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To whom it may concern:

When you are having three meals every day, could you imagine children in India are selling themselves for food? Would you allow a 10-year-old child to work 18 hours a day? (Faleiro) After reading “Children Who Sell Themselves” on The New York Times, I would like to draw awareness about the child labor issue in Bihar, India.  I feel sorry for the children who sell themselves for a living. Everyone should have equal rights and educational opportunity.

Sonia Faleiro, a writer went to northern state of Bihar, which is an established source of children for trading networks. Apart from the expected stories of abduction, she also heard about sad and heart-breaking news about children as young as 10 had begun to sell off themself to traders, because they could no longer go hungry.

She interviewed 14 year-old Arun Kumar and heard his experience.

Kumar lives with his uncle and two younger siblings in Amni village, where it takes a day to travel by bus from Patna, the Bihar state capital.

Two days before they met, Kumar had brought back home by a local nonprofit organization, supported by Save the Children, from a rice mill in the state of Haryana. He had been working 18-hour, seven days a week. Do you think this is reasonable for a child to work that long? Are they supposed to work that hard at this age? Also, he had been paid only 800 rupees (a bit less than $20) a month. When the nonprofit organization first entreated, they threatened the factory owner with a huge crowd of noisy protest outside his mill. He then argued, “I paid for him”, before finally releasing Kumar. Do you think this is reasonable? Do you think the factory owner really “owns” Kumar even though he paid for him?


This was not the first time the organization had sent Kumar back to home. He had been brought back home from another rice mills last year. However, the police were not approached either time, as the police knew they are paid off by traffickers. Is it this fair to the children who are trafficked?

Better-off families in Amni eat twice a day. The village has never had electricity, running water or land to cultivate. There are no opportunities for education or employment. Poverty has led to feed child labor. India has an estimated 17 million child laborers. Many of them can be seen in roadside restaurants, bakeries and car repair shops. Urban Indians assume that these children are sent to work by their parents to a little extra cash. Do you think it is moral to allow these illegal and immoral trade to exist? The poverty of the country, the children’s needs, the public's blind eye and the profits of these illegal trades allowed these immoral networks to exist under India’s child labor laws.

I am very upset about how Kumar was made to return home not once but twice still does not destroy his wishes to work. This shows the despair of the children in Bihar and how desperate they need money for food. Therefore, I would like to ask for your help to save the children from the brutal owners and harsh work by donating to one of the biggest activist organizations – Save the Children. “Save the Children” is an international active non-governmental organization that promotes children’s right. They would organize mini-groups which bring the children who are working in work mills like where Kumar was back home. The money donated would provide food and teach them how to cultivate to make a living by themselves.

For more information, please visit: https://www.savethechildren.ca/sslpage.aspx?pid=298. 

It would make a real difference on the children’s life by providing them food and educating them. I kindly ask for your help. You can make a change to their lives by simply donating now!

Thank you for reading!

Yours sincerely,
Joyce Chow

Works Cited

Faleiro, Sonia. Children Who Sell Themselves. 6 September 2011. Electronic. 1 Marcch 2012.


KHETAN, P. (2012, 4 4). Retrieved from http://pradeepkhetan.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html


Siddiqui, A. A. (2012, 3 4). Patna, Bihar News and Photo Blog. Retrieved from http://viewpatna.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html