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

Child and adult labour in the garment export industry of Tirupur
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workers who are working in the hosiery industry. They try to improve the working conditions of
their members by making them aware of their rights and what they can do to maintain these
rights.
- A study of declarations made by the hosiery industry to end child labour reveals that the
members of Tirupur Export Association (TEA) state that they have not employed new child
labourers since 1995. They have proposed a training programme for women to get them employed
in the industry instead of the children so that these women can replace child labourers.
The South Indian Hosiery Manufacturing Association (SIMHA) state that they are in favour of
elimination of child labour in the hosiery industry in Tirupur. Their strategy is to stop recruiting
the children with immediate effect, seeing that no children below 14 years of age continue
working beyond 1998, and to provide the child labourers at present with non-formal education in
schools next to their work.
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4.9 Conclusions
The majority of the child labourers in the hosiery industry work because they have to earn extra
income for the family. The working child adds substantially to the income of parents who are
either unemployed or have jobs not related to the hosiery industry. The latter jobs are lower paid
than the jobs in the hosiery industry. The child labourers (often two child labourers per family),
with parents who work in the hosiery industry, contribute 30 to 40 per cent to the family income.
The child labourers (also often two child labourers per family), with parents who do not work in
the hosiery industry, however, contribute 50 to 80 per cent to the family income. Thus, the earnings
of the children who are working in the hosiery industry are substantial and necessary for family
survival.
Parents send their children to the hosiery industry because they are not earning living wages and
do not have permanent employment, whether they work in the hosiery industry or elsewhere.
Lack of job opportunities in the rural areas around Tirupur forced people to migrate into Tirupur
where the wages are higher. At the moment of migration children are withdrawn from school and
they are not enroled again in schools in Tirupur but are sent to work. Because the children can
earn relatively high wages compared to the jobs in the rural areas or other industries in Tamil
Nadu, like the beedi (i.e. local cigarette) and the match industry where also thousands of children
are employed, parents have an incentive to send their children to work. Thus, low paid jobs of parents
in Tirupur, lack of job opportunities of parents in the rural areas which lead to migration
into Tirupur, higher wages for children in the hosiery industry in Tirupur, also are some of the
causes of child labour in the hosiery industry of Tirupur.
Although some parents were motivated by a NGO to send their children to a non-formal
education centre in Tirupur, they did not withdraw them from work. In the case of these children,
the goal of school enrolment (e.g. two hours education in a non-formal education centre) is
achieved and the opinion of parents towards education has become more positive, but the combination
of full-time work and education in the evening damages the children - mentally and
physically - more than when the children work without going to the centre. The children work 12
to 16 hours per day, often in nightshifts also, and go to classes of the non-formal education centre