Saga of Agony and Shame: Child Labour and Child Abuse in India and the SAARC Countries

In this book Dr M.S. Bhattacharya offers nothing less than a comprehensive account of child labour and child abuse in almost the entire South Asia. It began with the days of the Raj when newly set-up industries and plantations started employing children on a large scale to augment production which continued for a long time until trade union movements and resultant labour legislations restricted the employment of children in the factories and plantations. The state of child labour in the neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka vis-a-vis India, the economy of child labour, its socio-cultural roots, the treatment of children in the ancient world and possible remedies to the problem form part of this study. Further, in this book child abuse and juvenile delinquency, two inseparably linked phenomena have been discussed with a rare sense of aptness. This intensely directed study has mapped, perhaps for the first time, the problems of child labour, child abuse and juvenile delinquency with absorbing details.