Millions of Indian brick workers are trapped in bonded labor and regularly cheated out of their wages, an anti-slavery group yesterday said as it demanded government action.
A study by Anti-Slavery International in the northern state of Punjab said workers are often rescued by non-governmental organizations only to return to the kilns, needing back wages owed to them or lacking other opportunities.
There are an estimated 10 million workers toiling amid punishing heat and life-threatening pollution at tens of thousands of small-scale brick kilns in India.
Photo: AFP
The kilns have become part of the underbelly of India’s economic miracle, producing building materials for gleaming offices, factories and call centers sprouting up across the world’s seventh-largest economy.
Impoverished families are often forced to involve their children in hard labor since workers are paid by the number of bricks made.
The Invisible Chains report found 65 to 80 percent of children under 14 working for an average of nine hours a day over the hot summer months.
“We have found appalling levels of bonded labor and child labor ... young children are working for nine hours a day in a dusty air filled with chemicals rather than going to school,” said Sara Mount, the group’s Asia program manager.
“Often brick kiln workers are rescued from a situation of bonded labor in brick kilns in one season, but then have little choice in the following season but to work in the brick kilns again,” she said in the report.
Bonded labor is illegal in India, but rules are regularly flouted to maximize profits with little fear of the law.
Scenes of sweaty bare-footed workers hauling heavy loads and hacking at clay show the economic benefits of India’s speedy growth are yet to reach the marginalized sections of society.
The report is based on testimonies from families who have worked in the kilns in squalid conditions.
“We toiled day and night for five months, but we were barely paid the wages,” Nohar Bai, 35, said.
“Together with my husband we would make some 1,400 bricks in a day. We were a group of 23 people and at night they would lock us all up in a small room. We were treated worse than slaves,” she said by telephone.
Rinky, a 26-year-old mother of one, said her employers owed her family 32,000 rupees (US$498) — a fortune for many in a country where millions live on less than US$2 a day.
“We will not go back again to work there even if it means we will have to forgo what is our rightful earning,” she said.
Punjab Labor Commissioner Tejinder Singh Dhaliwal denied rules were being flouted with impunity at the kilns.
“Whenever we get any complaint we act promptly. On the whole conditions are not too bad,” he said.
“Even otherwise we conduct our own surveys and wherever needed we take action. I don’t think rules are being flouted,” he said.
Figures cited in the report said nearly 90 percent of the kilns do not have access to running water and an average family lives in a cramped 7.6m2 room at the site.
Volunteers for Social Justice, Anti-Slavery International’s partner in the research, said systemic changes were needed to overhaul the exploitative industry.
“The government must ensure workers are paid minimum wages regularly. This would help reduce poverty and vulnerability of families, so there is less need for children to work,” said Jai Singh, director of the group.
“It is time the government takes responsibility and ends this exploitation that shouldn’t be taking place in the 21st century,” he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS