From: udcrusd@meaddata.com (Sylvia D'Cruz)
Subject: Child labor attrocities
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 20:06:44 GMT
Distribution: soc.culture.indian

The indians who are here, are mainly from the middle and upper middle class. 
Our children may not be affected by this. But, this is the plight of some of the
children in India.  Do we care ? Maybe India is a great place to raise
our children, if we middle class and above...........

Sylvia.


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                     Copyright 1992 Agence France Presse
                              Agence France Presse

                               September 21, 1992

Child labour campaign has Indian carpet exporters worried

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    Indian activists have stepped up a crusade against child slavery in carpet
looms, worrying exporters who see buyers and profits slipping away.

    "Definitely our exports will be affected," said Sung Khedup, a member of the
non-governmental Carpet Export Promotion Council. "This campaign is giving us
all a bad name. We can't deny that our earnings will be affected."

    The council had expected exports to bring in 300 million dollars in the
fiscal year to March 31, a 20-percent jump over 1991-92, making carpets one of
 India's  largest net foreign exchange earners.

    But the campaign against factories where thousands of  children  live in
virtual slavery has begun to bite, and the threat of a boycott of Indian carpets
looms large.

    Germans, who accounted for 35 percent of  India's  1991 carpet export
earnings, are turning away from Indian carpets under pressure from human rights
groups demanding certification that child labour has not been used.

    Last month, meanwhile, legislation was introduced in the U.S. Congress to
ban the import of products using child labour.

    The bill cited  India's  carpet industry as an economic exploiter of
 children,  some 300,000 of whom serve in conditions of virtual slavery
                 ^^^^^^^
according to documented accounts in a country where 55 million  children  are
forced by poverty to work.

    In the first quarter of the current fiscal year, Indian carpet sales to
overseas markets earned 60 million dollars, or 15 million dollars less than
anticipated.

    "We are afraid there could be a (further) drop in the near future if the
campaign continues," said T.S. Chadha, secretary of the export promotion
council.

    The Committee for Eradication of Child Labour in the Carpet Industry is
determined to pursue the campaign and wants a "Free of Child Labour" label on
every carpet sent out of  India  after careful monitoring.

    "We appeal to consumers throughout the world that they should not become a
party in a  crime  by buying a carpet woven by  children, " said Kailash
Satyarthi, who heads the organisation.

    Satyarthi also chairs the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude, which on
Friday organised a Carpet  Children's  Day here, in the Pakistani cities of
Peshawar and Lahore, the Nepal capital Kathmandu, and London and New York.

    About 150 boys and girls dressed in tattered clothes, some as young as six
years, demonstrated in front of the labour ministry in New Delhi demanding
"childhood, not wages."

    They were mortgaged by their poor parents to carpet looms in the Indian
state of Uttar Pradesh for a few hundred rupees (few dollars), and rescued by
activists who raided the looms with police assistance in August and September.

    Some complained of night blindness after weaving fine silk and cotton for 16
hours a day. Others had asthma or tuberculosis from inhaling wool fluff or
suffered deformed fingers and chronic backache.

    Sampal Ram, 16, who stutters and is unable to straighten his back, shuddered
as he recounted of the time he was thrown into a well by a loom owner.

    "I was pulled out by other  children, " he said. "Sometimes, I used to be
hung upside down from a tree and beaten."

    Worried carpet traders admit that abuses exist and say they will make
amends, setting a meeting for Tuesday where they are to consider a code of
conduct barring looms from hiring  children  under 14 years of age.

    But activists are not convinced of their good intentions. "Our belief is
that most of our carpet manufacturers are following the policy of dillying and
dallying," Satyarthi said.

-- 
Sylvia D. D'Cruz                                
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian