21st century India is a land of infinite layers. There are sprawling “mega cities”, where an ever-growing array of multinational companies, call centres, and high-technology firms rub shoulders with teeming slums that occupy every inch of urban wasteland. Meanwhile, traditional ways of life continue untouched in rural villages. There are temples, cinemas, politics, schools … and cricket. And everywhere the age-old struggle between poverty and potential rages on. New visitors find the sheer diversity “overwhelming”.
11 million slumdogs
India has another layer. One that the film Slumdog Millionaire highlighted – though for most real-life slumdogs there is no happy ending. India is home to the world’s largest population of street children. Conservative estimates put the figure at 11 million, but the number is likely to be far higher. Walk the crowded streets of Mumbai, Kolkata or Delhi, and you will meet them – begging, singing, performing for loose change; selling flowers, vegetables, fruit. They are rag-picking, working at tea stalls, playing porter at the railway stations, shining shoes. And they are always prey to exploitation, malnutrition, harassment, abuse.
400,000 children trafficked in one year
The circumstances that trap children in poverty and danger are as simple as accident of birth, caste, and location, and as complex as global capitalism and our insatiable appetite for cheap goods made from cheap labour. In India, as across South Asia, trafficking of children (and their parents) is a significant problem. According to UN sources, at least 400,000 children in India were victims of sex-trafficking in 2004 alone.
One of the nice things about SGM Lifewords 
