Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour.

This
practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many
countries. Child labour was utilized to varying extents through most of history, but entered
public dispute with the advent of universal schooling, with changes in working conditions
during the industrial revolution, and with the emergence of the concepts of workers' and
children's rights.

In many developed countries, it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a

certain age works (excluding household chores, in a family shop, or school-related work).[2]
An employer is usually not permitted to hire a child below a certain minimum age. This
minimum age depends on the country and the type of work involved. States ratifying the
Minimum Age Convention adopted by the International Labor Organization in 1973, have
adopted minimum ages varying from 14 to 16. Child labor laws in the United States set the
minimum age to work in an establishment without restrictions and without parents' consent at
age 16.[3]

The incidence of child labour in the world decreased from 25 to 10 percent between 1960 and
2003, according to the World Bank.

The first general laws against child labour, the Factory Acts, were passed in Britain in the first half of
the 19th century. Children younger than nine were not allowed to work and the work day of youth
under the age of 18 was limited to twelve hours
Recent child labour incidents

Young girl working on a loom in Aït Benhaddou, Morocco in May 2008.

Meatpacking

In early August 2008, Iowa Labor Commissioner David Neil announced that his department
had found that Agriprocessors, a kosher meatpacking company in Postville which had
recently been raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had employed 57 minors,
some as young as 14, in violation of state law prohibiting anyone under 18 from working in a
meatpacking plant. Neil announced that he was turning the case over to the state Attorney
General for prosecution, claiming that his department's inquiry had discovered "egregious
violations of virtually every aspect of Iowa's child labor laws."[22] Agriprocessors claimed that
it was at a loss to understand the allegations. Agriprocessors' CEO went to trial on these
charges in state court on May 4, 2010. After a five-week trial he was found not guilty of all
57 charges of child labour violations by the Black Hawk County District Court jury in
Waterloo, Iowa, on June 7, 2010.[23]
Firestone

The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company operate a metal plantation in Liberia which is the
focus of a global campaign called Stop Firestone. Workers on the plantation are expected to
fulfil a high production quota or their wages will be halved, so many workers brought
children to work. The International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit against Firestone (The
International Labor Fund vs. The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company) in November 2005 on
behalf of current child labourers and their parents who had also been child labourers on the
plantation. On June 26, 2007, the judge in this lawsuit in Indianapolis, Indiana, denied
Firestone's motion to dismiss the case and allowed the lawsuit to proceed on child labour
claims.

GAP

After the news of child labourers working in embroidery industry was uncovered in the
Sunday Observer on 28 October 2007, BBA activists swung into action. The GAP Inc. in a
statement accepted that the child labourers were working in production of GAP Kids blouses
and has already made a statement to pull the products from the shelf.[24][25] In spite of the
documentation of the child labourers working in the high-street fashion and admission by all
concerned parties, only the SDM (Sub-divisional Magistrate) could not recognise these
children as working under conditions of slavery and bondage.

Distraught and desperate that these collusions by the custodians of justice, founder of BBA
Kailash Satyarthi, Chairperson of Global March Against Child Labour appealed to the
Honorable Chief Justice of Delhi High Court through a letter at 11.00 pm.[26] This order by
the Honorable Chief Justice comes when the government is taking an extremely reactionary
stance on the issue of child labour in sweatshops in India and threatening 'retaliatory
measures' against child rights organisations.[27]

In a parallel development, Global March Against Child labour and BBA are in dialogue with
the GAP Inc. and other stakeholders to work out a positive strategy to prevent the entry of
child labour in to sweatshops and device a mechanism of monitoring and remedial action.
GAP Inc. Senior Vice President, Dan Henkle in a statement said: "We have been making
steady progress, and the children are now under the care of the local government. As our
policy requires, the vendor with which our order was originally placed will be required to
provide the children with access to schooling and job training, pay them an ongoing wage and
guarantee them jobs as soon as they reach the legal working age. We will now work with the
local government and with Global March to ensure that our vendor fulfils these
obligations."[28][29]

On October 28, Joe Eastman, president of Gap North America, responded, "We strictly
prohibit the use of child labor. This is non-negotiable for us – and we are deeply concerned
and upset by this allegation. As we've demonstrated in the past, Gap has a history of
addressing challenges like this head-on, and our approach to this situation will be no
exception. In 2006, Gap Inc. ceased business with 23 factories due to code violations. We
have 90 people located around the world whose job is to ensure compliance with our Code of
Vendor Conduct. As soon as we were alerted to this situation, we stopped the work order and
prevented the product from being sold in stores. While violations of our strict prohibition on
child labor in factories that produce product for the company are extremely rare, we have
called an urgent meeting with our suppliers in the region to reinforce our policies."[30]

H&M

In December 2009, campaigners in the UK called on two leading high street retailers to stop
selling clothes made with cotton which may have been picked by children. Anti-Slavery
International and the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) accused H&M and Zara of
using cotton suppliers in Bangladesh. It is also suspected that many of their raw materials
originates from Uzbekistan, where children aged 10 are forced to work in the fields. The
activists were calling to ban the use of Uzbek cotton and implement a "track and trace"
systems to guarantee an ethical responsible source of the material.

H&M said it "does not accept" child labour and "seeks to avoid" using Uzbek cotton, but
admitted it did "not have any reliable methods" to ensure Uzbek cotton did not end up in any
of its products. Inditex, the owner of Zara, said its code of conduct banned child labour.[31]

India

In 1997, research indicated that the number of child labourers in the silk-weaving industry in
the district of Kanchipuram in India exceeded 40,000. This included children who were
bonded labourers to loom owners. Rural Institute for Development Education undertook
many activities to improve the situation of child labourers. Working collaboratively, RIDE
brought down the number of child labourers to less than 4,000 by 2007.

On November 21, 2005, an Indian NGO activist Junned Khan,[32] with the help of the Labour
Department and NGO Pratham mounted the country's biggest ever raid for child labour
rescue in the Eastern part of New Delhi, the capital of India. The process resulted in rescue of
480 children from over 100 illegal embroidery factories operating in the crowded slum area
of Seelampur. For next few weeks, government, media
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main39.asp?filename=cr050708laterdayslave.asp and NGOs
were in a frenzy over the exuberant numbers of young boys, as young as 5–6 year olds,
released from bondage. This rescue operation opened the eyes of the world to the menace of
child labour operating right under the nose of the largest democracy in the whole world.

Next few years Junned Khan did extensive campaigning on the issue of children involved in
hazardous labour,[33] advocating with the central and state governments for formulation of
guidelines for rescue and rehabilitation of children affected by child labour. In 2005, after the
rescue, Junned Khan, collaborated with BBA to file petition in the Delhi High Court for
formulation of guidelines for rescue and rehabilitation of child labour. In the following years,
Delhi's NGOs, came together with the Delhi Government and formulated an Action Plan for
Rescue and Rehabilitation of child labour.[
Child labour in India
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Of 12.6 million children in hazardous occupations, India has the highest number of labourers
in the world under 14 years of age.[1] Although the Constitution of India guarantees free and
compulsory education to children between the age of 6 to 14 and prohibits employment of
children younger than 14 in any hazardous environment, child labour is present in almost all
sectors of the Indian economy[2] Companies including Gap,[3] Primark,[4] Monsanto[5] etc have
been criticised for using child labour in either their operations in India or by their suppliers in
India.

Beedi manufacture

A survey conducted between 1994 and 1995 revealed that child workers comprise of more
than 30% of total hired workers in the beedi manufacture sector .[6] The United States
Customs Service subsequently banned the import of Beedis made in Ganesh Beedi Works of
Mangalore [7]

[edit] Diamond industry

Further information: Child_labour_in_the_diamond_industry#India

In 1997, the International Labour Organization published a report titled Child Labour in the
Diamond Industry.[8] claiming that child labour is highly prevalent in the Indian diamond
industry, as child labourers constitute nearly 3% of the total workforce and the percentage of
child labourers is as high as 25% in the diamond industry of Surat. The ICFTU further
claimed that child labour was prospering in the diamond industry in Western India, where the
majority of the world's diamonds are cut and polished while workers are often paid only a
fraction of 1% of the value of the stones they cut.[9] Pravin Nanavati, a Surat-based diamond
businessman argued that, since high cost diamonds could easily be lost or broken while
cutting or polishing, employing a child labourer would mean risking "lakhs of rupees" and
“Around 8-10 years back, some western countries deliberately created the impression that
child labour is prevalent in the Indian diamond industry" and called the boycott for
monopolising in the sector. The South Gujarat Diamond Workers Association secretary
Mohan Dhabuwala, argued that while child labour is highly prevalent in the construction and
hotel industries, there are few child labourers in the diamond industry of Surat, less than 1%
according to their surveys, mainly because of stern punishments and penalties for violation of
child labour laws.[10]

In 1998, Madhura Swaminathan from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research
argued that economic growth in Western India was associated with an increase in the number
of child workers over the last 15 years and that children work at simple repetitive manual
tasks that do not require long years of training or experience in low-paying hazardous works
that involves drudgery and forecloses the option of school education for most children.[11]

In 2005, an India-based management consultancy firm named A. F. Ferguson & Co.,

commissioned a study titled Child Labour from Gem and Jewellery Industry "to spread
awareness about child labor among the people connected with the industry" that is conducted
at 663 manufacturing units at 21 different locations at Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, West
Bengal and Tamil Nadu, as a GJEPC initiative. On February 12, the study is presented in a
seminar held by the Gem & Jewelry Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) and the Surat
Diamond Association, in Surat, India. The report argued that the use of child labour in India’s
diamond processing industry has been reduced from 0.55% 143 in 1998 to 0.31% in 2005
which is estimated to be less than 1%, "while for the synthetic stone industry it is estimated to
be two-thirds less". Gem& Jewellery Export Promotion Council chairman Bakul Mehta,
claimed that, "Some 500 diamond factory owners took an oath in the city of Palanpur,
Gujarat, (home town of leading Gujarati diamond merchants) not to employ children in their
factories. Similarly, in Surat, 200 factory owners took the oath," and at GJEPC they, "Remain
committed to eradicating child labor from the Indian diamond industry” arguing "...the gem
and jewelry industry cannot even think of employing children, not only for moral reasons, but
that a child could be injured while polishing or cutting the diamonds." [12][13][14]

[edit] Fireworks manufacture

Fireworks manufacturers had long been criticised for their use of child labour. Although the
manufacturers declare that child labour is no longer used, estimates suggest that at least 3,000
children still work at every stage of the manufacturing process. Child labourers at Sivakashi
earn wages as low as Rs 20 per day. There had been protests by the manufacturers against the
anti child labour campaign by various N.G.O.s , terming them as false allegations and
conspiracies.Thousands of children die each year in the fireworks business.

[edit] Silk manufacture

Human Rights Watch estimates that at least 350,000 bonded children are employed by the
silk industry in India.[15] As per Human Rights Watch, children as young as five years old are
employed and work for up to 12 hours a day and six to seven days a week.[16] Children are
forced to dip their hands in scalding water to palpate the cocoons and are often paid less than
Rs 10 per day.[17]

[edit] Domestic labour

Official estimates for child labor working as domestic labor and in restaurants is more than
2,500,000 while NGOs estimate the figure to be around 20 million.[18] The Government of
India expanded the coverage of The Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act and banned
the employment of children as domestic workers and as workers in restaurants, dhabas,
hotels, spas and resorts effective from October 10, 2006.[19]

[edit] Construction

The misuse of adult labor can be found in the construction industry too. adults are found in
construction of both home and office buildings. In 2011, for the construction of the Asian
Games care house, the contractors had employed adults, for they had to be paid more, making
it a small issue.

[edit] Brick kilns

Each year, thousands of children are rescued from brick kilns, working in awful conditions.
Some of the children are actually sold to the brick kiln owners, and are not paid.
"India- The big picture". UNICEF.
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/india_back
ground.html. Retrieved 2009-10-19
Background

Over the last five years, India has seen impressive economic growth as well as progress in terms of
human development. The economy has experienced growth rates as high as 9 per cent in 2006-07,
while the population below the poverty line has been gradually been falling. Nevertheless, crushing
poverty and malnutrition are harsh realities for millions of women and children. Many inequities are tied
to gender and class.

