Brands urged to use profits to keep Indian children out of work and in school

Brands聽sourcing garments, shoes, leather and natural stones from India聽must help create and sustain child labour-free zones by mapping聽their supply chains and working with communities to boost school聽enrolment, activists said today.

罢丑别听Stop Child Labour Coalition聽of charities recently聽launched a campaign with guidelines for companies to help ensure聽that children living in “labour hotspots” finish school.

“Brands must take responsibility and share their profits to聽help keep children in school,” said A. Aloysius, founder of聽Social Awareness and Voluntary Education, a charity in the south聽Indian textile hub of Tirupur that is part of the coalition.

From ensuring fair wages for adult labourers to working with聽village councils on enrolment drives and improving access to聽education, the campaign aims to make “potential child labourers聽work only in schools”.

According to the International Labour Organization, more聽than half of India’s estimated 5.7 million child workers between聽the ages of five and 17 toil on farms.

Over a quarter are in聽manufacturing on tasks such as embroidering clothes, weaving聽carpets and making matchsticks.

Children also work in restaurants and hotels, and as聽domestic workers.

A 2017 UNICEF report, based on Indian census data, says the聽proportion of child workers in the five to nine聽age group jumped聽to 25% in 2011 from 15% in 2001.

Many companies do not engage children in their own facilities but have no checks when they subcontract production聽to smaller factories or home workers, where the prevalence of聽child labour increases drastically, campaigners say.

“Child labour has often moved further down the supply chain,聽making monitoring more difficult,” said Venkat Reddy of the聽M V聽Foundation, a charity in the coalition.

The coalition’s guidelines urge the private sector, civil聽society and government to work together on interventions for聽child labour-free zones.

After applying these guidelines, two communities in Tirupur聽with some 20,000 households in December were declared child聽labour-free.

“It was the first time that small garment manufacturers in聽the area agreed to work with us on the issue,” Aloysius said.

The guidelines draw from successful interventions in the聽cotton fields of Andhra Pradesh, stone quarries of Rajasthan and聽shoemaking workshops of Agra.

“Like a quality check section, we want brands to add a聽social responsibility unit in the factories,” Reddy said.

“Supply chains run deep and brands know that. They don’t聽have to build schools, just be part of programmes to keep聽children in school.”