CWG sullied with images of preteens labour

NEW DELHI: THE Commonwealth Games were “on a knife edge” yesterday as it emerged the crumbling stadiums have been built by children.

Tots as young as three were drafted in to work on dangerous building sites to prepare for the event in Delhi.

Yesterday the roof of the weightlifting arena caved in, sending rubble cascading down to the judges’ seats.


As the catalogue of disasters mounted yesterday, it appeared increasingly likely the event, which is due to start in 10 days, would have to be called off.


We told yesterday how 28 workers were hurt at the main stadium site on Tuesday when a concrete bridge collapsed.

And competing nations have lined up to slam the athletes’ village as “unfit for human habitation”.

The Commonwealth Games Federation has continuously expressed concerns over the slow progress of the stadium and village which is to host around 7,000 athletes and officials, with work on the Nehru Stadium where the opening and closing ceremonies and the athletics program will be held.

In order to complete these projects, workers have been paid way below the minimum wage while being forced to live and work in substandard conditions, under tarpaulin on the construction site. Human rights have labeled the living conditions as “sub human”.

While the majority of children are in school or playing, India’s children are working hard for as little as $3 a day on the construction site for the Commonwealth Games Stadium.

Promises of extra bonuses such as money, bread and milk and an extra meal are made to parents who bring in their children to work on the site and for this, they work twelve-hour shifts.

The children struggle to move baskets filled with rubble while their parents work nearby, while other youngsters struggle to pick up shovels that are as tall if not taller than as their slightly built bodies, helping with the building of the drainage system in front of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

In August, a two-year-old girl died when she was crushed under the wheels of a truck leaving the stadium after offloading materials, bringing the death toll to forty five. The child had been playing nearby with other children while her parents worked.

Last February, response from the Government was sought by the High Court of Delhi over alleged failure to provide all the benefits of labour laws to workers involved in construction work of the upcoming Games.

The Construction of the stadium has brought nothing but displacement and suffering for thousands of poor people in Delhi with allegations of corruption already in place. A quote of $8 million for the welfare and housing of labourers during the construction of the stadium and village was made by the government but a newspaper report recently stated that only $5,000 of that budget has been spent.

Demands have recently been made to call of the Games.