Police in Nepal have freed twenty-three children who were being held as slave labourers in a carpet factory.

The police say the children, most of them under fourteen, had been prevented from contacting outsiders, including their family for over two years, and that in that time they had not even seen daylight.

The owner of the factory has been arrested.

A BBC correspondent in Kathmandu says the government has begun to enforce laws combatting child labour after international pressure from countries who buy Nepalese carpets.

European countries had threatened a boycott unless action was taken.