The BBC is profiting from child labour in India where boys as young as eight are being forced by gangs to sell Top Gear and Good Homes magazines, for as little as 12p a day. According to campaigners, the children, who are sold by their families for about £12.50, suffer abuse at the hands of gangsters who control the roadside pitches where they hawk magazines.

Last week The Sunday Times interviewed young boys selling BBC magazines at road junctions throughout Delhi.

They had left their farming families in the northeastern state of Bihar after drought had ruined their crops, they said, and were now working punishing 12-hour days.

Top Gear magazine was launched in India in 2005. The BBC formed a joint venture with the Times of India group to create Worldwide Media, India’s biggest magazine publisher, which also produces Good Homes magazine.

The publications are sold on bookstalls for about £1 each, but it is a ferociously competitive market and the battle for readers is fought on the main roads in big cities.

Retailers appointed by the joint venture hire distributors, who in turn employ gangs who use trafficked children to sell to motorists.

They include Sanjay, aged nine, who was last week selling both magazines at Delhi’s busy Moolchand flyover. He said he had come to the city two months ago with his 11-year-old brother, after drought ruined his parents’ rice crop in Bihar. He said he earned 60p-75p a day.

His fellow magazine seller, Anand, said that on an average day he sold four magazines and received five rupees (6p) per copy. “Yesterday I earned 50 rupees [60p], but today just 10 [12p],” he said.

The Indian Save the Children foundation raided one of Delhi’s junctions and rescued 13 children selling magazines earlier this year.

Bhuwan Ribhu, an activist for the foundation, said: “The BBC has a responsibility to police their subcontractors.” A spokeswoman for BBC Magazines last night admitted the use of child labour in India and said the corporation was “working urgently” to tackle the problem. “Plainly this is something we condemn utterly,” she said. “We have a rigorous ethical policy which covers all our activities around the world and take these matters very seriously indeed.”

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