India

A recent report by the Asian Centre for Human Rights revealed that the practice of using child police officers is widespread in India’s Chhattisgarh state.

The group said that local authorities have admitted using around 300 children as police officers.

One of them is 8-year-old Animesh.

At home, he’s getting ready for work... putting on his police uniform.

32-year-old mother Sarojini says she feels sorry for her son...

“He didn’t know anything about working. Other children are still playing at his age, but we have to send him to work. It was a really difficult situation for us, but we had no option.”

Animesh’s father was a police constable who died when he was 2. He doesn’t know anything about the details of the accident.

“It was his 2nd birthday and the next day his father went to work in a nearby city,” says Animesh’ uncle, Chandrakant Daheria.

“He returned home by train, he even called us from the railway station. He stood at the door of the train to see the station... and suddenly his head hit a pole on the track. He died instantly. We found out about it only a day after the accident.”

Animesh then took a job as a child police officer when he was 5.

“I go to the office every other day. One day I go to school, the next day I work at the office. I don’t want to go there... they always make fun of me.”

His mother has to persuade Animesh to go on working.

“I have to give him chocolate, or ice cream, or other treats just to make him go. In the past I used to take him to the office, or my brother did, but now he goes on his own bike.”

Animesh is not the only child working in the Chhattisgarh Police Department. There are hundreds more... carrying files from one table to another... cleaning rooms... or serving tea to senior officers... for 80 US dollars a month.

The child police officers are part of a police policy in Chhattissgarh state that allows them to employ children of police officers who have been killed on duty.

These children work 3 days a week... but to do that, they have to skip school.

The Asian Centre for Human Rights filed a complaint last year against the practice, says human rights activist Anirban Pathak.

“It’s really inhuman when a 5-year-old child goes to an office instead of school. The police department should give a full salary to the families of officers who died on duty. But such small children shouldn’t be asked to come to the office. We have written a letter to the police department to stop the practice, but so far they haven’t done anything.”
 
Animesh is riding his bike to work... And wearing his police uniform, he’s often ridiculed by his friends.

“They call me child police... I don’t like going to the office.”