Issues facing children in India

 Infant mortality remains as high as 63 deaths per 1,000 live births. Most infant deaths occur in
the first month of life, with up to 47 per cent in the first week.
 Children in India continue to lose their lives to vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles,
which remains the biggest killer. Tetanus in newborns also remains a problem.
 Around 46 per cent of all children under the age of three are too small for their age, 47 per cent
are underweight and at least 16 per cent show signs of wasting. Many of these children are
severely malnourished.
 Anaemia affects 74 per cent of children under the age of three, more than 90 per cent of
adolescent girls and 50 per cent of women.
 Diarrhoea remains the second major cause of death among children, after respiratory-tract
infections. Unhygienic practices and unsafe drinking water are some of its main causes.
 More than 122 million households in the country are without toilets. Even though toilets are
built in about 3 million households every year, the annual rate of increase has been just 1 per
cent in the past decade.
 India has an estimated 220,000 children infected by HIV. It is estimated that 55,000 to 60,000
children are born every year to mothers who are HIV-positive.
 20 per cent of children aged 6 to14 are still not in school. Several problems persist; issues of
'social distance' arising out of caste, class and gender differences deny children equal
opportunities.
 With an estimated 12.6 million children engaged in hazardous occupations, India has the largest
number of child labourers under the age of 14 in the world.

Activities and results for children

 As part of a collaborative campaign between UNICEF and the Indian Government, Indian cricket
legend Sachin Tendulkar appeared in a public service announcement urging children to lather up
in support of Global Handwashing Day.
 About 8,000 'missing children' were vaccinated against polio in an effort that took UNICEF into
bus stations, railway platforms, road intersections, and into the passenger carriages of trains.
 In Gujarat's Vadodara district, UNICEF, with the state government, brought anaemia-fighting
iron supplements to 65,544 girls in 410 schools. After 18 months, anaemia prevalence had been
reduced by 22 per cent.
 In conjunction with its partners, UNICEF launched the 'Red Ribbon Express', a specially designed
train that will cover 9,000 km during its year-long journey to educate people on HIV/AIDS.
 In a groundbreaking initiative, the Jhabua district administration, with support from UNICEF and
other partners, launched 22 mobile schools in tents, bringing formal education to the children of
the largely tribal, migratory families in the district.
 In the state of Tamil Nadu, the central government's National Child Labour Project, with support
from UNICEF, has helped more than 3,600 child labourers leave their jobs and be mainstreamed
into regular schools.
Gap Under Fire: Reports Allege Child Labor
Popular Retailer Launches Internal Investigation, Plans To Continue Using Vendors In India

15 COMMENTS
Oct. 28, 2007

Retail giant Gap has been tied to accusations of child labor through a vendor that produces some
of its children's clothing line.

A vendor that produced clothing for Gap stores is accused of using child labor in India.
(ABC News)

The allegations originally appeared in the British newspaper The Observer today and said
children worked as bonded laborers to make embroidered blouses for Gap Kids.

The clothes were going to be shipped to outlets in the United States and Europe, just in time for
the Christmas shopping season.

Video taken by Dan McDougall, a freelance journalist in New Delhi, India, and acquired by ABC
News, showed Gap labels being stitched into garments and the location of a work room in a
slum.

McDougall said the children working in the sweatshop were between the ages of 10 and 13 and
slept on the roof.

"There was an overflowed latrine, bowls of rice covered in flies, a lot of mosquitoes, quite a putrid
smell inside the sweatshop," he said.

While Gap continues its investigation, the company said the garments made by the children
never will be sold in its stores and the order has been scrapped.

'We Do Not Ever Condone Child Labor'

The company quickly responded to the charges, saying in a statement, "These allegations are
deeply upsetting and we take this situation very seriously.
"We firmly believe that under no circumstances is it acceptable for children to produce or work on
garments," the statement added.

On "Good Morning America Weekend Edition" Sunday, Gap North America president Marka
Hansen reiterated that the company does not support child labor.

"We do not ever -- ever -- condone child labor in making our garments," she said. "This is
completely unacceptable."

Hansen said many of the vendors that work with Gap are committed to its rules and goals, which
includes disallowing child labor.

When vendors do not adhere to company standards, they are dismissed, she said.

In fact, last year the company fired 23 factories for not adhering to Gap standards, Hansen said.

"Quite frankly, I am glad that this was brought to our attention because it allows us to double
down on our efforts," Hansen added.

The company employs 93 inspectors who conduct random, unannounced inspections at 2,300
factories, she said.

But a Gap executive said a subcontractor in New Delhi likely farmed out an order to the factory in
question without the company's knowledge.

"One of our vendors did obviously, in subcontracting the product, did not ensure that this product
was not going to be made with child labor," said Gap senior vice president Dan Henkle. "And
again it's completely against our policies."

Hansen added, "The actions will be swift."

But Hansen stopped short of saying the company would close factories in India, saying the vast
majority of the vendors there are in line with Gap policies and have worked with the company for
15 years.

"I think for us to pull our business out of there would undermine the economy as well," Hansen
said.

Struggle to Stop Child Labor

Like many global clothing companies, Gap subcontracts huge orders in the developing world,
where child labor is virtually endemic.

Many American companies have struggled to enforce labor standards in developing countries
around the world. For example, in 1996 a human rights group reported TV personality Kathie Lee
Gifford's clothing line, which was sold at Wal-Mart, was manufactured by sweatshop labor.

Gifford asked the U.S. government to investigate and later crusaded against the use of child
labor.
The United Nations said the number of child laborers around the world has decreased by 11
percent, from 246 million to 218 million, between 2000 and 2004, according to the most recent
statistics.

But human rights advocates said there remains still a lot of work to be done.

"There are millions of children working in India, and many in horrific conditions including
conditions that amount to slavery," said Sama Coursen-Neff of Human Rights Watch.

Image Is Everything

The allegations may put a blot on a company acutely aware of its image. Gap sells clothes in five
continents and last year it mounted a huge campaign in support of product red, a charity to
benefit Africa launched by U2 musician Bono.
"I don't think it should undo the good that we do overall," Hansen said. "I think it was an isolated
incident."
FORBES
Child Labor
Megha Bahree 03.10.08

That garden stone, handmade carpet or embroidered T

shirt bought by global shoppers was probably made by
Child Labor.

Yothi Ramulla Naga is 4 feet tall. From sunup to sundown she is

hunched over in the fields of a cottonseed farm in southern
India, earning 20 cents an hour. Farmers in the Uyyalawada
region process high-tech cottonseeds genetically engineered to
contain a natural pesticide, on behalf of U.S. agriculture giant
Monsanto (nyse: MON - news - people ). To get the seeds to
breed true the farmers have to cross-pollinate the plants, a
laborious task that keeps a peak of a dozen workers busy for
several months on just one acre. And to make a profit the
farmers have to use cheap labor. That means using kids like
Jyothi, who says she's 15 but looks no older than 12. (Monsanto
points to papers indicating she is 15.) To harvest the bolls three
months later, the farmers use cheap labor again, not the
machinery that is used to pick cotton in the U.S.

