Tag Archive for: India

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Ending Child Labor in Mica Mines in India and Madagascar

By Katarzyna Rybarczyk 

Katarzyna Rybarczyk

Most people use products containing mica daily, without realizing what the story behind their production is. Mica is a mineral commonly found in products such as cosmetics, paints, and electronics. For most people living in the West, mica is simply something that makes these products shiny. However, extracting mica is often linked to the worst forms of child labor.

India and Madagascar are the two largest exporters of sheet mica globally, with most mica mining happening in illegal mines. The two countries are also the most associated with using children to extract the mineral.

Areas where mica mines are located struggle with high poverty rates, so mining mica is often the only thing that lets families put food on the table and survive. With families struggling to earn a living, children often have to supplement their parents’ income.

As mica mining is unregulated and, for the most part, thrives in hiding, there are many dangers associated with it.

The scale of the problem

The majority of illegal mica mines in India are located in just two states Bihar and Jharkhand, which are among India’s most impoverished. The governance there is weak, so the industry is subject to few, if any, regulations and labor exploitation of both adults and children occurs frequently.

It is estimated that 22,000 children work in mica mines in Jharkhand and Bihar, but as mines that employ children do not report it, giving the exact numbers is impossible.

According to the findings of the US Department of Labor, in Madagascar, around 10,000 children work in the mica sector.

Most of the mines are located in the southern region of Madagascar, where children are charged with tasks ranging from building the mines to extracting and sorting the mineral.

In the country, children ‘make up half of all workers in mica mines’, research by Terre Des Hommes revealed.

Even though the respective governments are aware of child labor being prevalent in mica mines, they lack appropriate resources to address and solve the issue. Moreover, as unemployment rates are high and professional opportunities are limited, mining mica is often the only income-generating activity for families living in the mines’ vicinity.

In India, for their labor, children who mine mica get around fifty rupees a day, equivalent to less than seventy cents. The rates are similar in Madagascar. As the mica goes through a supply chain, however, wholesalers can get more than a thousand US dollars for a kilogram of it. That illustrates how unjust the industry is and how severe human rights violations happening in mica mines are.

Dangers for children

Mining mica is a labor intensive process that requires going into narrow shafts that frequently collapse and trap children under the rocks. To find mica, children are forced to go underground, where they often find themselves in complete darkness.

The tunnels caving in is not the only threat to children mining mica, however. They are constantly exposed to dust, which can lead to pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses. In addition to that, lacking appropriate tools, most children use their bare hands to mine mica, which frequently results in cuts and skin infections.

Working in illegal mines puts children at risk of further problems such as physical abuse or modern slavery. ‘Young girls are also vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation around mica mining sites’, US Department of Labor wrote in the Report on the Worst Forms of Child Labor.

To get paid, children need to fill in an entire basket with flakes of mica. That often requires them to spend a whole day in the mine, which means they do it instead of going to school. Growing up mining mica instead of getting an education traps children in a never-ending cycle of abuse and suffering and limits their future employment opportunities.

Ending child labor in mica mines

Knowing how exploitative the mica supply chain can be, some end-users decide to abandon products containing the mineral altogether, and others turn to synthetic mica. In theory, it can seem like a sustainable solution – if the demand for mica decreases, fewer children will be involved in mining it. In practice, however, the production process of synthetic mica often lacks transparency, making it impossible to state that this alternative is entirely child labor-free. Furthermore, if we completely stopped using mica products, we would deprive thousands of families of their only way to get money.

Without mica, entire communities in India and Madagascar would be forced into extreme poverty. The moral dilemma of whether to use mica or not is evident, and finding a solution to the problem is challenging.

Merely boycotting products containing mica is not the right answer. Instead, empowering children and their parents, teaching them about the importance of education, and providing them with professional training and skills that would allow them to find employment elsewhere is essential. Thanks to that, their dependence on illegal mica mining would be reduced, and Indian and Malagasy children could live a happy childhood, free from exploitative labor.

Author’s bio:

Katarzyna Rybarczyk is a Political Correspondent for Immigration News, a media platform affiliated with Immigration Advice Service. Through her articles, she aims to raise awareness about security threats worldwide and the challenges facing communities living in developing countries.

Editor’s Note:

In February 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded $4.5 million in grant-funding to reduce child labor in Madagascar’s mica-mining communities. We urge you to watch this compelling 2019  NBC News video about mica mining in Madagascar from the Today Show:

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A 14-Year-Old Mulls “The Price of Freedom” and Decides to Engage in the Battle to End Child Labor

By Nikeeta Singh

Nikeeta Singh is a 14-year-old student in New Delhi, India.

 

It is said that childhood is the best gift given to us by God. Everything is different when you’re a child: the trees are higher, the colours are more vivid than ever, and every new day is a new opportunity.

However, childhood is not the same for all. For some it is waking up at six in the morning and working till the sun sets; it is staying away from your parents to earn minimum wages; it is working in inhumane environments in hopes of a brighter future. This is the reality of child labour.

Nikeeta Singh

Child labour is experienced by every one in ten children around the globe. At the age when children should worry about their marks they are worrying about their health and economic status. But how can we blame these innocent angels? Uneducated parents are one of the major sources that contribute to child labour. It is the children of poor and marginalized communities who are often trafficked and forced into labour. Parents of these children are either betrayed or lured into schemes due to their lack of awareness and poor socio-economic conditions, forcing them to send or sell their children for better livelihood options. Traffickers promise daily wages to parents of young children and transport them to big cities where they are often treated as commodities. Families in dire financial conditions are can be approached by traffickers with an offer to buy their children, and with no other escape from their pitiful conditions, parents comply.

One of the major effects of child labour on children is losing access to education. Every day, some 218 million children around the world go to work instead of school—152 million are trapped in child labour (work which harms their development). Education is the route out of poverty for many children. It gives them a chance to gain the knowledge and skills needed to improve their lives; however, many a times their education is treated as a luxury, not a necessity.

In India, there is a great need for convergence and implementation of comprehensive child protection mechanisms. Indian children are exposed to multiple vulnerabilities. With thousands of children still working in brick kilns, construction sites, and agricultural land, trafficking for the sake of forced child labour is widely prevalent. Apart from this, horrific stories emerge daily of girls as young as 9 years old being forced into the sex trade. Apart from this, children are also sold by their parents to work in factories and industries in toxic environments that are highly dangerous.

“If a child is denied education and forced to work instead, violence has been inflicted,” noted Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi. “If a child and its parents are denied opportunities for a promising tomorrow, violence has been inflicted. If a child reels under poverty, violence has been inflicted. If obstacles are laid in the path of a child, inhibiting her progress and development, violence has been inflicted.”

As evil of a sin child labour is, there have been many improvements. Organisations such as Child Rights and You (CRY), CHILDLINE India Foundation, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, the International Labour Organisation and numerous others have taken up the initiative to ensure that every child in the world is free, safe, healthy, receives quality education, and has the opportunity to realise their potential.

Today, as we speak 100 million children have fallen prey to child labour. The current COVID-19 pandemic can potentially increase the number and further aggravate the problem in regions where child labour has been more resistant to policy and programme measures. The level of global economic integration and the current crisis are likely to have a large and possibly lasting worldwide adverse socio-economic and financial impact.

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Statement by Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi on the passage of India’s Child Labour Amendment Bill of 2016

2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Kailash Satyarthi has long been a collaborator of the Child Labor Coalition

2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Kailash Satyarthi has long been a collaborator of the Child Labor Coalition

The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2016 is a missed opportunity.

I was hoping that today the elected leaders of our country will acknowledge that the value of freedom and childhood is greater than the value of a vote; that they would respond to the voices of the most exploited and vulnerable children. I had hoped that the first phase of my struggle of thirty-six years would culminate in the creation of a strong law and I would work with the Government for its effective implementation.

Despite its progressive elements, the lacunae in this Bill are self-defeating.

The definition of family and family enterprises is flawed. This Bill uses Indian family values to justify economic exploitation of children. It is misleading the society by blurring the lines between learning in a family and working in a family enterprise.

The Bill reinforces status quo in society by hindering socio-economic mobility of the marginalised and furthers the rigid norms of social hierarchy.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have fixed targets for elimination of child labour and accomplishment of universal, inclusive education for children, rights which I had fought and advocated for.  As the world progresses towards this goal, India threatens to unravel the pace of progress by opening a back door for large number of children to enter workforce.

Children of any age, under the garb of family enterprises, can now legally work in brick kilns, slaughter houses, beedi making, glass furnaces and other hazardous labour.  Children have been failed again.

However, I applaud the strong concern raised by several parliamentarians across party lines in the Lok Sabha.

The Hon’ble Labour Minister, who is a dear friend and elder brother assured that my serious reservations would be accommodated. Especially the reduced list of hazardous occupations, the ambiguity regarding the definition of family and family enterprises and the weakening of the conviction through the provision to compound offences. However, the Bill passed by the Parliament today does not address any of these concerns.

But I am a hopeful man. I believe in the children, the young people, the mothers and fathers of this country. I know we stand together to end child labour.

I call upon the conscience of our nation.

Today, justice must rise above the law.

 

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Child Labor Advocate Kailash Satyarthi on the Recent Landmark Indian Supreme Court Decision on Trafficking

With great pleasure, I share my joy and accomplishment with you. As I write to you, I am holding a copy of the landmark judgment of the Supreme Court of India that will have far reaching impact on the lives of millions of children. This historic judicial verdict was delivered on 10th May 2013 in response to a petition filed by my Indian organization Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) which is the key partner of Global March Against Child Labor.

It is indeed a watershed moment not only in BBA’s three decade fight in restoring childhood but has also brought a fresh lease of hope for hundreds of thousands of missing children and their hapless parents, whose cries remained unheard due to the absence of legal protection and apathy of the enforcement machinery. Our argument that children do not disappear in thin air but go missing because of an organized nexus of traffickers and mafias has been finally upheld by the highest court of the land.

BBA's Kailash Satyarthi and Child Labor Coalition Co-Chair Sally Greenberg at last summer's international child labor confernce in Washington, D.C., organized by the Global March Against Child Labor.

India has a dubious distinction with one child going missing every ten minutes as per government records. Although the government admits that complaints for 90,654 missing children were received in 2011 but it was only 15,284 First Information Reports (FIRs) that were eventually registered by the police to investigate various crimes these children were victims of. This also was possible only because the parents had expressed their suspicion on someone.

The Supreme Court in its much awaited decision has ruled in for compulsory registration of all cases by police of missing children with the presumption that they are victims of kidnapping and trafficking; preparation of standard operation procedures in all Indian states to deal with such cases; appointment and training of Special Child Welfare Officers at every police station to deal with cases related to missing children; records related to all missing and traced children to be maintained by Ministry of Home Affairs and Police; and provisions for para-legal workers to be present at every Police station to assist the parents whose child maybe the victim of a crime.

The Honorable Court has finally defined missing children as “a person below eighteen years of age, whose whereabouts are not known to the parents, legal guardians and any other person, who may be legally entrusted with the custody of the child, whatever may be the circumstances/causes of disappearance. The child will be considered missing and in need of care and protection within the meaning of the later part of the Juvenile Act, until located and/or his/her safety/well being is established.”

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The Real Cost of Cheap Goods is High: The Scary Truth Behind Some Christmas Ornaments

With the holidays upon us, many American look forward to trimming their Christmas tree and spending time with their loved ones, especially their children. For many kids, Christmas invokes the happiest of memories, but not all kids are so lucky.

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is now the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, noted earlier this month that many children in India are virtually enslaved in sweatshops that manufacture Christmas ornaments. Check out what Brown had to say in this video and learn about the “nightmare” suffered by Indian children who make ornaments for consumers in the U.S. and other countries in the Western hemisphere.

In the video, Brown talks about a rescue raid by Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) which freed 14 of the child laborers—some as young as eight—from a sweatshop in Delhi. BBA, like the Child Labor Coalition is a member of the Global March Against Child Labor, an international umbrella group that works to reduce the worst forms of child labor.

“Children are being asked to work 17, 18, 19 hours a day,” said Brown. “They are being asked to work in unsanitary conditions. They are being asked to work without sunlight. Some of them are lacerated because they are working with glass. We found these children in this basement, they were not being paid, they had been trafficked…” Several children had been beaten by their crew leaders. The rescuers actually found 12 of the children imprisoned in a locked 6-foot  by 6-foot cell

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Many Children in India Live and Work in Landfills

[by Mark Magnier. the L.A. Times, 4/22/2012]
NEW DELHI — The children didn’t notice the ravens and occasional vulture circling overhead, or the stream of black ooze that flowed nearby, or the inescapable stench of decay. They were squealing over a 4-cent ride on a small, hand-powered Ferris wheel.

The kids are growing up in New Delhi’s 70-acre Ghazipur landfill, a post-apocalyptic world where hundreds of pickers climb a 100-foot-high trash pile daily, dodging and occasionally dying beneath belching bulldozers that reshape the putrid landscape.

