- governmental organisations in three states that form the core of India's sari and silk industries – Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

"At every stage of the silk industry, bonded children as young as five years old work 12 or more hours a day, six and a half or seven days a week. Children making silk thread dip their hands in boiling water that burns and blisters them," the Watch alleged.

It said, "The government has taken a number of steps in the right direction since our first investigation (in 1996). The National Human Rights Commission's (NHRC) involvement is especially encouraging," Coursen-Neff said. "However, most government efforts never reached beyond high-profile industries like carpets and beedi- cigarettes."

Human Rights Watch also urged the government to recognise and address the connection between caste and bondage. "Caste is one of the foundations of the bonded labour system," said Coursen-Neff, alleging "Dalits are denied access to land, forced to work in degrading conditions, and expected to perform free labour."

The Watch called on international donors to pressure the national and state governments in India to enforce the child labour and bonded labour laws. "Funding schools is important, but international donors should do more," said Coursen-Neff.

In Karnataka, India's primary producer of silk thread, "production still depends on bonded children", the rights group alleged.

"In Uttar Pradesh, most attention has been paid to child labour in the carpet industry, not silk" while in Tamil Nadu, which successfully identified more bonded labourers than any other state, most state initiatives have focused on children working in match and fireworks manufacture, it said.

Besides India, it probed bonded labour in Pakistan and Japan, advocating prosecution of offenders and rehabilitation of bonded labourers in Nepal and Sri Lanka.

PTI