At the edge of where Jyothi is working, a rusting sign proclaims,

"Monsanto India Limited Child Labour Free Fields." Jyothi says
she has been working in these fields for the past five years, since
her father, a cotton farmer, committed suicide after incurring
huge debts. On a recent December morning there were teens
picking cotton in nearly all of a half-dozen Monsanto farms in
Uyyalawada, 250 miles south of India's high-tech hub
Hyderabad. Last year 420,000 laborers under the age of 18 were
employed in cottonseed farms in four states across India,
estimates Glocal Research, a consultancy in Hyderabad that
monitors agricultural labor conditions. Of that total 54% were
under the age of 14 and illegally employed.
Coming Home
The law prohibits children under 14 from working in factories,
Heroes of Philanthropy slaughterhouses or other dangerous locations. There are some
exceptions for farmwork--if the hours are limited, the kids are in
Education Is the school and there are no machines to be operated. But children
Foundation like Jyothi put in ten-hour days in the field and miss school.
Teenagers 14 to 18 years old can work during the day in
Giving in Kind
factories but no more than 36 hours a week. Employer penalties
include fines and imprisonment. But enforcement of the law is
Complete Contents
lax.

Even as India gallops toward First World status--with its

booming economy, roaring stock market and rapid progress in
autos and steel--it is still a giant back-yard sweatshop to the world, staffed by underage boys
and girls. The government itself, in its most recent account (from a 2001 census), estimates
that 12.6 million children under the age of 14 are at work in India. NGOs that make a career
of exposing excesses put the number much higher--50 million.

Child labor is as old as the earliest settlements in the Indus Valley thousands of years ago. It
is, for that matter, not unknown in the U.S. As recently as 2001 Nebraska's legislature was
debating whether to outlaw the use of 12- and 13-year-olds in seed corn fields, where
youngsters of this age accounted for 25% or more of detasseling labor. (This job is like
Jyothi's, except that in hybrid seed corn production the game is to prevent self-pollination.)
The difference is that the teenagers in the Midwest get $7 an hour so they can spend it at the
mall. Their Indian counterparts are getting 20 cents an hour to buy food.

Every time somebody in Europe or the U.S. buys an imported handmade carpet, an
embroidered pair of jeans, a beaded purse, a decorated box or a soccer ball, there's a good
chance they're acquiring something fashioned by a child. Such goods are available in places
like GapKids, Macy's (nyse: M - news - people ), ABC Carpet & Home, Ikea, Lowe's (nyse:
LOW - news - people ) and Home Depot (nyse: HD - news - people ). These retailers say
they are aware of child-labor problems, have strict policies against selling products made by
underage kids and abide by the laws of the countries from which they import. But there are
many links in a supply chain, and even a well-intentioned importer can't police them all.

"There are many, many household items that are produced with forced labor and not just
child labor," says Bama Athreya, executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum
in Washington, D.C. It's a fact of a global economy, and will continue to be, as long as
Americans (and Europeans) demand cheap goods--and incomes in emerging economies
remain low. If a child is enslaved, it's because his parents are desperately poor.

The UN International Labor Organization guesses that there are 218 million child laborers
worldwide, 7 in 10 of them in agriculture, followed by service businesses (22%) and industry
(9%). Asia-Pacific claims the greatest share of underage workers (122 million), then sub-
Saharan Africa (49 million). Noteworthy offenders: Cambodia, Mali, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka
and Guatemala (see chart). A decade ago India ratified the UN convention on children's
rights but refused to sign one key clause that set the standard for child labor--14 and under.
"This already waters down their obligations under international law, which of course remains
a voluntary matter," says Coen Kompier at the ilo's New Delhi bureau.

Cottonseed farmer Talari Babu is a slim, wiry man dressed, when a reporter visited him, in
black for a Hindu fast. "Children have small fingers, and so they can remove the buds very
quickly," he says, while insisting that he no longer employs the underage. "They worked fast,
much faster than the adults, and put in longer hours and didn't demand long breaks. Plus, I
could shout at them and beat or threaten them if need be to get more work out of them." He
could also tempt them with candy and cookies and movies at night. Babu says that pressure
from Monsanto and the MV Foundation, an NGO in Andhra Pradesh backed by the Dutch
nonprofit Hivos, forced him to quit using child labor. But minutes after a visitor arrives at his
field, he receives a call on his cell phone asking him if a raid was being carried out on his
farm. In 2006, he says, Monsanto paid him a $360 bonus for not using child laborers. The
bonus, though, doesn't make up for the higher wages that adults command. Says Babu: "Had I
used children, I would've earned more."
Monsanto's competitors, the Swiss Syngenta (nyse: SYT - news - people ) and the German
Bayer (nyse: BAY - news - people ), also contract with farmers in India to produce seed. For
all three the arrangement is like the one that governs chicken production in the U.S., with a
giant corporation supplying inputs to a small farmer and then picking up the output at harvest
time.

A typical Monsanto farmer owns only 1 to 4 acres of intensely cultivated cotton plants and
keeps up to a dozen workers busy for the better part of a year tending to the plot. Often the
farmer is from a higher caste (Brahmin), the laborers from a landless lower caste (Dalit). The
pay, typically $38 to $76 a month, goes directly to the parents of the workers. Sometimes the
farmer pays for the labor in advance, or offers a loan, charging the parents interest of 1.5% to
2% a month. There may be deductions from the pay envelope for food. Boarding for migrant
laborers is usually free--often a spot on the farmer's veranda or in a shed with fertilizers or on
a rooftop, next to the drying cotton.

The season starts with the sowing of seed, staggered over a three-month period that begins in
April. Two months after a row is planted the bushes are in bloom and the real work begins.
Pollen from male plants must be dusted by hand onto the flowers of female plants. The
pollination work lasts for 70 to 100 days and is followed by cotton-picking staggered over
several months. Children's hands are ideal for the delicate work with stamens and pistils.
Their bodies are no better at withstanding the poisons. At least once a week, says Davuluri
Venkateshwarlu, head of Glocal, farmers spray the fields with pesticides like Nuvacron,
banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and endosulfan, methomyl and
Metasystox, considered by the EPA to be highly toxic. Venkateshwarlu ticks off the effects of
overexposure: diarrhea, nausea, difficulty in breathing, convulsions, headaches and
depression.
The farmers buy the starter seed from Monsanto at a cost that comes to the equivalent of $30
an acre. That acre will produce something like 900 pounds of cottonseed, to be sold back to
Monsanto at $3.80 a pound, or $3,400 an acre. The cotton fiber is sold separately by a
middleman.