On “trash mountain,” families earn $1 to $2 a day slogging through waist-deep muck. But the residents also marry, have children on their dirt floors, pray and celebrate life’s other milestones.

“I am very proud to be a rag picker; we keep you healthy,” said Jai Prakash Choudhary, who has spent years scouring Delhi’s dumps in search of cast-off bottles, metal, even human hair.

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Roadblocks to Child Labor Elimination in India

VASUDHA VENUGOPAL [from The Hindu 2.13.2012]

The HinduA child at a brick kiln in Tiruvallur. Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam

Every evening on the Marina, 10-year-old Karunakaran is among the several who urge visitors to buy a packet of pattani sundal. Around 5 p.m., he returns home from school, picks up the basket of 50 sundal packets and rushes to the beach eagerly looking for a ‘certain anna’ who lets him play snake game on his mobile phone. In Pudupet, another boy, Raj, struggles with bolts at an automotive spare-part manufacturing unit. ‘Fifteen’ he says in a seemingly trained way, the moment you ask him anything about his age. Originally from Rajasthan, he really hopes to get out of the unit, and be employed in a house, “like my cousin, a 14-year-old who works in a house in George Town here.”

Anything that interferes with the development of the child – that is the UN definition of Child Labour. And by this standard there are innumerable children in and around the city, employed in various professions, some grappling to come out, and some with no control over the situation.

The Labour Department has been regularly sending teams to industrial units to rescue child labourers but sources feel there is a concerted effort against such drives from employers who often manage to get parents on their side. The mobile education drive started by the department to identify children on the street and take them into fold of education is no longer functional either.

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India’s Exploited Child Cotton Workers

By Humphrey HawksleyBBC News, Gujarat

Civil rights activist Jignesh Mevani describes the conditions endured by India’s child cotton workers

The noise was deafening and air in the factory in northern Gujarat was so thick with cotton dust it was like a snowstorm at night.

Women and girls, some no more than 10 or 11, fed machines with raw cotton picked from the nearby fields.

It is a process known as ginning – one end of a commercial supply chain that ends up as clothes and textiles in high street shops around the world. Globally, annual revenues from the industry are measured in the trillions of dollars.

Many household-name retailers concede they do not know exactly how the cotton they use is farmed and processed. Yet, for years, labour activists here have campaigned for their help.

Missing parents

“The workers’ lives are terrible,” said Jignesh Mevani, an activist who was our guide. “They are not paid the minimum wage. There are no safety precautions. There are many children.” Read more

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45% Reduction of Child Labor in 5 Years: Labor Minister

Printed from The Times of India

NEW DELHI: Labour minister Mallikarjun Kharge told the Lok Sabha that there has been 45% reduction in child labour between 2004-05 and 2009-10.

Replying to a question by C M Chang, Kharge admitted India has not ratified convention number 182 of International Labour Organization about worst forms of child labour. He explained to ratify this convention, Centre has to not only consult all the states but also assess wider repercussion to the entire country. “At present, we are trying our best to prohibit persons up to the age of 14 years,” Kharge said.

The minister also listed out host of steps taken by the government that has helped in reducing child labour. He said government programmes like Right to Education, MNREGA, Mid-Day Meal scheme and others are inclusive in nature and help in reduction of child labour. “Many children are going to get education. Parents are also sending them. As the economic status is improving children are getting better education,” he said. Kharge said child labour is a problem that cannot be sorted out quickly, and concerted efforts of various government departments is needed.

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Rampant Child Labor Goes Unaddressed in Kashmir

By Sana Altaf [from IPSnews.net] India

SRINAGAR, (IPS) – Fourteen-year-old Shafat Ahmad works as a domestic helper in the house of a Srinagar-based government employee in Kashmir. His younger sister embroiders shawls in an unregistered textile venture in her native village of Beeru.

“When my father first brought me here, my employer promised to send me to school,” Shafat told IPS. Though he is keen to pursue his education, he has yet to attend a single class.

The Ahmed siblings’ story is just one among thousands, as increasing numbers of children across the Kashmir Valley become mired in a child labor epidemic that strips them of their childhood and the chance for a decent education.

Kashmir’s handicrafts industry, which has long served as the backbone of the state economy, has recently gained more sinister recognition as one of the state’s leading employers of child laborers.

A prominent sociologist, B.A. Dabla, told IPS that the shawl industry was a particularly ravenous employer of children, especially young girls, whose small hands are useful for the intricate work of shawl making. Read more