labor30

The Hidden Factory: Child Labour in India Have we, as consumers, ever stopped to wonder
where the trinkets, ornaments, decorative pieces that we buy, the very clothes that we wear
and the cuppa tea that starts our day, come from?
These are examples of consumer goods that are, more often than not, the products of a
hidden factory of countless children, many as young as 5 years old, toiling for tireless
hours, under harsh, hazardous, exploitative, often life threatening conditions, for extremely
low wages. A large fraction of these child labourers are working as slaves, bonded to their
“jobs”, with no means of escape or freedom, till they can repay their parents’ loans. This
often mean years of bondage or even a trickle down effect of bondage, where younger
siblings pick up from where the older ones left off – because they were either too old, too
diseased, too handicapped or too dead to be useful.
India has the largest number of working children in the world, with credible estimates
ranging from 60 —15 million. Below, we look at some industries that enslave children -
some of these are in the export business, producing the ever so attractive, yet cheap
goods that attract the attention of foreign consumers, some of them cater more to the
domestic market and others are in the service business – all profit oriented businesses,
churning the wheels of our economy, all at the cost of innocent children:
Carpet Industry
The use of bonded child labor in the production of hand knotted carpets for export is
extensive, and conditions in that industry are horrendous. While the accurate extent is
unknown, an estimated 50,000 to 1,050,000 children, as young as 6 years of age, often
work in confined, dimly-lit workshops, often chained to carpet looms, slaving away over the
thousands of tiny wool knots that will eventually become expensive carpets in the homes of
the wealthy. Bonded children in the carpet industry are often recruited by recruiting agents
or organized gangs. Their parents, low-caste, poor peasants or landless labourers, are
given a cash advance ranging from 600 to 2,800 rupees (approximately $20.00 to $90.00).
This practice is generally institutionalized in cases where children are procured by
recruiters.
The bonded children often work for up to 20 hours a day, not only weaving carpets but also
performing other jobs in their master’s homes or fields. These children suffer spinal
deformities, retarded growth, respiratory illnesses, poor eyesight (due to constant contract
with woolen fluff, working in cramped poorly lit workshops). Apart from these physiological
effects, these children live in constant fear of being beaten and tortured if they try to
escape from the looms.

