Crackdown on bonded labour: Tamil Nadu Legal Service Authority conducts surprise checks in Chennai jewellery-making units

CHENNAI: Five days after the Chennai city police rescued 43 minor boys and 17 adults who were working as bonded labourers in five jewellery-making units on the Wall Tax Road and nearby areas, the Tamil Nadu Legal Service Authority ( TNLSA ) on Wednesday conducted a surprise check in similar units.

Sources privy to the raid said the Chennai district legal service authority formed special teams to check several jewellery-making units.

Inquiries with the local people revealed that the units had been engaging minor boys for years. However, the team found no minors in the units.

Sources said after the raid on September 6 which led to the rescue of 60 bonded labourers, the owners of the other units might have discreetly moved the minor boys out of the facilities to escape legal action.

“Officials are planning to take the adults working in the units for inquiry,” said a source.

The police registered cases against the owners of the five units under different sections of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1976 and the Child Labourer (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986. The police have also invoked various sections of the Indian Penal Code for wrongful restraint, wrongful confinement for a period of 10 or more days, trafficking of persons and unlawful compulsory labour.