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Child Labour and Debt Bondage: A Case Study of Brick Kiln Workers in
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Article  in  Journal of Asian and African studies · August 2005

DOI: 10.1177/0021909605055776

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Child Labour and Debt Bondage: A Case Study of Brick Kiln Workers
in Southeast India

Augendra Bhukuth
Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin en Yvelines, France

ABSTRACT

The article highlights some of our findings from a study carried out in the brick kiln
industry in Tamil Nadu, India. We have led both a qualitative and a quantitative survey.
As child labour is a common factor in the brick kiln industry, we show that in the inter-
linked credit–labour market employers do not directly employ children, but they have
implemented a system that constrains parents to use their children to improve their produc-
tivity. In such an environment parents use child labour to improve their bargaining power.

Keywords: advance system; brick kiln; child labour; debt bondage; exploitation; labour
broker; seasonal migration

Introduction
Since the creation of the International Programme for Eliminating Child
Labour (IPEC), there have been many articles dealing with the issue of child
labour. The growing interest in this phenomenon among scholars is justified by
the fact that it is interrelated with other elements, namely income poverty,
human capital and exploitation. The main aim of the IPEC was to eradicate
child labour in all its forms. But very soon the IPEC and the International
Labour Organization (ILO) realized that it is very difficult to achieve this objec-
tive, since the problem is a multi-faceted one. Therefore, they modified their
policy so that they focused on eradicating the worst form of child labour
(Schlemmer, 1997). The ILO distinguishes between two kinds of activities: those
that are harmful (child labour), and those that are not detrimental to children’s
physical and mental development (child work).
Human Rights Watch (1996, 2003) describes the alarming situation of
children in the carpet, brick kiln, silk and sportswear industries. It is assumed
that children involved in these industries are bonded to their employers. In this
article we highlight the reasons why children are involved in these industries.
We focus our analysis on one of the worst forms of child labour, that of
bondage. After studying the brick kiln industry of Tamil Nadu, South India we
present some of our findings here. We show that in the interlinked credit–labour

Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications www.sagepublications.com

(London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi)
Vol 40(4): 287–302. DOI: 10.1177/0021909605055776
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288 Journal of Asian and African Studies 40(4)

market child labour is used as a means of improving both bargaining power and
productivity.
Both a qualitative and a quantitative survey were carried out on debt
bondage in the brick kiln industry. We have interviewed owners, brokers and
workers in brick kilns and also in the workers’ village of origin. The quantita-
tive survey focused on workers on the sites, whereas the qualitative survey
focused on brick kiln owners and brokers. It was very difficult to survey workers
in brick kilns. The workers were not able to talk freely, as the managers were
present while they were being interviewed. They were very hesitant and embar-
rassed about answering our questions.
The questions addressed to workers focused primarily on three issues:
their financial stresses, their working conditions and child labour. To show this
relation the functioning of the brick kiln industry and the way workers are
recruited had to be understood.
This article is organized as follows. In the first section we review the
economic literature on child labour and analyse the exploitation of child labour
in the labour market, by presenting the limits of these approaches. The second
section analyses the presence of bondage labour in the brick kiln industry. The
third section describes the functioning of the brick kiln industry, how the
industry is organized and how labourers are recruited. In the fourth section we
show that without the advance system this industry cannot exist. Finally, in the
last section we present our conclusions from the survey carried out.

The Economics of Exploitative Child Labour

Generally, the literature on child labour has two main orientations. The first
studies the phenomenon in relation to poverty. This approach is developed by
Basu and Van (1998). In their article, they make an essential hypothesis called
luxury axiom. According to this hypothesis, a household sends its child to the
labour market when the family income, without the contribution of child labour,
falls below the household’s survival level. Hence, poverty becomes the main
determinant of child labour. Ray (2000) led a comparative empirical analysis
between Pakistan and Peru in order to verify the luxury axiom. The result
derived from the test is rather interesting. The luxury axiom is confirmed in the
case of Pakistan, but not in that of Peru. According to the author, parents’
educational level in Peru is higher than that in Pakistan. Hence, in Peru, even
in cases of crisis, children continue to attend school. Therefore, older children
or women are the ones to enter the labour market. However, the cultural and
religious factors in Pakistan urge the parents to send their young sons to the
labour market. Women and daughters, on the other hand, are not involved in
any remunerative activities. According to Bhalotra (2000), when wages in the
labour market increase women enter the market, whereas girls are made to
leave school to embrace domestic activities. There is, therefore, a switch in
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Bhukuth: Child Labour and Debt Bondage 289

allocation of time and activity between daughters and mothers in Pakistan.