Brassware
Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh has a thriving brass industry that exports products such as
vases, figurines, planters, plates, dinner services, and tea sets all over the world. It has
also has a large number of 6-8 years old children (about 40,000 – 45,000 according to a
study conducted in 1989), working long hours in this industry. Children are involved in
almost all aspects of brassware productions – removing molten metal from molds, near
furnaces, directly exposed to temperatures of approximately 2000 degrees F,
electroplating, polishing, applying chemicals to the wares. They suffer from tuberculosis
and other respiratory diseases, due to the constant inhalation of fumes from the furnaces
and metal dust.
Leather
The footwear industry is another labour intensive industry that employs as many as 25,000
children in the age group 10-15 years, to manufacture shoes, which are now finding a
growing market to Europe and the United States. Some 80 percent of the children work for
contractors at home. Children work on soling with glue. They work in cramped poorly lit
rooms and suffer from respiratory problems, lung diseases and skin infections due to
continuous skin contact with industrial adhesives and breathing vapors from glues.
Children are reported to be working in shoe factories throughout Agra, including road
stalls, and in small factories.
Gemstones
India yearly exports gems worth of hundreds of millions of dollars. The majority of the gems
are diamonds, which are processed and polished in Surat, Gujarat, and emeralds which
are polished in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
Children are very commonly engaged as "apprentices”, in the gem polishing industry, but
are in fact a source of cheap labour. The learning process takes five to seven years --
during the first two years children receive little of no remuneration, working for 10 hours a
day. After the two years, a child worker is paid 50 rupees per month (approximately $1.70).
Studies conducted by noted academic, Neeta Burra (Born to Work: Child Labour in India,
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), revealed that more than 30 percent of the
children get tuberculosis, due to unhygienic conditions, overcrowding, and malnutrition.
Major health issues include body aches, finger tips grazed by the polishing disc.
It is alleged that up to 100,000 children, in the age group 6-14 years, are working in the
diamond industry, cutting and polishing diamond chips. These figures are uncorroborated.
Estimates of child workers in the gem industry in Jaipur range from 7,000 to 13,000.
Silk
About 5000 children, in the age group of 5- 16 years are employed in the silk industry of
southern Karnataka. These children (mostly girls) work under poor conditions (lack of
sanitation, water, and fresh air) in sericulture, silk weaving, and in the silk handlooms. A
study conducted on the Bhagalpur silk industry noted that children are involved in virtually
the entire process of silk manufacturing and specifically, dye the silk. This process involves
boiling the skeins in water to remove the gum. Working with chemicals while dying the silk,
and with boiling water, are common hazards for the health of the children. These children
work long hours, earning a mere 400 to 800 rupees per month ($14-$28).
Glass
The glass and glassware industry in India is concentrated in Ferozabad. The glass
factories of Ferozabad produce a number of glass items, such as bangles, chandeliers,
wine glasses, beads, crockery, bulbs, and cut glass items. The factories also produce test
tubes, beakers, and laboratory glass products. This industry employs about 8,000 to
50,000 children as young as 8 years old. The factory floor is typically an inferno, due to
intense heat (1400-1600 degrees Celcius), poor ventilation, broken glass, dangling electric
wires and no protective equipment whatsoever.
Child workers in the glass factories in Ferozabad suffer mental retardation, asthma,
bronchitis, eye problems, liver ailments, skin burns, chronic anemia, and tuberculosis.
Studies conducted at the Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi, showed genetic
damage in the body cells of the labourers working close to furnace heat for three years or
more.
Agriculture
Debt bondage in farming is the most widespread form of forced labour in India. Official
Government of India Figures put the total number of bonded workers (children and adults)
at 353,000, while NGO estimates range from 2.6 million (child and adult) bonded workers to
15 million bonded child farm workers.
Bonded labour in the farm sector occurs when poor, landless peasants and tenant farmers
have no choice but to turn to landlords for loans in the form of cash or food. In return, the
peasants offer their labour and/or that of their children.
Children as young as six are sometimes pledged by their parents to landlords as bonded
labourers. In exchange for a loan, parents engage their sons, ranging in age from 10 to 14,
as bonded labourers(Kuthias), who are considered to be in training to become adult
bonded labourers, graze cattle and assist bonded adults. The amount of the loan, ranging
from 400 to 1000 rupees, depends on the age and health of the boy. Another type of child
bonded labourer is the "Peyjoli" - a child aged 6 to 9 - who, is sold to a landlord for a yearly
fee ranging from 100 to 400 rupees. They are at the complete disposal of their masters
and do all types of jobs and in return, they receive a bare minimum of food and lodging.
Bonded child labour is especially widespread in certain areas of central India such as
Bihar, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. In some villages, landlords have been found to rely
almost exclusively on child bonded labour.
Bonded children are sometimes subjected to physical punishment and suffer from a high
incidence of severe malnutrition, vitamin deficiency, anaemia, tuberculosis, and skin and
parasitic diseases. They have no time for either leisure or education - over 90 percent of
bonded labourers in India, many of whom became bonded as children, have never had the
opportunity to go to school.
The list of industries exploiting children frighteningly goes on and on- silver making, tea
farming, stone quarrying, cigarette making, fireworks, fishing and then of course, the
services – uncountable number of children are forced to serve as domestics, shop boys,
prostitutes, many are even mutilated and forced to beg.

The list is endless, but the pain is universal. Forced labour, extreme working hours, lack of
sleep/exhaustion, no or little wage, no free time, no education, no possessions, no privacy,
no freedom of movement, no sick leave/health care, malnutrition, constant exposure to
toxic , hazardous environments, emotional isolation, corporal punishment, arbitrary assault,
sexual abuse and extremely high mortality-rate.