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.

We must all put an effort forward to try and correct it, even by just boycotting products that use bonded child labour. India has the highest number of NGO’s working for children and fighting against child exploitation, but this is too complex a problem to be solved any time soon. This problem would need to be looked at and tackled from a variety of fronts and would require a lot of time and effort, but with the world’s involvement, this problem can be fixed, this hidden factory could finally be brought to light and these children could just go back to being children again.
Ranjana Ghosh lives in Minneapolis and is involved in the rights of children.
Related Articles:
There Live Enslaved Children
Molested School Girls and the Mystery of Skewed Literacy Ratios
HRW Report on Bonded Child Labor in India
Campaign Against Child Labor
South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude