Why Didn't You Come Sooner? Compassion in Action: Stories of Children Rescued Form Slavery
Synopsis "Why Didn't You Come Sooner? Compassion in Action: Stories of Children Rescued Form Slavery"
The work of rescuing children from slavery is not for the faint of heart, as thetwelve gut-wrenching accounts in this book will show. Harder still is to givethem their life back, after they've been kidnapped, trafficked, sold, abused andmade to work in horrific conditions, often for as long as they can remember.Pradeep was offered up for human sacrifice by his family, thought to be a badomen; Devli was a third-generation slave in a stone quarry in Haryana, whohad never seen a banana before her rescue; Ashraf, a domestic child labourerat a senior civil servant's house, was starved and scalded as punishment;Sahiba was trafficked from Assam to be someone's wife against her will; Kaluwas abducted and made to weave carpets all day long, his injuries cauterizedwith phosphorus scraped off matchsticks; Bhavna was trapped in a circus, sexually abused for years by her owners; Rakesh was worked in the fields allyear round like cattle, and spent the nights locked up with them in the stable;Sabo was born to labourers at a brick kiln, and never knew life outside it; andManan lived his childhood mining mica in the forests of Jharkhand, barelygiven time to even mourn his friend who got buried when the mine caved in.Kailash Satyarthi's own life and mission were entwined with the journeysof these children. Having lived through unspeakable trauma, they had lostfaith in humanity. But behind their reticence, behind their scraggy limbs andcalloused hands and feet, hope still endured. This book tells the story of theirshared struggle for justice and dignity-from the raid and rescue operationsof Satyarthi's Bachpan Bachao Andolan, to international campaigns for childrights. It is a testament both to the courage of the human spirit and to thepower of compassion.
