Child slaves in modern India: The bonded labor problem

Human Rights Quarterly

Volumn 19, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 572-629

  Tucker, Lee ^a,b,c  

^a Children's Rights Proj Hum R ^*

^b OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c HARVARD LAW SCHOOL   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BONDED LABOUR; CHILD LABOUR;

INDIA;

EID: 0031406198     PISSN: 02750392     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/hrq.1997.0030     Document Type: Article

References (285)

1. All children's names have been changed. All quotes are from children interviewed by the author in November and December 1995, except where otherwise noted.
2. See U.N. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, done 7 Sept. 1956, 226 U.N.T.S. 3, art. I(a) (entered into force 30 Apr. 1957) [hereinafter U.N. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery]. This Convention defines debt bondage as the status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or those of a person under his control as security for a debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined. Id.
3. See ANTI-SLAVERY INTERNATIONAL, CHILDREN IN BONDAGE: SLAVES OF THE SUBCONTINENT 30 (1991) (reporting that in 1991 India had fifteen million bonded child laborers working in agriculture alone); see also MINISTRY OF LABOUR (INDIA), CHILDREN AND WORK 3 (1995) (containing a statistic from the Indian government that 84.98 percent of all child labor is in agriculture). Given that agriculture accounts for up to 85 percent of all bonded child laborers, this figure indicates a total bonded child labor population of approximately eighteen million. Social scientists estimate the total number of India's working children to be between 60 and 115 million. See CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHILD LABOUR (CACL), REFERENCE KIT ON CHILD LABOUR FOR MEDIA PERSONS (1995) [hereinafter CACL].
4. See ANTI-SLAVERY INTERNATIONAL, CHILDREN IN BONDAGE: SLAVES OF THE SUBCONTINENT 30 (1991) (reporting that in 1991 India had fifteen million bonded child laborers working in agriculture alone); see also MINISTRY OF LABOUR (INDIA), CHILDREN AND WORK 3 (1995) (containing a statistic from the Indian government that 84.98 percent of all child labor is in agriculture). Given that agriculture accounts for up to 85 percent of all bonded child laborers, this figure indicates a total bonded child labor population of approximately eighteen million. Social scientists estimate the total number of India's working children to be between 60 and 115 million. See CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHILD LABOUR (CACL), REFERENCE KIT ON CHILD LABOUR FOR MEDIA PERSONS (1995) [hereinafter CACL].
5. See ANTI-SLAVERY INTERNATIONAL, CHILDREN IN BONDAGE: SLAVES OF THE SUBCONTINENT 30 (1991) (reporting that in 1991 India had fifteen million bonded child laborers working in agriculture alone); see also MINISTRY OF LABOUR (INDIA), CHILDREN AND WORK 3 (1995) (containing a statistic from the Indian government that 84.98 percent of all child labor is in agriculture). Given that agriculture accounts for up to 85 percent of all bonded child laborers, this figure indicates a total bonded child labor population of approximately eighteen million. Social scientists estimate the total number of India's working children to be between 60 and 115 million. See CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHILD LABOUR (CACL), REFERENCE KIT ON CHILD LABOUR FOR MEDIA PERSONS (1995) [hereinafter CACL].
6. This equals between fifteen and 220 US dollars, calculated at the late 1995 exchange rate of thirty-four rupees to the US dollar.
7. Telephone Interview by Human Rights Watch with Mike Dottridge, Anti-Slavery International (14 Aug. 1996); see also, MINISTRY OF LABOUR (INDIA), supra note 3. These figures are estimates, as no comprehensive study of child bonded labor has been undertaken to date.
8. Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, No. 2(1933) (India), reprinted in HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CHILDREN'S RIGHTS PROJECT & HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/ASIA, THE SMALL HANDS OF SLAVERY: BONDED CHILD LABOR IN INDIA 167 (1996) [hereinafter Children (Pledging of Labour) Act].
9. Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, No. 61 (1986) (India), reprinted in HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CHILDREN'S RIGHTS PROJECT & HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/ASIA, supra note 6, at 169 [hereinafter Child Labour Act].
10. Id. pts. II, III.
11. Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, No. 19 (1976) (India), reprinted in HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CHILDREN'S RIGHTS PROJECT & HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/ASIA, supra note 6, at 151 [hereinafter Bonded Labour Act].
12. Id. § 4.
13. Id.
14. See infra pt. III B.