In a magnanimous gesture that accomplished nothing, the Indian government cracked down
on the seed companies by putting a ceiling on the cost of the starter seed (it used to be $64 an
acre) but did nothing to change the price paid for the product seed, which was left to the seed
companies. The product price has remained essentially flat in rupee terms over the past six
years, despite 4.7% average annual inflation in India.

Farmers say their cost squeeze forces them to use child labor. "That allegation is not true,"
says Monsanto spokesperson Lee Quarles. "Indian cottonseed producers actually realize
almost seven times the financial benefits growing cottonseed for local seed companies than if
they were to sell that same yield at farm gate prices"--using their land, that is, primarily to
produce cotton rather than seed.

In the neighboring states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat, you find children producing
genetically modified seeds for such vegetables as okra, tomatoes, chilies and eggplant, in the
service of Syngenta, says Venkateshwarlu. The tomato and chili flowers are even smaller and
more delicate than the cotton buds. The pesticides are more frequently applied,
Venkateshwarlu says, and the pay is less, 5 to 10 cents an hour, even though the mandated
minimum wage is 17 cents. Not so, Syngenta insists. "Our contracts require payment of
minimum wage," says Anne Burt, a spokesperson, adding that Syngenta has a strict policy
against child labor. The seeds are sold to U.S. farmers, the tomatoes and eggplant to U.S.
consumers.

Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer, all working under the glare of labor monitors like Glocal, are
grappling with ways to prevent the abuse of children. They have, in fact, a symbiotic
relationship with these outside groups, sometimes paying them to keep watch over the fields
or scold parents into sending their children to school. Monsanto says if it finds a farmer
employing children, it cans him. But in interviews farmers say that happens only after a third
offense. "The problem," says Mohammad Raheemuddin of the MV Foundation in
Hyderabad, "is that too few people have been assigned to monitor a vast area."

"One reason [monitoring groups] are so important in India is because the government has
been an utter failure in implementing the law," says Zama Coursen-Neff, deputy director at
Human Rights Watch in New York City. "But in any situation where there's funding available
there is room for corruption and abuse." (See box. )

At the very least, the watchdogs have learned to exploit the media. Sometimes they tip off
journalists before persuading the police to raid a sweatshop. In October 2007 the New Delhi
NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan informed the Observer, the British daily, that 14 kids, some
as young as 10, were spending 16 hours a day at a subcontractor embroidering blouses for
GapKids. Gap (nyse: GPS - news - people ), which has canned the subcontractor, placed its
vendor on probation and cut its orders, recently met with suppliers to underscore its zero-
tolerance policy and created a $200,000 grant to improve workshop conditions.

The labor organizations can't agree on how to ameliorate the situation. Some say that children
of poor families have to work in order to make ends meet and that the government should
offer them night classes to prepare them for better jobs. Others want to end child labor by
finding jobs for parents, thereby eliminating the necessity for kids to work. "There is
obviously a demand for labor," says labor economist Ashok Khandelwal, who works with
unions. "But if a child is working that [usually] means the parents aren't."

Seven-year-old Santosh hadn't been in her new job a week yet in Dabbi, in the western desert
state of Rajasthan, when a reporter visited. Chiseling quarry waste into blocks, she hurt her
thumb and several fingers while figuring out how to hold a piece of sandstone in place with
her foot in order to shape it to the desired size. India is the third-largest exporter of decorative
stone--marble, granite, slate, sandstone--after Italy and China, with $1.2 billion in export
revenue in fiscal 2006. Her work will likely end up in the garden and patio shops of
American retail chains.

"We mandate an age of 16 or older," says Karen Cobb, speaking for Lowe's. "Our inspections
cover quarries and have found that our vendors are in compliance with our standards."

Laborers get paid by the cobble--a penny for a piece of 8 square inches, 7 cents for one of 66
square inches. Children are ideal because of their flexible hands and gentle pressure on the
chisel and the hammer, says Rana Sengupta with the Mine Labor Protection Campaign
(Trust) in Rajasthan. Hammer bruises are as common as cuts from flying pieces of the stone
or slices from the chisel. So, too, says Sengupta, are silicosis, tuberculosis and bronchitis
from inhaling dust particles.

Leela, 10, has been at this work for two years now. In a nine-hour workday she can turn out
50 pieces and earn $1.26. She takes two days off a month. At another Rajasthan quarry, 15-
year-old Raju has spent his adolescence among the piles of sandstone waste. He dropped out
of school four years ago to make cobbles. He's become something of a veteran. "I used to get
hit by these broken pieces in my shins all the time," Raju says. "But with practice I finally got
it right." Occasionally a piece of the chisel breaks and flies off like shrapnel. Raju points to a
worker who has such a wound, just under his ribs. "It doesn't hurt," he assures.

Further north, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, hand-knotted carpets are made and sent to
showrooms in the U.S. Such goods can be found, says Washington D.C. NGO Rugmark, at
Bloomingdale's, ABC Carpet & Home and Ikea. The chains insist they do not tolerate child
labor. In Mirzapur most looms are inside people's homes or in communal sheds. Workers live
and sleep in the same low-slung sheds, stepping down into 3-foot-deep trenches dug into the
earthen floors to house the looms. Two or three people sit at a loom. The pits get damp,
especially during the monsoons, and after the daylight fades, weavers must rely on a single
naked lightbulb.

For the past year 14-year-old Rakil Momeen has been working at a loom in a shack in
Mirzapur. A fourth-grade dropout, he left his parents in West Bengal and trekked halfway
across the country. In his new life he works from 6 a.m. to 11p.m. and earns $25 a month.
After every knot the threads must be cut precisely with a sharp, curved blade. Rakil
complains, not about nicks in fingers, but about homesickness. His face lights up as he
remembers his childhood in the Malda district. "I used to hang out with my friends and my
parents all the time," he says. "I really miss that." A cricket fan, he keeps his worn-out cricket
bat next to him at the loom; occasionally he gets to play a game on Sundays.
India is full of painful incongruities. In the capital, on Asaf Ali Road, just across from the
Delhi Stock Exchange and behind a wall of tiny storefronts, is a maze of alleyways 2 feet
wide, with exposed rooms on both sides. In some places rickety metal ladders go three floors
high to the rooftop. Crammed into rooms no bigger than a king-size bed, six to eight young
boys, some as young as 5 years old, are hard at work. They're decorating photo frames,
diaries, shoe heels and such with sequins and pieces of glass. You can find similar items at
stores like Pier 1 and Target (nyse: TGT - news - people ), says Athreya of Labor Rights
Forum. The companies insist that their vendors not employ underage children.

