Article Source : Times of India, The Metropolis, Mumbai

Author : CRY, SOL Features

Date of Issue : Oct 8 1994

Title of Article : Portrait of a family that supports Child Labour

Details :

In how many ways does an ordinary, middle-class city family unwittingly endorse the suffering of millions of Indian children ?
They look like the family next door -- father, mother and children, playing dumb charades to pass the time of a Sunday afternoon. Were you to ask them if they believed children should be put to work in factories an mines, they would be aghast, perhaps very angry. Children mean a lot to them, and their own two are living proof-- the best love, the best education, the best opportunities to learn and grow and fulfill themselves. According to them, they are not a family that would condone or encourage child labour.
It would be cruel to tell them that to their own living room, hanging on walls, or casually on dresser, or inside someone's bag, are at least 20 commodities that hard-headed and unscrupulous industrialists manufacture using the hands of children. About a million or more children swelter and sweat on those shop floors all over the country, breathing toxic fumes, ruining their eyesight in poor light, earning pittances, and losing every moment that childhood should offer to a child. The products they make reach comfortable living rooms all over the country, yielding encouraging profits for those industrialists, and making child labour viable with every rupee they earn. Judge for yourself:

1. Kurtas: About 15,000 children manufacture cloth used in garments like kurtas, working in powerlooms for upto 10 hour a day. Cotton dust and fibre enters their lungs, causing byssimosis, making them also more susceptible to bronchitis and tuberculosis.
2. Wallets: About 2000 children under 14 work in the tanning industries of Chrompet and Pallavaram in Madras. The chemicals and acids used at the tanneries give them skin ailments and respiratory illnesses.
3. Keys: Up to 60% of the labourers manufacturing locks and keys in Aligarh's sheds are children. The youngest, 6, earn Rs.6 after working a 12-hour day. Exposure to metal dust affects their hands, eyes, skin, lungs and alimentary canal. Working without pliers or cutters, their hands are generally covered with calluses.
4. Handloom: Their nimble fingers make them deft in weaving designs and border for coverlets and tablecloths, so children from 7 to 14 years are automatic choices for handloom outfits In Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal. About 11,000 of them are known to be working in Trivandrum, and 8,000 in Tiruppur in poorly ventilated and cramped rooms.
5. Zari : They work in dark, poorly ventilated and overcrowded rooms in Delhi, Lucknow and Varanasi district to earn a meager Rs 3 a day. Many suffer from eye diseases, spondylitis, and lead poisoning from inhaling metallic and painted articles. But the products their hands create - like saris, purses, footwear, belts and brocades - have a burgeoning market all over the country and the world.
6. Jewellery : Over 13,000 children under 14 cut and polish gems in Jaipur, Cambay, Bombay, Coimbatore, Nellore, Hyderabad, Karwar, Trichur, Cuttack and Calcutta. Working a grueling 10 hours a day, the child can earn Rs.300/- a month at most. The hot dingy rooms and bad light affect his eyesight and health.
7. Matches : Children make up nearly half the workforce in the match factories of Sivakasi, Sattur and Vembakottai in Ramanathapuram district, Kovilapatti in Tirunelveli district and Gudyatham in North Arcot district. There are thrice as many girls as boys. Aged between 4 and 7 years, some leave home as early as 4 a.m. return at 7 p.m., earning an average Rs.2/- a day. The intense heat, lack of basic safety standards, poor sanitation and crowded working conditions have led to several cases of death by charring, explosions, and toxic chemical fumes.
8. Stainless steel: Factories in Madras, and Wazirpur in North Delhi employ children under 12 to make stainless steel. Small hands join metal pieces, and wash steel plates in nitric acid. Working upto 12 hours a day, they earn upto Rs. 300 a month. Their bodies get blackened and coated with chemicals, machines damage their hearing; and chemicals cause burns, bronchitis and spasmodic coughing. Some lose their limbs and are crippled for life.
9. Pottery: In Khurja, Chinnat, Chunnar, Basti and Ghaziabad children make flower vases, crockery and objects d'art. For Rs.400 or so a month, they toil in conditions that lead to asthma, bronchitis, tuberculosis and silicosis.
10. Choir mats: In Dindigul, many children below 14 are employed in making rope out of coir. Working upto 16 hours a day, they earn a couple of rupees for making 15 to 20 meters of rope. Many cut themselves on the sharp, rotating blades of the cutters.
11. Glass: About 50,000 children between 6 and 16 years make glass in Firozabad, Agra district and Makkhanpur. For Rs.10 a day, they blow and mould molten glass into bangles and utensils, electric bulbs and so on, suffering furnace temperatures close to 100 degree C, and handling molten glass at a blistering 1800 degree C. Toxic fumes damage the child's lungs, liver and other internal organs, leading to TB and other lung diseases; prolonged exposure to heat causes skin burns and visual impairment.
12. Hosiery: About 4,000 children between 10 and 14 years constitute nearly a third of the workforce in the hosiery industry of Tirupur, Tamil Nadu. Employed in the tailoring units, stitching and carrying, children may work upto 21 hours a day to earn just Rs.2-5.
13. Slate: Children mostly under 12 years, haul heavy head-loads of slate sheets up steep and dangerous paths. They cut plates of shale into small pieces using electric saws. The fine, light dust that is emitted causes silicosis, and a lung diseases deadlier than TB. Children constitute nearly a quarter of the slate industry's workforce of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh. Salary : no more than Rs.4 a day.
14. Carpets : About 1,00,000 children as young as 7 years weave and knot carpets in Uttar Pradesh, Kashmir and Rajasthan. The Mirzapur - Bhadohi belt alone employs about 1.5 lakhs children, excluding casual helpers of the family. Children work for 12 hours daily, sitting on their haunches or with their legs dangling down pits to get close to the thread. Dark, dingy, unventilated workplaces ruin their eyes, and they get lung diseases from inhaling wool. Knotting makes their hand joints stiff and arthritic so that by age 30 they are unemployable. Rebellion is punished by thrashing, starvation and even branding.
15. Construction : They dig, carry head-loads of mud and mortar, remove debris, break stones and solder iron rods. Thousands of children work alongside their parents in the construction industry, earning four or five rupees a day for backbreaking work that even stunts their growth.
16. Brass : 25 per cent of the Indian labour force manufacturing brassware such as incense stands, ashtrays, utensils and lampshades are children. No more information currently available on their plight.
17. Agarbattis : For every 1000 sticks of incense she makes, the child is paid about Rs.3/-. Nagpur has tens of thousands of such children, none older than 12, earning about Rs.7/- for 12 hours of work. They develop rheumatism of the wrists and elbows, breathing problems from inhaling chemical dust, skin and eye diseases, and neck and back aches from working constantly stooped.