About 50,000 children from the State were working in snacks and sweets making units across India, mostly as bonded labourers, says Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL), a Madurai-based non governmental organisation says and has urged the State government to take steps to rescue and rehabilitate them.
In a study conducted by it recently following the rescue of a huge number of bonded labourers by Madurai police from units in north India, the CACL states that Dalit children and youth from families of landless peasants and casual labourers from in and around Usilampatti in Madurai were ensnared into bonded labour through persuasive means, exploiting their poor economic conditions.
Victims to exploiters
Madurai's Usilampatti taluk is largely dependent on agriculture and allied activities for livelihood since there are no industries to provide employment to them. Piramalai Kallars is the predominant community in this region followed by Dalits. Other castes are miniscule in number.
A famine-like situation in Usilampatti and surrounding areas in the 1970s made things worse, resulting in migration of Kallars and their families in huge numbers to brick kilns in northern districts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Some families left for Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and started snack (murukku) making units to earn a livelihood. When these small units started earning profit, what began as a cottage industry transformed into big business entities with the owners diversifying into making cakes, mixture, laddu, halwa. They also became stockists in these places for raw materials needed for making the products.
After a few years, they started to invest in immovable assets and became owners of land and shops in these areas. This upward economic mobility got coupled with political power as they contested in local body elections and became powerful in those places.
After this economic expansion from cottage industry to small industry, there was a great need for labour and it was when they started hiring manpower from Usilampatti and most of them who were hired belonged to landless Dalit families. The Kallars who went to earn livelihood in these places, after gaining economic prosperity, came back to Usilampatti and invested in buying lands and houses and gave them on rent and became landlords. As they made huge profits in snack-making units, they started engaging more and more hapless children through brokers and kidnappers and kept them as bonded labourers.
The children and youth lived in appalling conditions with no freedom and more than 18 hours of work a day in extremely difficult conditions. They were beaten up mercilessly whenever they questioned or demanded better treatment, work conditions or wages.
Expanded network
These units could be found in states such as Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Gujarat — particularly in cities such as Vijayawada, Tirupati, Warangal, Cudappah, Kurnool, Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Anantapur, Madanapalli, Nellore, Vishakapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and many parts of Karnataka and Kerala, major cities such as New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, besides major towns in Tamil Nadu.
Bonded labourers were picked up from Meikkizharpatti, Karithiveeranpatti, Kavandanpatti, Malaipatti, Vadugapatti, Boothipuram, Chokkathevanpatti, Vellaimalaipatti, Ayyanarkulam, Putthur, Nadupatti, Nattapatti, Sadachipatti, Pasukkaranpatti, A.Pudhupatti, Nalluthevanpatti, Muthaiyampatti, Kallapatti, Vagurani, V. Kamatchipuram, Kalloothu, K. Perumalpatti, and K. Paraipatti among other villages.
Since there was adequate income from snack units more and more people were engaging in this business in various States and hiring bonded labourers. Hence the government should take a serious view of this and take steps to prevent children becoming bonded labourers, the CACL said.
The Tamil Nadu government should take stern action against owners and brokers of units, undertake an identification exercise to rescue and rehabilitate the bonded labourers. Those who were rescued by the Madurai police should be immediately sent for rehabilitation. Changes should be brought in the Constitution to increase the age bar of child labour limit from 14 to 18.