In one such room, where the only piece of furniture is a low workbench, 10-year-old Akbar
sits on the floor and mixes two powders into a doughy adhesive, his fingers blackened by the
chemicals. Another boy spreads a thin layer of the mixture on a photo frame and a third,
seated on his haunches, starts pasting tiny pieces of mirrors and sequins along the border. He
sways back and forth, a habit most kids have developed to keep the blood flowing through
their limbs as they sit for several hours. Decorating one 5-by-5-inch frame consumes six
child-hours. The boys, who all live in the room and cook their own food here, typically work
from 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. for $76 a month. Many have teeth stained from cigarettes they smoke
and tobacco they chew to relieve the tedium.

Sometime within the next few months Gap intends to convene a global forum to consider
"industrywide solutions" to child labor. Good luck. Since October Gap has cut in half its
orders from a contractor in New Delhi it claims had subcontracted embroidery work out to an
unofficial vendor without the company's knowledge. But in the wake of the bust, middlemen
have found new ways to duck responsibility by removing labels that identify the origin of
apparel. Says Bhuwan Ribhu, whose organization, Bachpan Bacho Andolan, helped bust the
subcontractor, "Now it's even harder to trace who the shipment is for and to hold the
companies accountable."
 Volume 18 - Issue 01, Jan. 06 - 19, 2001
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU

CHILD LABOUR

Blood on silk
A large number of children work in appalling conditions in
Karnataka's silk industry, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of
Table of the country's production of mulberry silk.
Contents
VINITA

THE beautiful silk sarees you buy often have on them the sweat and
blood of children like Naushad.
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
The body of Naushad at the Government
Victoria Hospital in Bangalore.

Naushad, 12, died on November 14 (Children's

Day), 2000, of 79 per cent burns sustained
while working in a silk reeling unit in
Ramanagaram, 48 km from Bangalore. His
employers say he committed suicide, but
several residents of the town allege that he wa s
burnt to death.

The eldest child of Shafiullah and Kamarunissa,

Naushad lived with his parents and six siblings
in Yarab Nagar in the town. When he was nine
he joined Dadu Fayaz's silk reeling unit as a "cocoon cook" for Rs.15 a
day - for 11-hour's work that steamed his hands into a pulpy mass.
Most children in the silk industry start working at the age of eight.
"Children do all the dirty jobs, like killing and extracting the worms
and cleaning up the waste. We adults would never do such things,"
says a worker in a si lk factory. Most of the children are bonded to
their employers, who would be recovering loans of around Rs.5,000
taken by their parents. Such repayments often mark an endless process.

According to Naushad's relatives and neighbours, some of whom went

into hiding in the wake of the death in fear of Fayaz's men, the boy was
locked up in a dingy room adjoining the factory shed for a fortnight. At
work, he was allegedly tortured physicall y and emotionally for not
reporting regularly. When Naushad cried to go home for Id-ul-Fitr on
November 12, his employer was stated to have thrashed him.
Naushad's ensuing sullenness apparently enraged his employer. Akbar,
Naushad's co-worker, who was st ealthily carrying salna (a soggy
mixture of rice and dal) for Naushad for about four days before he died
that Sunday, said that he used to see Naushad being beaten.
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
A child worker loosens silk thread from boiling
cocoons at a reeling unit in Ramanagaram. The
process causes burns and blisters in the white of
the hand.

Naushad was admitted to the Government Victoria

Hospital, Bangalore, at 9:45 a.m. on November 13.
He died that night at 1 a.m. The employer's men
claim that the child committed suicide by setting
himself on fire after dousing himself with
kerosene. Nanju nda Char, Assistant Sub-Inspector
at the hospital police station, said: "It is an open
and shut case, with no complications." The hospital's records state that
Naushad was 12 years old, but Char refutes this, saying it was a
mistake made by his family in the rush to admit the child. According to
Char, Naushad was 17 years old.

Activists of the Movement for Alternatives and Youth Awareness

(MAYA), a non-governmental organisation working in the area of
child rights, allege that the employer's representatives are trying to
hush up the case by promising money and at the same time extending
threats to the bereaved parents. Naushad's mother admitted to MAYA
activists that she was paid Rs.15,000 to tell the police and the hospital
authorities that the 'accident' did not take place at the work place but at
their home. She is under pr essure from various quarters to stick to this
version.
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Children at work in the reeling sector.
They are often made to work for more
than 10 hours daily, with no rest days.

The situation in the area where Naushad's

workplace is situated is tense. On Monday,
November 20, 2000, representatives of
MAYA met the Superintendent of Police
and the Collector, Bangalore Rural district,
to discuss the action taken in Naushad's
case. F ollowing the meeting the SP, S.
Ramakrishna, visited Ramanagaram town.
How-ever, the employer is absconding since then.

On November 25, after a public meeting at the taluk level,

representatives of the Child Labour Eradication Committee
(comprising individuals from organisa-tions/groups of Channapatna
and Ramanagaram taluks) submitted a memorandum to District
Collector, G .S. Narayanswamy demanding the removal of child
workers from the silk filature units and the prevention of children
working in the industry.
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

WHAT circumstances would drive a 12

year-old to suicide? The working
conditions in a reeling unit are
appalling. According to the
Government of Karnataka's Human
Development Report, 1999,
approximately 400,000 people make a
living from the seric ulture industry. Of
these, an estimated 100,000 are
children. The figures for the reeling segment, in which Naushad
worked, are shocking. More than 80 per cent of silk reelers are under
the age of 20, most of them between the age of 10 and 15.

India, the world's second largest silk producer after China, accounts for
just 5 per cent of the global silk market since the bulk of Indian silk
thread and cloth are used domestically. Today Karnataka produces
9,000 tonnes out of the country's total pro duction of 14,000 tonnes of
mulberry silk. Sericulture is the source of livelihood for over 51,700
families in Channapatna, Ramanagaram, Magadi, and Kanakapura
taluks of Bangalore Rural district, the major silk production centres of
the State.
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

The majority of the working population

in Ramanagaram taluk is employed in
one or the other segment of the
sericulture industry. Ramanagaram is
the largest market for cocoons in Asia;
15 to 50 tonnes arrive at the
Ramanagaram cocoon market daily.
The Mus lim community has
traditionally accounted for 90 per cent
of the reelers and reeling entrepreneurs,
although non-Muslims have also
entered the field in the last 20 years. More than 50 per cent of
Ramanagaram's silk reelers are migrants from Kollegal, Yel andur and
Chamrajnagar who came to the town in search of work in the last two
decades.

The State government has promoted sericulture as a high employment,

agro-based, income-generating industry. The industry comprises many
processes - growing mulberry plants, rearing silkworms, producing
cocoons, and reeling silk yarn. While the cultivatio n of mulberry and
the rearing of silk worms are agricultural in character, the reeling,
twisting and weaving of silk are distinctly industrial in nature. The
reeling of cocoons is done in cottage establishments or in larger
factories called filatures.
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

A study conducted by MAYA in 1999

showed that children work in all segments
of the sericulture industry - in mulberry
cultivation, cocoon rearing, winding,
doubling, twisting, and re-reeling. Before
the reeling process begins, the cocoons are
boiled in h ot water to kill the worms.
Children do this work in damp and
unhealthy conditions. A 1997 report on
child labourers in World Bank-aided
programmes described the process thus:
"As reelers, the children dip their hands
into scalding water and palpate the silk
cocoons, sensing by touch whether the fine silk threads have loosened
enough to be unwound. They are not permitted to use spoons instead of
their hands when checking the boiling cocoons, on the theory that their
hands can more easily discern when th e threads are ready to reel. At
age 10, their palms and fingers are white with the thick tracks of
fissures, burns and blisters."

The raw silk is processed in winding units by children between the

ages of six and nine. They wind the silk into strands, a process which
can cut their wet, sore hands. Injuries do not heal in these conditions.
In the process of doubling the strands of s ilk, children in the age group
six to 14 are employed. As in the case of winding, children must stand
continuously and closely observe the yarn to ensure that it does not
break or knot. The strain of this work often leads to backache and eye
problems. Ch ildren in the age group of six to 10 years work in re-
reeling units. Reeling units and machines are in fact designed in such a
manner that only children can work on them.

Children work in the units for 10 to 12 hours and are paid daily wages
fixed at the employer's discretion. Usually they are not paid even Rs.
10 a day. There are no weekly rest days or holidays. When there is no
power supply, the children are made to wor k in the employer's homes.

The units are cramped, dark, wet and poorly ventilated, and often have
small generators running inside, which release carbon monoxide and
other noxious fumes. Complaining is taboo. "They beat us very hard
with belts if we make a small mistake or if we co me late to work.
Often if we have a cut or bruise on our hands, we just have to daub
some cream and get back to work. Otherwise they hit us on the head
and sometimes even lock us up in the unit premises," a child worker
told this writer.

Bronchial ailments, coughs, colds, persistent back pain, leg pain,

asthma, lung infection and tuberculosis are endemic among child
reelers. Constant exposure to the dead worms and the stench causes
dizziness and fever. The children are made to listen to loud music,
ostensibly to mask the deafening noise of the machines. This often
leads to deafness. "I have a constant problem of heavy breathing,
cough, stomach ache, fever, headache, pus in my ears and dizziness,"
says a child. His eight-year-old sister complains of persistent leg pain,
back pain and dizziness. Throughout the long working day, both drink
up to eight cups of tea in order to ease the pangs of hunger.
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
A cocoon cook. Most children in this sector
work under conditions of bondage.

Some children also suffer from silk-related

allergies. Having to stand throughout the day
could lead to menstrual disorders in girl
children.

Employers would argue that poverty forces

the children to work in the silk industry. But
Venkataraju, a silk unit owner in Sidlaghatta,
admits that if he does not employ children, he
would be running the unit at a loss. He says
that children do not argue if they are paid
between Rs.10 to Rs. 20. An adult would
have to be paid Rs.60 to Rs.70 to do the same job.

MOST children in this sector work under conditions of bondage.

Parents take an advance from their employers and give their children in
bondage to their employers for several years until the loans are repaid.
"When my children ask me now why I did not sen d them to school, I
feel guilty. But then I was helpless. My elder daughter had to get
married and we needed money. The schools in our areas were not
teaching the children anything useful and I felt it was better that they
start working and earning. Now I seem to have wasted their lives," says
Akhila, a mother of three children.

Daulat, a child worker, feels his debt will never be repaid and he will
have to toil for the rest of his life. He said that when cocoon supplies
fell, his parents took petty loans again and thereby increased the
principal debt amount. Meanwhile, they als o send him to work at
mango orchards until the silk units reopen.
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
At a reeling unit in Ramanagaram.

Children in these areas spend their entire

childhood in silk factories and find
themselves uneducated, unskilled and
unemployed as they enter adulthood. "I
want to go to school... what is the use of
this work? At least if I go to school, I
can do somethi ng on my own instead of
having to struggle like this," said Noor, a child worker. His friends
Amjad, Rafiq and Zabi also said that they wished they could go to
school one day.

According to the 1991 Census, there are 9.76 lakh working children in
the State of which 49 per cent are girls. The participation rate of
children in the age group of five to 14 years as full-time workers is 8.2
for boys and 6.5 for girls. For reeling an d twisting, the ratio of child
workers to adult workers in the industry is 2:1. In weaving, the
employment of children is limited. The State's Human Development
Report, 1999, argues that if every child who is not going to school is
counted as a potential working child, then there are over three million
working children in Karnataka.

The Department of Sericulture and other associated government bodies

view their role as being limited to the technical aspects of the industry
and research on the silk variety. When MAYA representatives met the
technical service wing officer at Ramanagar am, he denied the
existence of the child labour in the sericulture industry. He said that his
office did not account for children in their lists.

The World Bank has actively promoted the silk industry over the last
decade and a half, although in doing so it has largely ignored the firm
foundation that child labour provides to the industry. From 1980 to
1989, the Bank loaned $54 million to support the sericulture industry
in Karnataka. In 1989, the Bank gave two more loans totalling $177
million for the National Sericulture Project in Karnataka and Uttar
Pradesh. In 1994 and 1995, the World Bank loaned another $3 million
to modernise the silk indu stry and helped back a $157 million project
to upgrade the production facilities and quality of silk. Prior to the
intervention of the World Bank, a study conducted by the Institute for
Socio-Economic Change, Bangalore, a premier social science research
institute, alarmed by the incidence of child labour in the sericulture
industry, recommended that this aspect be included in the National
Sericulture Project. However, subsequent intervention by the World
Bank, the Swiss Development Corporation and other s has been
restricted to conducting studies, analyses and reports on the issue. In
reality, little has been done by them to improve the conditions of the
children and the families toiling in the industry.

THE HINDU

Enforcing the ban

The ban on employing children in restaurants, roadside eateries,

hotels, and tea shops or as domestic labour, announced by the
Government in August, has recently come into effect. Those who
violate the ban will be fined and also face a prison term up to two
years. This is a welcome move focussing on areas where child
labour is rampant and where the exploitation of children is
shockingly high. Official estimates of child labour in India put the
figure at 13 million although non-governmental organisations think
it is about 60 million. The 2001 Census found about 185,000
children working as domestic labour and 70,000 working in
restaurants and dhabas, but NGOs say that the number of children
actually employed in these sectors is close to 20 million. The latest
ban expands the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986
by adding to the list of `hazardous' occupations in which children
must not be employed. The existing legislation bars the
employment of children only in certain occupations specified in the
Act such as mining, chemical production, carpet weaving, bidi
making, wool cleaning, and other processes where toxic substances
are used. Child labour will persist in other areas, above all the
agricultural sector where some 80 per cent of the working children
can be found.

Meanwhile, to ensure that children do not work under conditions

that have a deleterious impact on their health and development,
multiple remedies need to be adopted. The law must be enforced
stringently, with strong mechanisms for inspection and prosecution.
Rescued children need special educational intervention to prepare
them for regular schools. Going beyond this, India needs to do, as
a top priority, what all developed, and many developing, countries
have done — end the pernicious practice of child labour through
ensuring, by law and in strict practice, that all children of school-
going age are in school. The first stage of free and compulsory
primary education, with the quality benchmarked, must apply
immediately to the whole of India; and the more advanced States
and Union Territories must aim higher than this. The near-term
national goal must be to end all child labour, not just the
employment of children in stipulated occupations.

THE HINDU

A ban that was overdue

The Government of India has announced a ban on the employment

of children as domestic workers and as workers in restaurants,
dhabas, hotels, spas and resorts effective from October 10 this
year. This is a welcome move that will benefit many of India's child
workers, of whom there are a staggering 13 million or more,
forming the largest number of child labourers in the world. Many of
these children experience physical, psychological, and sexual abuse
on a regular basis. For instance, the exploitation of children is high
in roadside eateries, tea shops and dhabas where child labour is
rampant. The horrific murder of 10-year-old Sonu, a child domestic
worker, who was brutally beaten to death by her employers in
Mumbai recently for trying on some lipstick is an appalling example
of the kind of cruelty that these children often endure. It is
reasonable to assume that there are myriad such incidents going
unreported; cases of young children whose childhoods are stolen
from them, who are abused and who die at the hands of their
employers. The present law, The Child Labour (Prohibition and
Regulation) Act 1986, bans employment of children only in
hazardous industrial processes such as mining, chemical
production, carpet weaving, bidi making, wool cleaning and in
workplaces where toxic substances are used. Rules under this law
were framed in 1989 and, through further notifications and
schedules, rules for "working conditions" were formulated for
children working in environments not prohibited by the 1986 Act,
while increasing the number of hazardous industries covered by it.

The Government also launched the National Child Labour Projects in

1988 to rehabilitate working children by getting them into special
schools for a non-formal education, and by other measures such as
enforcing labour laws to make it illegal for them to be hired. The
Supreme Court has also issued various directions in this regard, but
the existing laws are ineffective and are not implemented in many
 parts of the country. Children continue to work under extremely
adverse and dangerous conditions, with their plight accorded low
importance by various State governments. The latest ban will be
ineffective unless the law is enforced and the violators are
prosecuted. Surprise inspections of establishments where children
are likely to be employed and mechanisms to prevent recurrence
need to be established. Non-enforcement by States should entail
deterrent action. Such strategies will work well to control the
demand for child labour. But also needed is a choking off of the
supply. An effective way to do this would be to ensure that the
constitutional obligation of providing free and compulsory education
for all children under 14 is met, so that children cannot be
elsewhere than school. The main, and invaluable, consequence of
securing children's basic rights will of course be the powerful
enrichment of the nation's human capital, necessary for the
country's road to prosperity.

485 child labourers rescued

Devesh K. Pandey

Employers locked them in abandoned houses and underground workshops

 Four teams conducted simultaneous raids

 Union Labour Ministry to repatriate these children
 More such raids to be conducted

DELHI'S SHAME: Child labourers who were working in a `zari' factory in East
Delhi kept inside a pen by factory owners. The unit was raided on Monday to
release them. — PHOTO: PTI

NEW DELHI: In a major crackdown on employment of child labour, a joint team of the
State Labour Department, the Delhi police and the non-governmental organisation,
Pratham, rescued close to 500 children from illegal zari units in northeast Delhi on
Monday.

The operation began around noon and four teams conducted simultaneous raids in the
Gonda, Noor-e-Ilahi, Arvind Mohalla and Usmanpur areas. As news of the raids spread,
the zari unit owners tipped off one another and fled the scene, threatening the children
with dire consequences if they revealed anything about them.

To ensure that they remained untraced, the employers locked several children in
abandoned houses, underground workshops and even on the roof of an abandoned
government building. Some were sent to schools in the area to mingle with students,
said Junned Khan, head of the Pratham Child Labour Team, which spearheaded the
operation.

Ravi Kant of the NGO Shakti Vahini, said "A zari unit was operating from the first floor of
a school building. The unit owner had school identity cards issued to the children to show
them as students. In another unit we found that several children had been hidden under
heaps of quilts, while scores were sent to parks in the area to evade detection."

Nevertheless, during the five-hour operation, the team rescued 485 minors. They were
taken to the HUDCO's August Kranti Bhawan in Bikaji Cama Place where arrangements
for their stay were made.

Rahimullah, rescued from a Gonda embroidery unit, said he was from Motihari district of
Bihar and had been working in Delhi for the past several months.

"There were several other boys who were brought here along with me. Now that the
police have rescued me, I wish to join my family," he said. He refused to identify the
"trafficker" who had brought him here.

Iftikar of Kishanganj in Bihar said his employer did not beat him, as he was a trained
`karigar.' "But he would beat up the trainees and even lock them up in rooms if they did
not cooperate. We would get two meals a day and work for over 10 hours," he said,
asking when he would be taken back home.

The Joint Labour Commissioner, Piyush Sharma, said the Union Labour Ministry had
contacted its Bihar counterpart for the repatriation of these children.

"The rehabilitation would be carried out in coordination with Pratham," he added.