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Where we work

India

India has the highest number of child brides in the world, close to 10.1 million children are child labourers, 42.7 million are out of school, 109 children are sexually abused everyday and every eight minutes a child goes missing.The country has one of the highest rates of violence against women. In India, we address child labour in mica mines, empower child brides, address child sexual exploitation in the Devadasi system, advocate for the prevention of child marriage and child trafficking, and provide economic empowerment to mother’s in poverty. Help us Fight Child Exploitation in India.

Our work in India

We work in vulnerable rural areas across states of Karnataka, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Kerala.

We take children and their families out of exploitation by providing them with education, livelihood support, health care, legal support and encouraging child participation for advocacy. We also involve stakeholders such as the Government, Law Enforcement Agencies and the Private sector to help us tackle issues.

Read the country profile

Into the classroom

To combat exploitation, children are enrolled in schools, provided school supplies such as uniforms, books, bags and given access to quality education through activity based and digital learning. Children enrolled in school who have learning gaps are also enrolled in remedial classes to ensure age appropriate learning. Parents are counselled on the importance of education and the learning environment is made to be enriching and joyful so that children don’t choose to drop out. Child brides who find it difficult to go back to school are enrolled for public exams as private candidates.

Addressing girl child well being

Apart from tuition and study material support, we provide bicycles to girls who are not allowed to go to school due to long distances. Girls are helped to file cases for domestic violence and other forms of abuse meted out to them. Girls with anaemia are given supplementary nutrition and taken for health check ups. Child brides are advised against early pregnancy and early union. Awareness on menstrual hygiene, life skill development, psychosocial support and child rights training are also provided to ensure girl child development. 

Stories from India

May 9th, 2023

Breaking the Cycle of Exploitation: Sana's Journey from Forced Labour to Education

Sana's story is one of both tragedy and triumph. Growing up in a small village in India, she faced incredible…

April 3rd, 2023

Roopa's Story: Fighting Against Child Marriage in India

Roopa shared, "One day, I was at school, and the next, I found myself dressed in a saree and jewellery to get…

January 26th, 2023

Bina’s quest to continue her education

When her mother couldn’t afford to keep her in school, 15-year-old Bina was forced to drop out and start worki…

January 19th, 2023

Breakthrough in addressing Worst Forms of Child Labour of mica mines in Jharkhand, India

This week Jharkhand´s Chief Minister, Hermant Soren, has inaugurated a model to develop cooperatives of mica m…

August 17th, 2023

“A daughter of a Devadasi can achieve something”

Amrita, a teenage girl, belongs to a socio-economically disadvantaged Devadasi community in North Karnataka, I…

Advocacy inspires Action

We specifically focus on fighting for the rights of the children through Child Participation approaches. We have created a movement for married adolescent girls where they advocate for their entitlements. Children are grouped into clubs where they are trained on child rights, child protection laws and advocacy. Through this, many children have solved village level issues, reported cases of child labour, child marriage and child exploitation.

Our Youth Advocates have also conducted various innovative campaigns such as rallies and flash mobs to sensitise the public on the need to voice against child marriage and child trafficking.

Read India's Annual Report

In 2022, India addressed child labour, child sexual exploitation, child marriage and other forms of child exploitation across 7 states, reaching out to over 79,000 children.

Read the India Annual Report 2022

Overcoming poverty

Poverty fuels child exploitation. To address this, we provide monetary assistance to families such that they invest in additional income generating activities such as livestock development, tailoring, fruit selling, thereby earning more income. Girls at risk of exploitation are also provided skill training to become financially independent. Women are grouped into SHGs where a corpus is revolved among them from which each of them invest in small businesses. The money is ploughed back into the fund at a minimum service, thereby building the corpus to reach out to more women. Families are also given access to social security.

Latest News

June 29th, 2023

Annual report 2022: concrete results for children

Thanks to the support of donors, in collaboration with partners and the commitment of volunteers and staff, Te…

March 2nd, 2023

India Annual Report 2022

In India, Terre des Hommes Netherlands addresses child labour, child sexual exploitation, child marriage and o…

June 7th, 2022

Suku and Her Siblings Continuing their Education

One principle of Terre des Hommes Netherlands is that children should have a childhood where they can learn, p…

July 19th, 2021

Virtual Mental Health Sessions for Children of Devadasis

With the ongoing COVID situation in India, the state of Karnataka has been witnessing lockdowns and curfews fo…

July 1st, 2021

These Goats are Loved

Sunita Devi lives in the mica belt of Jharkhand, India, where low wages from extreme dependence on mica collec…

July 1st, 2021

Aradhya Changing the Narrative

The work of Terre des Hommes Netherlands in India does not only focus on preventing child marriage, but also s…

June 10th, 2021

Annual report 2020

Without a doubt 2020 is the year of the corona pandemic. And yet there is much to be proud of!

June 1st, 2021

Libraries amidst jungles

“My village is near a jungle area. There is no network here, no newspapers, so we do not get to know anything…

May 1st, 2021

VICTORY IN THE SUN

As Priya* reached the finish line of the 200 metre race, she jumped with joy; the sparkle in her eyes reflecti…

June 27th, 2019

Annual report 2018

Thanks to your support, in 2018 we were able to work on tackling child labor in the mica mines in India, child…

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Partners

In India, we work with a network of grassroots organisations to implement our programmes. We are affiliated with Children of India Foundation , a community driven organisation, which leads the implementation of our programmes in India

Check our Endline Evaluation

Our Country Representative

Thangam, the Country Manager of Terre des Hommes in India and Nepal, together with his team, stands up for vulnerable children. "This is a forgotten group; among other things, we provide education and teach them about their rights".

Read Thangam's Feature
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