Publications including Top Gear and Good Homes are being sold by children as young as nine on busy Indian roadsides.
Campaigners say the children, who are sold by their families for about £12.50, often suffer abuse at the hands of the bosses who control the roadside pitches.
The Indian Save the Children foundation raided one of the junctions in the Indian capital of New Dehli 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."
Top Gear magazine was launched in India in 2005, after 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.
Although the magazines are sold on bookstalls for £1 each, the level of competition in the market has led sellers to battle for readers on the roads of major cities.
Retailers appointed by the joint venture hire distributors, who in turn employ gangs who use trafficked children to sell to motorists. The children are forced to work punishing 12-hour days. They recieve as little as five rupees (6p) per copy sold.
A spokesman for the BBC said: "This is not something that is in any way a part of BBC Magazine's distribution network and we condemn it utterly.
"Unscrupulous people get hold of copies and then use children to sell them and it is very difficult to tackle
this problem.
"However, we are determined to do everything we can, working with others to do so. We are already in contact with charities and local NGOs and will be working with them and others to do all we can on this serious issue."
