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Actor Anil Kapoor with children from the slums of Mumbai听笔颈肠迟耻谤别:

Bollywood star Anil Kapoor has kick-started a campaign to highlight the plight of millions of children in India who are forced into work, adding that he hoped his celebrity status would influence and inspire others to stamp out the practice.

The campaign run by the children鈥檚 charity aims听to use Kapoor 鈥� a veteran Hindi film actor with a career听spanning three decades 鈥� to raise awareness and encourage the听public to shake off apathy linked to decades of social听acceptance of child labour.

Kapoor, best known internationally for his role in Danny听Boyle鈥檚 Oscar-winning 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, said听millions of children in the country were being exploited,听largely due to poverty, and as a result not going to school.

鈥淥ur economic progress loses a lot of meaning if hundreds of thousands of children have no hopes of a future,鈥� Kapoor told a news conference launching the campaign in Mumbai.

Anil Kapoor, right, in a scene from Slumdog Millionaire

鈥淐hild labour and exploitation must end. We are all听responsible for coming generations and the world we leave to听them. It is time our movement became everybody鈥檚 movement.鈥�

Census data shows there were 4.35 million labourers aged听between five and 14 in 2011 against 12.66 million a decade ago 鈥撎齛lthough activists say the figures are under-reported.

A February 2015 report by the puts the number of child workers in India aged听between five and 17 at 5.7 million, out of 168 million globally.

More than half are in agriculture, toiling in cotton, sugarcane and rice paddy fields where they are often exposed to pesticides and risk injury from sharp tools and heavy equipment.

Over a quarter work in manufacturing 鈥� confined to poorly lit, barely ventilated rooms in slums, embroidering clothes, weaving carpets, making matchsticks or rolling beedi cigarettes.

Rescued child labourers take part in a protest in Siliguri

Children also work in restaurants and hotels, washing dishes听and chopping vegetables, or in middle-class homes, cleaning and听scrubbing floors.

Kapoor said he joined the campaign as he wanted to be a听positive role model and hoped his actions would inspire others听to see how child labour was an abusive practice which was听robbing children of their future.

He said that parents should also realise that while they听needed the income earned by their children, it was important to听focus on their education.

鈥淚t is mainly because these kids are so easily exploitable.听Plus the problem is compounded by poverty,鈥� he told the Thomson听Reuters Foundation on the sidelines of the event.

鈥淪o many times household help will bring their kids to听work but the focus should be on educating these children, not听on getting them to work too.鈥�

The , the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, covers humanitarian news, women鈥檚 rights, corruption and climate change.