KEDAR NAGARAJAN - The Plight of Cottonseed Workers Reveals Why Child Labour Persists
it is companies, not family farms, that employ most child
labourers in the cottonseed industry – and recent amendments to the law might
actually be aiding the practice
A recent study has revealed that nearly half a million
children in India — the majority of them girls belonging to Dalit, adivasi and
OBC families — are illegally engaged in producing the cottonseeds that forms
the basis of our garment industry. Of which, more than 2,00,000 children are
aged below 14. One of the findings is that, contrary to popular perception, the
majority of these child workers are employed by companies, rather than in
family farms owned by subsistence farmers.
The study, titled Cotton’s
Forgotten Children and authored by Davuluri Venkateswarlu,
Director, Glocal Research, Hyderabad, on behalf of the India Committee of the
Netherlands, was based on a survey that covered 396 farms in 72 villages across
the six main cottonseed producing states in the country – Karnataka, Andhra
Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Gujarat – which together account
for 95% of the national production.
The survey revealed that the number of children working to
produce cottonseed had risen by as much as 25% s (100,000 children) since the
last survey conducted in 2010. The figures for children aged between 15-18 too
increased, reaching 2,81,200 compared to 1,90,450 in 2007.
The increase in the number of child workers below 14 in
proportion to the total workforce is entirely accounted for by Gujarat and
Rajasthan, while their numbers have shown a decrease in the other four states.
In fact, due to increase in production, the number of adolescents (aged 14-18)
has increased by 70,000 and the number of children below 14 has increased by
30,000 in these two states.
The massive increase in numbers are all the more startling
given the common perception that awareness about child labour is growing and
also that recent legislation is stringent enough to tackle it. In May 2015, the
Government of India had amended the Child Labour Act to enforce a ban on the
employment of all children below the age of 14. The punishment imposed on
violators of the Act was also made harsher, with fines reaching up to Rs 50,000
and a three-year jail sentence.
However, the amendment was controversial for introducing
certain caveats, which allowed children of this age group to be employed in
family-run enterprises, sports or related activities after school and during
vacations. The move was seen as adilution of the law by groups working on child labour,
including Nobel-winning activist Kailash Satyarthi, who expressed the fear that it could
lead to misuse. The new report on child workers producing cottonseed on farms
indicates that such fears may not have been unfounded.
Girls form two-thirds of child employees
India is the second largest producer of cottonseed in the
world after China, accounting for nearly 18% of the world’s cotton. With around
12 million hectares under cotton cultivation, India’s share accounts for 25% of
the world area, with almost 95% of the country’s cottonseed production spread
between the six states mentioned above.
No other industry in the country has such a large proportion
of child workers, because the labour involved in hybrid cottonseed production
is delicate, which in turn drives the demand for child labourers, especially
young girls. The report shows that two-thirds of the child labourers employed
in the industry are girls – the majority of them employed by local seed
producers on a long-term contract basis through loans extended to their
parents.
The report points out that most farmers of cottonseed prefer
employing children also because they work longer hours and command wages that
are much lower than that of adult labourers. Working hours range between 8 to
12 hours a day and the children risk exposure to harmful pesticides that are
used to cultivate the cottonseed. Yet they are paid wages that are far lower
than the prescribed minimum wage in most cases. The survey also found that most
of the children engaged in such work are from poor Dalit, Adivasi or Other
Backward Castes families, a majority of them school dropouts.
This employment practice is evidently a blatant violation of
The Children (Pledging of Labour) Act 1933, The Bonded Labour System
(Abolition) Act 1976, The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986
and The Right of Children to Free And Compulsory Education Act 2009. It also
violates the International Labour Organisation’s convention’s regarding minimum
age for admission to employment.
Majority work for companies, not family farms
In recent years, due to increased demand for cotton and to
reduce labour costs, cultivation has moved to more and more remote areas where
small subsistence farmers that depend on their family for labour from the
majority. This trend has been especially pronounced in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
This geographical shift has unfortunately helped perpetuate
the myth that most of the children employed in cottonseed production are
children of subsistence farmers who work on family farms, and are thus exempt
from the law. However, the survey found that only 30% of child worker were
employed on family farms, while the remaining 70% were hired or even trafficked
from other states.
Further, the report has also pointed out that the incidence
of child labour is higher on farms that are owned by Indian companies as MNCs
have been under pressure by several international organisations to completely
stop the practice of employing child labour. According to the report, companies
such as Kaveri and Nuziveedu still contain 16.4% and 32.6% children as a
percentage of their total workforce. This is especially significant considering
that Indian companies control 50% of India’s cottonseed cultivating land.
Wages low and discriminatory
Furthermore, the wages paid to these workers, especially
those involved in cross pollination- mostly women and children- are
significantly below the state or zonal minimum wage rate.
The Minimum Wages Act 1948 in India guarantees payment of
minimum wages to workers in different sectors, including the agriculture
sector. The power to fix and revise minimum wage rates for different
agricultural activities has been given to the state governments. Despite this,
the prevailing wage rates for cross-pollination were found to be 46.5% below
legal minimum wage rates in Karnataka, 9.4% in Andhra Pradesh, 25% in Telangana
and 16.6% below in Gujarat.
In general male workers are paid higher than the legal
minimum wages for most of the activities in which they are involved. The
average daily wages for ploughing and spraying pesticides, which are
exclusively done by men, are 5% -65% higher than the legal minimum wages in
different states.
Women are not paid legal minimum wages for most activities,
except cross-pollination, in some locations. The average daily wage rate women
earn with sowing, weeding and harvesting is 5%-48% lower than the legal minimum
wages in different states. The wage rates for children for all activities are
below the legal minimum wages. Children earn 5%-50% less than the legal minimum
wages in different states. Young girls do the cross-pollination work
predominantly as the task requires “delicate hands”, which allows farmers to
pay significantly lower wages to those involved in this activity.
India being the second largest cottonseed producer in the
world, should be able to take better measures to bring about a sharper decline
in child labour and reduce the disparity between the wages male and female
labourers receive. But, as the new report on cottonseed workers underlines, the
prevalence of child labour owes itself to structural factors. Until it is seen
and acted upon as such, it is bound to remain intractable despite the attempts
of several interventions by NGOs, state organisations and legislation.
