Child-and-adult-labour-in-the-export-oriented-garment-and-gem-polishing-industry-of-India

Child and adult labour in the gem polishing export industry of Jaipur
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flowers, birds, jewellery etc., is dependent on the skills and experience of the artisan.
Role of children 150
When semi-precious stones are concerned children are mainly working in the process of 'joining',
'pre-shaping' and 'polishing'. Some children are also involved in the process of carving, but the
number is smaller because carving is a highly skilled activity. Girl children and women are mainly
involved in bead making and cutting of rough stones. Besides faceting, most of the abovementioned
processes do not require any technical skills.
In the case of precious stones, children are mainly employed in the process of joining and final
polishing. The risk that a child damages the high value of a precious stone in these processes is
limited.
99
6.4 Influx of child labour and expansion of the industry: the pull and push factors
There are no reliable statistics on the number of children employed in the gem polishing industry
of Jaipur. Official and unofficial estimates of the number of child labourers vary between 10,000
and 20,000. The following table shows these estimates.
Table 5 Estimates of the number of child labourers in the gem polishing industry of Jaipur
per source in time order.
Source
number year
Official
1. The Gurupadaswamy Committee Report (GOI:1981) 10,000 1979
Unofficial rough estimates found in literature
2. Neera Burra 13,600 1987
3. ILO consultant Dr. Usha Naidu of the Tata
Institute of Social Sciences, Bombay 15,000 1988
4. Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur 20,000 1990
Unofficial rough estimates mentioned in interview during present research in 1996
5. Teacher at a 'special school' in Jaipur 15,000-20,000 1996
The estimates which relate to the total workforce in the industry, vary between 60,000 151 and
100,000 152 artisans and were made in 1987 and 1990 respectively. Today, 1996, the total number
of workers employed in the gem industry is estimated at around 200,000.
150 Kanchen Mathur, 1991, ibid, p. 16. The role of children has been confirmed by the author of this report.
151 Neera Burra, 'Exploitation of Children in Jaipur Gem Industry. I: Structure of Industry'. In: Economic and Political Weekly, January 16,
1988, p. 76.
152 Kanchen Mathur, 1991, ibid., p. 8.