Higher wages involve a drop out of girls from school, children involved in
remunerative activities allocate less time on work and the remaining time is
spent on leisure.
Child labour and education are conflicting, even if they are not mutually
exclusive (Grootaert and Kanbur, 1995). To this extent, the second approach
towards child labour analyses the weakness of parents’ investment in education.
Baland and Robinson (2000) show that parents are unable to internalize
educational externalities. In an imperfect capital market poor parents do not
invest in their children’s education because they are not sure they will be repaid
for their effort. According to Alderman and King (1998), education is an asset
from which those who invest in it do not benefit directly, but others (i.e.
children) do. As parents are not sure that their children will use their income to
guarantee security when they are older, they prefer not to invest in their
education. Baland and Robinson (2000) argue that society does not allow
children to make a contract with their parents, assuring them that they will pay
them back if they invest in their education. It is because of this situation that
child labour becomes inefficiently high and children are thereby the worst off.
Ranjan (2001) argues that if capital markets are better parents will invest in
children’s education because they care about their wellbeing. All of these
approaches focus primarily on the wellbeing of children. However, they are all
limited in that they fail to analyse the underlying problem – the exploitation of
child labour.
Recently, two papers on the exploitation of child labour (Rogers and
Swinnerton, 2002; Dessy and Pallage, 2005) have analysed parents’ decision to
send their children into the worst form of child labour. The convention C182
(ILO, 1999) defines the worst forms of child labour as all activities such as
slavery, or practices similar to slavery; for example, the sale and trafficking of
children, debt bondage (including forced or compulsory recruitment of children
for use in armed conflict) and the use of children for prostitution, pornographic
performances and other illicit activities. This convention distinguishes between
two kinds of activities: (1) the light form of work, which is not considered as
dangerous for children (child work), and (2) that which endangers their physical
and mental development (child labour). This definition of the worst form of
child labour has led to two kinds of approaches to exploitative child labour.
According to Rogers and Swinnerton (2002), parents face the problem
of asymmetric information while sending their children to the labour market,
where there are two kinds of firms: those that are exploitative and those that
are not. In fact, they do not know which of them are exploitative. Hence, if
parents are unfortunate enough, they may end up sending their children to an
exploitative firm. Once children enter the exploitative market, they cannot
escape from it. Indeed, as parents face the problem of asymmetric information
some firms, but not all, adopt an exploitative behaviour. Therefore, sending
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290 Journal of Asian and African Studies 40(4)

children to the labour market is just like a lottery, with two possibilities: win or
lose. Notwithstanding the risk to lose, parents make the choice of sending their
children to the labour market because there exist non-exploitative firms. Also,
the size of the non-exploitative market is larger than that of the exploitative one.
In an environment of uncertainty, as long as the utility of work is higher than
that of the utility of non-work, parents will send their children to the labour
market. It is poverty which forces them to do so.
Contrary to Rogers and Swinnerton (2002), Dessy and Pallage (2005)
show that parents do not face the problem of asymmetric information, but they
deliberately choose the exploitative firms because their wages are higher than
those of the non-exploitative ones. The labour market is segmented between
these two kinds of enterprises. Therefore, according to Dessy and Pallage,
parents living in extreme poverty choose the worst form of child labour because
of the more attractive rewards, that is, wages are higher. Thus, children contrib-
ute to enhance household income. In fact, parents choose these firms as long as
the higher wages compensate the pain of being involved in these activities.
Dessy and Pallage (2005) conclude that child labour can be beneficial to
children if, and only if, it improves their human capital. Hence, there are two
kinds of firms: ‘bad firms’ and ‘good firms’. The bad firms adopt a dangerous
technology that is detrimental to children. The good firms enhance children’s
human capital through the technology of learning by doing. The choice of these
two kinds of firms eventually depends on the parents’ human capital. Thus, child
labour can be beneficial if the children who are involved in these activities can
combine work and schooling. When wages are high, parents reduce the amount
of time that their children spend at work, so that they can attend school as well.
Parents’ decision to send children to work depends on the household
financial situation. Hence, Dessy and Pallage (2005) argue that forbidding child
labour can reduce the family’s wellbeing. Indeed, it is a fact that the elimination
of dangerous firms will not eradicate the problem. This will only result in a
displacement of child labour to the non-exploitative firms. The inevitable conse-
quences of this policy are a decrease in child wages and an increase of child time
in work. Therefore, Dessy and Pallage (2005) show that convention C182 is
counterproductive, though all policies must have the aim to alleviate poverty.
According to Rogers and Swinnerton (2002), the elimination of the dangerous
firms will have a positive impact on child wages. Such a policy can have two
effects: it will push dangerous firms to adopt a non-exploitative behaviour and
consequently it will increase the wages of children.
These theories focus on the ILO convention C182 and analyse its impli-
cations on household and children’s wellbeing. Exploitation is defined as hours
of work spent in firms. According to Rogers and Swinnerton (2002), working
long hours is not considered to be exploitative if wages compensate for the non-
utility of work. However, Dessy and Pallage (2005) show that children’s long
hours of work conflict with their education. So, they cannot accumulate human
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Bhukuth: Child Labour and Debt Bondage 291

capital by combining work and education. These approaches clearly distinguish

child work from child labour. Child work is considered to be non-exploitative
and it is specifically carried out in family enterprises. In the next section, we aim
to show that even in such firms children are being exploited.

Children’s Exploitation in Household Enterprises

Children are not exempt from exploitation in family enterprises. These kinds of
activities can also be detrimental to children’s physical and mental development,
particularly when they are submitted to intensive and extensive production. In
households where the decision makers are also entrepreneurs, they maximize
the household income (Maldonado, 1998). Children are used to improve the
household production and its income. Children working in the household enter-
prises do not receive any wages and they work long hours. Hence, Rogers and
Swinnerton’s (2002) hypothesis of asymmetric information does not hold in the
case of household firms. Parents exploit their children to improve the family
income. In this case, household enterprises offer children the opportunity to
learn a skill. However, working long hours in these activities has a psychologi-
cal impact on children. According to Nieuwenhuys (2002), in the state of Kerala,
India, girls working in household enterprises consider their work as having no
value because they are not paid for it. They have the feeling of being exploited
by their parents. According to Nieuwenhuys, girls prefer moving to the north of
India to earn an income, even if the work is exploitative. These girls accept
exploitation, provided that they receive a wage.
Other cases of child exploitation are related to girls who work as house-
maids in Africa. Girls are fostered out by their parents to their relatives (uncles,
aunts, etc.), or placed by agents with their employers. These girls never receive
their wages in hand; either the parents, or the intermediary agents receive it.
The latter give the earnings to the parents and take a commission on the wage
(Jacquemin, 2002). The fostering of children is part of the culture and tradition
in Sub-Saharan Africa. Children are sent to receive an education, either formal
or informal. In the Republic of Congo, fostered girls never receive any formal
education (Shapiro and Tambashe, 2001). Instead, they learn how to become a
good spouse.
UNICEF (2000) paints a dark picture of child abuse and exploitation of
domestic housekeepers. When children are placed through an intermediary
agent, parents do not have any possible way of knowing the true nature of the
employers. They face the problem of asymmetric information. They know their
children will be exploited, but they accept having them fostered, because they
are uncertain about the intensity of exploitation. As there is an opportunity to
work for a good employer, they choose to take the risk of sending their children
to the labour market. In this specific case, the hypothesis of asymmetric
information is confirmed. UNICEF (2000) distinguishes between two kinds of
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292 Journal of Asian and African Studies 40(4)

housemaid girls: (1) those living in their employer’s house, and (2) those living
in their parents’ house. In the former case, exploitation is severe, because
children are at the mercy of the employers. In effect, when placing their children
in employment, parents transfer their control to the employers.

