Child Labour in Cottonseed Production by Ashok Khandelwal

:: DAKSHINI RAJASTHAN MAJDOOR UNION ::
An Introduction
Seasonal migration is increasingly emerging as the chief mode of labour engagement across
the country and especially in the rapidly growing Western economic cluster of Gujarat
Maharashtra. Dakshini Rajasthan Majdoor Union is an organisation of seasonal tribal
migrants from South Rajasthan. The Union is working to ensure decent wages, social
security, and human rights for the vast mass of workers in the unorganised sector. Every
year hundreds of thousands of workers from the region migrate to Gujarat, Maharashtra,
and other Indian states. There are different modes of migration - individual workers, whole
families, adolescent groups, and children. Recent years have seen an increase in child and
adolescent female migration.
The Union was registered in April 2006. It started work in the Bt cotton migration stream
that witnesses seasonal migration by tribal adolescents and children on a large scale. The
Union mobilised the workers and the labour contractors who recruit workers into a Union.
The Union imposed a moratorium on movement seeking an end to child labour and hike in
wages paid. Two years of sustained efforts have seen wage hike up to 50 percent. The issue of
child labour in Bt cottonseed farms has been highlighted at the state and national level and
there is a decline in numbers of children going.
The Union has also organised workers in the migration streams of brick kilns and cotton
ginning in Gujarat. Both these streams witness interstate migration from a number of other
states in addition to Rajasthan. Union has mobilised workers from all the states. It has
promoted formation of a new Union in Gujarat called Gujarat Ginning and Other Mill
Workers' Union. Union interventions have led to a hike in salary of ginning workers by 16
percent. The highlighting of numerous fatal and non fatal accidents in the ginning factories
has led to a reduction in the number of accidents. The Union facilitated work stoppages in
more than 50 brick kiln quarries resulting in wage hikes of up to 20 percent in the 2007-08
season. It also got more than 100 workers from the state of Chhattisgarh released from
bondage in brick kilns.
Advocacy of workers' rights amongst the civil society and the state in Gujarat is a major
component of Union's work. The Union has actively raised issues of workers' rights before
the state of Gujarat. It organised state level public hearings on the issue of child labour in
both the states of Gujarat and Rajasthan. It has highlighted cases of extreme injustice in the
media. Police help has been sought in cases of sexual exploitation of female workers. The
Union realises that a pan workers' unity extending across barriers of caste, community,
region, and language is necessary to carry forward the workers' struggle. It is actively
working towards achieving this unity.