CHILD

LABOUR IN
INDIA’S
GARMENTS
INDUSTRY

Somasree Roy
A91179819019
BA(J&MC) 5C
 Child Labour

◦ Child Labour is the practice of employing children of less than a legally specified age in any
work which deprives children of their childhood, their rights to attend school and affect their
mental, physical health.

◦ Poverty is one of the significant problems, apart from illiteracy, social norms that condone it,
a lack of acceptable job prospects for adults, migration, and crisis.

◦ In India, it's not unusual to see children working in brick kilns, hotels, garment factories,
farms or as servants.

◦ There are approximately 152 million children working as child labourers all over the world,
with India accounting for roughly 7.3 percent of that total.
◦ As of 2020, India has almost 33
STATES WITH HIGH INCIDENCES OF
million child labourers. CHILD LABOUR
Percentage Numbers (In million)
◦ The state with the most child
21.5

labourers, as per Census 2011, is

Uttar Pradesh.
10.7
8.4
◦ Other than agricultural and 7.2 6.9

industrial jobs, the children are 2.18

1.09 0.85 0.73 0.7

forced to work as servants and Uttar Pradesh Bihar Rajasthan Maharashtra Madhya Pradesh

babysitters by the privileged.

 Government Policies Against Child Labour

◦ Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986

"No child under the age of fourteen years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or
employed in any hazardous employment," according to Article 24 of the Indian constitution.

◦ Children's Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009

This act ensures that all children between the ages 6-14 have access to free and compulsory
education.

◦ Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016

Child labour regulations were tightened in 2006 and again in 2016, making it illegal for minors
under the age of 14 to work as domestic help or service staff in hotels and restaurants.
 Child Labour in India’s Garments Industry
◦ Children work in textile factories doing a variety of
activities, including dyeing, cutting and trimming threads,
sewing buttons, folding, moving, and packing clothes.
◦ Zari work or Sequin, exquisite embroidery that has grown
extremely famous in European and American clothing
retailers, is among the most controversial sectors that
relies on child labour throughout the subcontinent.
◦ Children are preferred by sweatshop employers because
their thin, light fingers can complete delicate ethnic
Image Source: mymodernmet.com
artwork faster.
◦ In India’s cottonseed plantations, children under the age of 14 account for around 25%
of the total workforce.

◦ The majority of children work for about 12 hours every day, with just short breaks for
meals. Most of them come to work early in the morning and stay until late at night.

◦ Most of these migrant child laborers who are unable to return back home, sleep at
workplace, which increases the risk of illness and bad health.

◦ Adult workers mistreat the children who live at their workplaces. There have been
instances of abuse with no or poor medical assistance. Children have been reported to
be punished by being denied a meal for the day in a number of places.
Case Study 1:

Cotton seed production in India: Young girls exploited because of their agile fingers
(Based on publications by the India Committee of the Netherlands)

Manual cross pollination (moving pollen from one plant to another) is the most important
task in cotton seed production. This work is frequently done by child laborers, who are
usually girls. For earnings that are frequently below the minimum wage, they are forced to
lengthy working hours and chemical exposure. There have been reports of them falling asleep
and suffocating in piles of raw cotton due to exhaustion. In Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu,
Karnataka, and Gujarat, almost 400,000 children below the age of 18 were found working in
cotton seed plantations in 2007. The majority of these children were under the age of 14.
Case Study 2:

Child labour and young women garment workers in Tamil Nadu, India

Adolescent girls from poor and rural families are particularly exposed to the forced labour
practice called 'Sumangali.' According to the scheme, after working for 3 years in a factory under
the agreement, brokers guarantee the girl's parents an enticing amount of money which they save
for their daughters’ dowries. Assuming their daughters will be safe in the factories they send their
daughters to the factories in the urban areas like Tamil Nadu’s Tirupur which is the hub of
garment sector that supplies several of the world's largest garment retailers.
They live in dormitories, where they sleep in shifts, under the supervision of the factory or
the broker. They frequently work for about 12 hours every day. Wages are only provided
after the completion of the agreement, which might last anywhere from 3 to 5 years.
Employers gain a lot of control over adolescent girls as a result of this.

As a result of the pressure on employees, there have been numerous reports of a massive
number of labourers committing suicide in Tamil Nadu, majority of them are young
women. According to some informal reports, sexual harassment may have played a role in
some suicide attempts.
Way Forward
◦ The Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (TEXPROCIL) in a seminar, has emphasized the necessity of
eliminating child labour in any type of work across the value chain, with importing countries drafting a
country-specific restriction list of the products that relies on child labour.

◦ While there are positive signs, the current worry is not a lack of laws and regulations, but rather an absence
of strict enforcement of those that do exist to prevent predators who exploit young women, girls, and
children through human trafficking and abusive working environments.

◦ Child labour practices can be eradicated if the government conduct frequent, labour inspections by hiring
more labour inspectors around the country. The government can also implement policies to assist
underprivileged families and children in finishing their schooling.

◦ NGOs can also play an important role in promoting public awareness and alerting people about how children
are mistreated and hold awareness campaigns in locations where child labour is prevalent, as well as raise
funds for underprivileged children and their families.
THANK YOU