Exploitation of Children in the Traditional Apprenticeship System

Dessy and Pallage (2005) describe the child labour market as consisting of a dual
nature, namely a good sector and a bad sector. The traditional apprenticeship
system can be considered as a good sector, because it allows the accumulation
of human capital. Therefore, this sector does not exclude exploitation. However,
the hypothesis of asymmetric information does not hold in this sector. Employ-
ers never recruit apprentices outside their family or community network.
Parents know the children’s employers. In fact, they transfer their parental
authority to the employers, who are then in charge of transferring their skills to
the children. If parents do not transfer their control to the employers, children
will never receive any skill. Therefore, once children enter the apprenticeship
system, they have to be docile and have to listen to their employers (Charmes,
1985a, 1985b). This leads to the creation of a paternalistic relationship between
the apprentice and the employer. Employers are very strict with their
apprentices in order to discourage those who are not motivated. Therefore,
employers adopt a strict approach in order to help them select good apprentices
(Charmes, 1985a).
There are many cases of child exploitation in the labour market, but we
are interested in child exploitation in the brick kiln industry because workers
are recruited through brokers. The brokerage system involves debt bondage.
Our interest lies in understanding the extent to which children are involved and
play a central role in debt bondage.

Bonded Labour in Brick Kilns

Nowadays, stories in daily newspapers, or other news sources, seldom depict
young children working in brick kilns. This article seeks to shed light on the way
in which child labour operates in India’s brick kiln industry. Human Rights
Watch describes work in brick kilns as bonded labour. This perception of
workers involved in brick kiln activities stems from the strong interrelation that
exists between the credit system and the labour market. Indeed, brick kiln
workers take advances before they begin to work. The ILO convention C182
forbids work undertaken by children in hazardous activities. Brick kiln activity
is considered to be hazardous because of the actual rigour of the work. In
summer, the work is even harder, since the workers have to spend long hours in
intolerable heat.
The United Nation’s convention of 1956 defines debt bondage as:
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Bhukuth: Child Labour and Debt Bondage 293

the status or conditions arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal

services or of those of a person under his control as security for a debt, if the
value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the
liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respec-
tively limited and defined.

According to this definition, labourers involved in brick kiln activities are

bonded in the sense that they all take advance money and have to work to repay
their debt.
In fact, the UN’s definition of bondage focuses on two main issues. The
first one is the economic exploitation of labourers. Workers must be paid at their
marginal productivity in order to fulfil their objective, which is the repayment
of their debt. When wages are not high enough (wages are under the marginal
productivity of labour) workers are unable to repay their debt and fall into
bondage. The second issue is the pledge of a person’s service to the debtor. This
means that the indebted person must not pledge his children’s capacity to work,
or that of a member of his family, as a security for the debt. Our survey reveals
that child labour and debt bondage are very much anchored in the brick kiln
industry. The crucial question remains whether the children are engaged in
order to repay their parents’ debts.
This definition of debt bondage specifically addresses the situation of
contract labourers who, for surviving during the lean season, take credit from
landlords. Nowadays, factors such as mechanization and climate drive landlords
to cut down on the number of labourers they employ. Thus, with agricultural
activities becoming a marginal source of income (Deliège, 1989), labourers have
to turn to other jobs in order to survive. So, if they turn to brick kiln activity, it
becomes their main source of income and they take advances for their work in
the industry.
Papers on child labour in brick kilns describe the working conditions of
children. However, none of them go as far as analysing the reason why children
become involved in such an activity. In a recent study led in northern India,
Gupta (2003) shows that children are not registered as workers in the master
roll kept with managers. Thus, the author implies that this industry tries to hide
the existence of child labour. In our study, we reject this hypothesis, because
child labour is a visible phenomenon and it is a fact known to everybody. The
question remains: why do they work? We show that child labour derives its exist-
ence from the link between the credit system and the labour market. Parents
are the ones who play a crucial role in the spread of child labour.

The Characteristics of the Brick Kiln Industry

There are two interesting papers (Gupta, 2003; Ercelawn and Nauman, 2004)
dealing with the issue of brick kiln workers and bonded labourers, namely in the
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294 Journal of Asian and African Studies 40(4)

way that they are recruited, their working conditions, their earnings and their
exploitation. Therefore, the issue of child labour is not discussed deeply. Accord-
ing to Ercelawn and Nauman (2004) child labour exists and is visible in every
step of the production process. To understand the presence of child labour in
this industry we have to first understand the way it functions.
According to Gupta (2003), there are around 50,000 brick kilns in the
whole of India, and according to the Association of Brick Kiln and Tiles Entre-
preneurs in Tamil Nadu there are around 2000 brick kilns in that specific region.
The functioning of the brick market is quite similar to a pure and perfect
competitive market (PPC), given that this market fulfils some of the
PPC assumptions:
(1) There exist numerous enterprises of same size. In fact, there are two
kinds of brick kilns: kalavasals, which are small units of production, and
chambers, which are large-sized enterprises. We refer here to chambers,
because child labour is found mostly in these units. Thus, all these enter-
prises are of the same size. A brick kiln comprises 24 chambers with the
capacity to bake 15,000 bricks each. It takes one week to bake one
chamber of bricks.
(2) There is also atomicity of producers, even if there is an association of
entrepreneurs. Our interviews with them reveal that there is hardly any
tacit or explicit commitment concerning the selling strategy of bricks.
Assuring that there is one, they will not respect it because of the com-
petition. Therefore, there is an explicit commitment concerning the
fixation of workers’ wages. There is a margin of more than Rs20, or less
than Rs60, between the chambers. This amount is quite high due to the
scarcity of labour in this industry. They respect this margin because they
do not want to give more bargaining power to labour contractors.
(3) Producers are free to enter and leave the market at any time. No direct
cost is incurred when leaving the market. According to brick kiln
owners, the value of their land increases five times more than its initial
value. So, even if they leave the market, they will not make any loss.
Moreover, as the brick kiln industry is labour intensive, the materials
used for the construction do not depreciate in value.
(4) Information is perfect in the sense that all the actors involved in this
industry have the information relative to their actions. Labourers
working in this industry know all about its functioning. As for newcom-
ers, they can be informed by others.
(5) Bricks of all chambers are homogeneous, because they are produced in
the same way. To differentiate their products, they print out the logo of
their factory on the bricks, which permits the visibility of the product.
Consumers know whose bricks they are buying and using. In this way
producers customize their customers.
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Bhukuth: Child Labour and Debt Bondage 295

In this highly competitive market, the price of bricks is very low. There
is a competition among producers to sell the largest number of bricks. Thus, each
producer lowers the price more than his competitors. According to producers,
it is due to this competition that some of them incur losses and for others there
is no profit.1 If we assume that there is no profit in this market, we can conclude
that competition reduces producers’ earning. Hence, competition must lead to
fix the price of brick at its marginal cost of labour. Thus, what is the mechanism
undertaken to reduce the cost of production and to fix it below the marginal
productivity of labour?
The production of bricks necessitates some raw materials that are costly,
such as clay and imported coal from Indonesia for fire. The government of India
has forbidden the extraction of clay from the river banks. Employers purchase
clay from landlords and melt it with sand to obtain a medium quality soil that
they can produce bricks with. However, the local government has now author-
ized them to extract clay from the river banks, but they have to pay an amount
of Rs60,000 to do so.2 Regarding coal, brick kiln owners in Chennai prefer using
imported coal because of its energizing capacity compared to Indian coal.
Therefore, they, import coal from Indonesia, which is more expensive than that
from India.3
Given that producers cannot reduce the prices of raw materials, they
play on labour costs to reduce the price of bricks.

The Organizational Structure of the Brick Kiln Industry

According to Gupta (2003), the brick kiln industry has a pyramidal structure
composed of four levels. At the head of the pyramid are the owners, and on the
second level there are the managers (accountants). On the third level, there are
the brokers, who have a special function in this industry. Finally, at the bottom
of the pyramid, there are workers composed of five main groups (moulders,
loaders, unloaders, bullock cart drivers and firemen).
This hierarchical structure exists in brick kilns of large size. However, a
smaller brick kiln has to resort less to managers and to middlemen. Hence, a
distinction must be made between large-sized enterprises and small-sized enter-
prises. Large-sized enterprises, or chambers, using seasonal labourers have a
hierarchical organization of work and have recourse to brokers, in contrast to
small-sized enterprises, or kalavasals, that use permanent labour force. What we
understand by the size of enterprises are the volume of their production and
their turnover. With the advance system, big units can provide liquidity to satisfy
the financial need of their workers, as opposed to small enterprises. Therefore,
large enterprises request more brokers than small ones. In chambers, produc-
tion is organized seasonally, while in the kalavasals in south Tamil Nadu, it is
not. When someone wants to build his house, he establishes a kalavasal in his
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296 Journal of Asian and African Studies 40(4)

field and produces his bricks. This is the way brick kilns begin and with time they
become chambers.
According to Gupta (2003), in a hierarchical structure the existence of
brokers implies that there is no direct relationship between the highest and the
lowest levels. Thus, workers do not know who owns the brick kiln. Some workers
will never even see them, since they visit the site only once or twice in a season.
In this kind of structure, the workers consider the manager as the owner,4
because he is present at the site and scrutinizes their work, and will intervene
in any kind of incidents occurring in the brick kiln. Working conditions at the
site are very much reliant on the type of relationship that exists between the
workers and the manager. The manager is the person who performs accounting
functions on behalf of the enterprise. They are in charge of paying wages and
giving advances. They are also the ones who engage brokers to recruit workers.
Hence, the owner and the manager can be placed at the same level in the
organizational structure of the brick kiln industry.
At the bottom of the pyramid, we find the workers. The labour force are
organized according to their specialization. Each worker is engaged to do only
one kind of job on the site and is not allowed to do anything else.

The Brick Kiln Labour Market

Bricks are produced during summer only. Consequently, this requires seasonal
labourers who are recruited in the agricultural sector where production is also
seasonal. Due to the lack of opportunities for work in agriculture, labourers
migrate through brokers to work in brick kilns. The brick kiln industry, therefore,
employs seasonal workers who are very unstable and may leave. They can change
their activities and supply their labour to another enterprise. The labourers are
mainly poor peasants who own no land. In order to avoid labour volatility,
brokers bond them. Hence, for six to eight months, labourers work in the field
and the rest of the year they work in brick kilns and in other informal activities.
They leave their villages for the suburbs of big cities where bricks are produced.
Brick kiln owners encounter difficulties in recruiting seasonal workers due to the
seasonality of the work. Because of time and weather constraints, employers find
it hard to recruit workers for the whole season. In the state of Tamil Nadu,
seasonal migration occurs intra-state. This result differs from that of Gupta
(2003), who finds that inter-state migration occurs in the north of India.
However, several important sectors offer opportunities to find work
during the lean season. In fact, brick kiln workers do not work regularly in the
same sector; they change activities according to their financial needs.
The reasons for shifting from brick kiln to other sectors may involve
better earning opportunities offered by other industries, or disputes with
managers. Hence, brick kiln workers can work in hotels, restaurants, construc-
tion, quarries, or even as labourers in agriculture (sugarcane harvesting). The
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Bhukuth: Child Labour and Debt Bondage 297

brick kiln labour market is highly competitive due to the high number of enter-
prises. Therefore, labour supply is restricted due to the seasonality of produc-
tion and it is localized in the rural area.
In this highly competitive market, producers compete when recruiting
seasonal labourers. We argue that in such an environment where demand for
labour is higher than supply, wages should normally rise. However, this is not
the case. In order to reduce labourers’ wages, employers/owners use brokers as
intermediaries to recruit the labour force. The advance system is thus used to
exert pressure and eventually decrease wages. The ultimate aim is to constrain
labourers to supply their labour. Hence, in this system owners do not give
advances directly to labourers, but brokers do. Brokers fulfil labourers’ demand
of liquidities. This system provides some advantages to the owners:

(1) In the hierarchical organization of brick kiln, labourers cannot bargain

directly for higher wages with the owners, as they have to go through
the brokers. The latter are responsible for the labourers vis-à-vis the
owners. Conversely, when the managers are not satisfied with the
labourers’ work, they complain to the brokers who decide whether or
not to take action against the labourers.
(2) The second advantage is due to the advance system. Owners never give
advances directly to labourers, because it is risky. As labourers are
seasonal migrants, they can run away with the money. On the other
hand, labourers without advances will not come to work in brick kiln,
due to the rigour of the work. Advance money is their only means of
survival in the village. The dealings that occur between brokers and
labourers bring out more forcefully the risk associated with the credit
system. By providing workers with money, brokers exert great influence
on them. Labourers cannot bargain for higher wages with the brokers
who give them advances without interest – this in itself constitutes a
great benefit and a service rendered to them. The broker thus exerts a
moral pressure to prevent them from claiming an increase in wage.
Indeed, arguing for higher wages is regarded as being disrespectful
towards the broker (Gupta, 2003). Therefore, powerless labourers
cannot bargain for wages, but only for advances.
(3) According to Breman (1978), employers use brokers to reduce risk
relative to credit given to seasonal labourers and to recruit such labour-
ers. The brokers’ role is to recruit seasonal labourers and give them
advances on behalf of the owners.

The Advance System

In the brick kiln labour market, brokers adjust demand and supply of labour.
They recruit seasonal labourers outside of the labour market from their own
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298 Journal of Asian and African Studies 40(4)

native villages, where they have good relations with their family members, castes
and neighbourhood. They give advances to the labourers who are to be
recruited. Hence, once the labourer receives the advance, he pledges his labour
to the broker. He has to work for the broker in order to repay his debt. While
taking the advance, the labourer is aware of the job description, that is, he knows
where he will go to work.
The production process ends in the month of Ardi (Tamil Calendar:
August–September), and in the month of Avani (September–November)
maistries (brokers) give 50 per cent of the advances to workers in their teams.
For instance, for a total amount of Rs10,000 in the month of Avani, the worker
receives Rs5000 as a lump sum advance and the remaining Rs5000 is given grad-
ually, according to his needs.
The brokers, like the labourers, receive from the owners half of the
advances to be given to workers in the village and the remaining advances are
received at the place of work. So, for the gradual advance, brokers have to
pledge their assets with the local moneylenders to take a loan.
The end result is that, in this market, both workers and brokers are
indebted. The risk faced by the broker is serious – when workers refuse to follow
him, he will lose his money and he will not be able to repay his debt to the owner.
He will not receive money from the owner if he fails to recruit workers. For this
reason, brokers prefer to employ workers from well-known and reliable people,
namely from their own relatives, castes and villages.

The Bargaining Power of Brick Kiln Workers

Once workers take the advance they pledge their labour to the broker. They
have to work to pay back their debt. If they fail to repay their entire debt, they
have to return to the same brick kiln with the same broker to clear it. Hence,
the risk of failing to repay debt is higher due to the rigour of the work. In this
case workers lose their bargaining power to demand higher advances from
the broker.
Advances are given according to a worker’s past productivity. This
means that if a worker has been productive, he can receive a higher advance,
because he is able to repay his debt. In our study, child labour is only visible in
the moulding process. For this activity, an advance is given to a couple or pair
(a man and a woman, or two men). Brokers never recruit a single man due to
the difficulty of the work.
Parents use child labour to increase their bargaining power and to avoid
falling into bondage. Indeed, when the household is productive, the debtor can
easily repay his debt. Pairs are paid on a weekly rate basis. For instance,
moulders are paid Rs120–140 per 1000 bricks of second-rate quality and
Rs130–160 per 1000 bricks of first-rate quality.
The more productive the workers are, the higher the wages will be.
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Bhukuth: Child Labour and Debt Bondage 299

Fifty–sixty per cent of the wage goes towards the payment of the advances and
the remaining amount is for the weekly consumption.
At the end of the season, if workers repay more than the amount of the
advance received, they will return home with extra money. As all the workers
aim to return home with extra money, they use children to increase the house-
hold productivity.
Unfortunately, very few workers go back home with extra money. In
most cases, they are just able to clear their debt. Therefore, they have the feeling
of being cheated by the manager. In fact, this is often the case, because workers
do not keep any account of the amount of the advance paid to them and the
quantity of bricks they have produced. They rely on the broker and the manager
for keeping the account and for clearing the debt, since they themselves do not
possess any mathematical skills; even if they were able to check the account,
they would not understand the record.
For this reason, workers bargain for higher advances. Those who are
able to settle their advance can bargain for a larger amount. They know that
with the help of child labour they will not fail to pay back their debt and will
not fall into bondage.
Thus, the use of child labour is very important for the household. It
allows them to negotiate for a higher advance, and to avoid falling into bondage.
The end result is that child labour increases the household productivity.

The Use of Child Labour

Child labour is found in the moulding process only, which is very long and hard
for a single worker, or for a pair, to implement efficiently. The most productive
household takes 10–12 hours per day to mould bricks. There are several steps
in the moulding process: gathering of sand, pouring water in the sand, melting
the sand, moulding, shedding dry sand on the wet bricks, polishing bricks and
arranging bricks in windows.5 Children help their parents to use their time
efficiently, in order to improve the household productivity and alleviate the
difficulty of the work. Moulders sit on the ground for two continuous hours to
mould bricks. As a result, their feet are often atrophied, as they take a break of
only five minutes to walk along the site before returning to the same task. Child
labour allows better allocation of the household time and prevents the house-
hold from falling into bondage.

Conclusion
Child labour is always linked to the notion of exploitation. In the child labour
debate, a distinction is made between child work and child labour. Child work
is tolerated because it is considered not detrimental to the physical and mental
development of children, while child labour is not. Hence, this opposition leads
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300 Journal of Asian and African Studies 40(4)

to two kinds of approaches. Swinnerton and Rogers (2002) argue that eliminat-
ing the worst form of child labour is beneficial to children. Dangerous firms will
be obliged to adopt a non-exploitative behaviour, and, consequently, child wages
will increase in the labour market. As for Dessy and Pallage (2005), they
consider that the eradication of the worst form of child labour will hurt children.
Such a policy will decrease child wages, resulting in children working longer
hours to maintain their earnings at the same level. Hence, they will not be able
to combine schooling and work.
In reality, there is no such distinction between child work and child
labour. We argue that all activities performed by children are detrimental to
their well-being and have also proved, through our findings, that children
working in home-based enterprises are not safe from exploitation.
In this article, we have highlighted a new view on child labour in the
brick kiln industry. Child labour is a means to bargaining for a higher advance.
By taking an advance, parents are bonded to their brokers. They cannot supply
their labour to another broker. Hence, they have to work to repay their debt.
Child labour is used to improve the household productivity, and to avoid their
parents falling into bondage. If parents are bonded, children also become
bonded, thus giving the impression of a chain reaction.
In the case studied, this is a light form of bondage. In this industry,
workers with the help of children have the possibility to earn more money.
However, they are often cheated by the brokers and the managers when the
time comes to clear their account at the end of the season. Hence, labourers
return home with the feeling of having repaid their debt.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This study has been led jointly by the French Institute of Pondichéry (FIP) and the ILO.
I take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks to the Social Sciences team of
the FIP.

NOTES
1. This industry is characterized by overproduction, because selling prices increase
during the rainy season. Therefore, weather has a positive impact on their
selling price.

2. The role of the association is to deal with the local government to remove
restriction concerning their industry. All the members of this association,
whatever the size of the unit, collect an amount of Rs60,000 per year in order
to extract clay from the river bank. In Madurai, there is no association of
employers for extracting sand.
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Bhukuth: Child Labour and Debt Bondage 301

3. In Madurai, employers use wood and Indian coal for firing.

4. In a recent article by Gupta (2003) concerning the brick kiln industry, the author
argued that the manager and the brokers are considered as the owner of the
brick kilns, because they are the only ones with whom the workers maintain a
relationship. In some cases the brokers are the only people who speak on their
behalf with the manager.

5. They arrange bricks in windows to ease the counting of bricks.

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Augendra Bhukuth earned his PhD on child labour at the Centre for Economics
of Ethics, Environment and Development, at the University of Versailles Saint-
Quentin en Yvelines, France. In November 2003 he joined the research
programme on ‘Indebtedness, Vulnerability to Debt Bondage and Microfinance’
at the French Institute of Pondichery (FIP), India. This programme is financed
by the International Labour Organization. His research interests are: child
labour, street children, debt bondage, seasonal migration, ethical trade and
social capital.
Address: Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin en Yvelines, UMR C3ED/IRD,
47 Bd Vauban, 78047 Guyancourt Cedex, France. (augendra@yahoo.fr)

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