15. See U.N. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, supra note 2, art. I. A slave is defined as someone "over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised." Id. art. VII(a). A bondmaster owns the labor of the bonded worker. The worker cannot seek employment elsewhere, cannot refuse to work, cannot move away from the town, may be subject to the master's demands twenty-four hours a day, and may be sold to another master. A worker who resists this control is subject to severe mistreatment, including beatings and torture. See Reports on Child Labour of Mirzapur, in LAW RELATING TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN 160, 160-63 (1985); Y. R. HARAGOPAL REDDY, BONDED LABOUR SYSTEM IN INDIA 82 (1995); AJOY KUMAR, FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM: THE TALE OF CHATTISGARH BONDED LABOURERS 8 (Indian Social Institute, 1986).
16. See U.N. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, supra note 2, art. I. A slave is defined as someone "over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised." Id. art. VII(a). A bondmaster owns the labor of the bonded worker. The worker cannot seek employment elsewhere, cannot refuse to work, cannot move away from the town, may be subject to the master's demands twenty-four hours a day, and may be sold to another master. A worker who resists this control is subject to severe mistreatment, including beatings and torture. See Reports on Child Labour of Mirzapur, in LAW RELATING TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN 160, 160-63 (1985); Y. R. HARAGOPAL REDDY, BONDED LABOUR SYSTEM IN INDIA 82 (1995); AJOY KUMAR, FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM: THE TALE OF CHATTISGARH BONDED LABOURERS 8 (Indian Social Institute, 1986).
17. See U.N. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, supra note 2, art. I. A slave is defined as someone "over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised." Id. art. VII(a). A bondmaster owns the labor of the bonded worker. The worker cannot seek employment elsewhere, cannot refuse to work, cannot move away from the town, may be subject to the master's demands twenty-four hours a day, and may be sold to another master. A worker who resists this control is subject to severe mistreatment, including beatings and torture. See Reports on Child Labour of Mirzapur, in LAW RELATING TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN 160, 160-63 (1985); Y. R. HARAGOPAL REDDY, BONDED LABOUR SYSTEM IN INDIA 82 (1995); AJOY KUMAR, FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM: THE TALE OF CHATTISGARH BONDED LABOURERS 8 (Indian Social Institute, 1986).
18. See U.N. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, supra note 2, art. I. A slave is defined as someone "over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised." Id. art. VII(a). A bondmaster owns the labor of the bonded worker. The worker cannot seek employment elsewhere, cannot refuse to work, cannot move away from the town, may be subject to the master's demands twenty-four hours a day, and may be sold to another master. A worker who resists this control is subject to severe mistreatment, including beatings and torture. See Reports on Child Labour of Mirzapur, in LAW RELATING TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN 160, 160-63 (1985); Y. R. HARAGOPAL REDDY, BONDED LABOUR SYSTEM IN INDIA 82 (1995); AJOY KUMAR, FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM: THE TALE OF CHATTISGARH BONDED LABOURERS 8 (Indian Social Institute, 1986).
19. See generally Uma Chakravarti, Of Dasas and Karmakaras: Servile Labour in Ancient India, in CHAINS OF SERVITUDE: BONDAGE AND SLAVERY IN INDIA 35 (Utsa Patnaik & Manjari Dingwaney eds., New Delhi: Sangam Books 1985) [hereinafter CHAINS OF SERVITUDE].
20. See Citizen's Body on Bonded Labour, TIMES OF INDIA, 18 Nov. 1994.
21. See Tanika Sarkar, Bondage in the Colonial Context, in CHAINS OF SERVITUDE, supra note 14, at 96, 111-12.
22. See Rita Panicker, Reckoning with Child Labour: Present Day Strategies and Future Direction, 5 MOLAKÉ July 1995, at 19. "Scheduled castes" and "scheduled tribes" refer to those castes and tribes enumerated in an attachment to the Indian Constitution as entitled to special consideration, including some quotas for educational and career opportunities, in recognition of their historically oppressed status. "Other backward castes" and "other backward tribes" refer to nonscheduled low-caste groups. See id.
23. See also Sarkar, supra note 16, at 102 ("The system [of slavery] . . . was a product of the absolute control of peasant and upper castes over the untouchables. . . . [A]mong the untouchables, whole sub-castes were collectively designated as slaves. In fact, the name of such a caste and the local term for slaves could be interchangeably used in certain cases."). See, e.g., REDDY, supra note 13. Reddy continues that "[t]he hereditary association of a caste with an occupation has been so striking that it has occasionally been argued that caste is nothing more than the systematization of occupational differentiation." Id. at 37 (citing M. N. SRINIVAS, INDIAN SOCIAL STRUCTURE (1986); P. M. Baxi, Caste and the Law: Some Recent Explorations, in ALL INDIA REP. 65 (1985)).
24. See also Sarkar, supra note 16, at 102 ("The system [of slavery] . . . was a product of the absolute control of peasant and upper castes over the untouchables. . . . [A]mong the untouchables, whole sub-castes were collectively designated as slaves. In fact, the name of such a caste and the local term for slaves could be interchangeably used in certain cases."). See, e.g., REDDY, supra note 13. Reddy continues that "[t]he hereditary association of a caste with an occupation has been so striking that it has occasionally been argued that caste is nothing more than the systematization of occupational differentiation." Id. at 37 (citing M. N. SRINIVAS, INDIAN SOCIAL STRUCTURE (1986); P. M. Baxi, Caste and the Law: Some Recent Explorations, in ALL INDIA REP. 65 (1985)).
25. See HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CHILDREN'S RIGHTS PROJECT & HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/ASIA, supra note 6, at 140-41.
26. See In Search of a Strategy for Elimination of Child Labour, 3 NAT'L LAB. INST. NEWSL. 13 (1995) (quoting a statement made by Myron Weiner). See generally MYRON WEINER, THE CHILD AND THE STATE IN INDIA (1991) (providing a comparative analysis of the relationship between national education policies and the high incidence of child labor).
27. See In Search of a Strategy for Elimination of Child Labour, 3 NAT'L LAB. INST. NEWSL. 13 (1995) (quoting a statement made by Myron Weiner). See generally MYRON WEINER, THE CHILD AND THE STATE IN INDIA (1991) (providing a comparative analysis of the relationship between national education policies and the high incidence of child labor).
28. INDIA CONST.
29. Id. art. 45.
30. See WEINER, supra note 20, at 8.
31. See id. at 161 (citing BRITANNICA BOOK OF THE YEAR 1990 (1989)).
32. Interview with Professor B.N. Juyal, Human Rights Watch, in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India (18 Dec. 1995).
33. COMMISSION ON LABOUR STANDARDS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE, CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA: A PERSPECTIVE 59 (1995) [hereinafter COMMISSION ON LABOUR STANDARDS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE] ("For instance, 40% of the schools have no black boards, 80% have no benches, 72% have no books, and 90% have no buildings."); see also CACL, supra note 3, ch. VII (stating that government policy, which is rarely enforced, stipulates a student-teacher ratio of 40:1).
34. See e.g., WEINER, supra note 20, at 161 (comparing data on thirty-one low income countries, including: Sri Lanka, spending 3.5 percent GNP on education, with 86 percent adult literacy; China, 2.7 percent spending, 73 percent literacy; Burma, 1.6 percent spending, 79 percent literacy; Indonesia, 2 percent spending, 74 percent literacy; Peru, 2.9 percent spending, 87 percent literacy). Thus, the percentage of India's GNP currently going to education, 3 to 6 percent, compares favorably with education expenditures of other developing countries. This includes many with similar economic conditions but much higher literacy rates.
35. See id. at 93, 96, 106. As of 1985, only 35.9 percent of educational expenditures were earmarked for elementary education.
36. Id. at 160.
37. See id. at 189-90. With few exceptions, it is higher caste and relatively wealthy children who make it in to the government subsidized system of secondary and higher education. In order to get there, they go to private primary schools, where the drop-out rate is nearly zero. The drop-out rate for public schools, in contrast, is approximately 75 percent. See id.
38. Id. at 5-6.
39. See UNICEF, CHILD LABOUR: UNICEF INDIA POSITION 4 (1995) (unpublished position paper) (explaining that the government has various types of nonformal education centers operating in 137 of India's 467 districts).
40. INDIA'S DEPARTMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT ET AL., RIGHTS OF THE CHILD: REPORT OF A NATIONAL CONSULTATION 21-23 Nov. 100, 103 (Kalyani Menon Sen & G. Balagopal eds., 1994) [hereinafter RIGHTS OF THE CHILD].
41. See id. The argument that it is at this stage that an individual is most receptive to skill development has nowhere been borne out by facts. . . . In fact, master craftsmen themselves often ensure that their children are educated to at least a minimum level before being put through training, usually after the age of fourteen years. Id. at 105.
42. Id. at 106.
43. In some piece-rate industries, including beedi and stainless steel, nonbonded children earn the same rate of pay as nonbonded adults.
44. See also Vinay Pandey, Child Workers' Plea to Form Unions, TIMES OF INDIA, 28 Nov. 1993 (explaining that The Trade Union Act of 1926 prohibits the formation of trade unions by children under the age of fifteen).
45. See Minimum Wages Act, 1948, (No. 11 of 1948) (India). The Act states that "different minimum rates of wages may be fixed for . . . adults, adolescents, children and apprentices." Id. art. 3(3)(a)(iii). In addition, the vast majority of children work in agriculture or the unorganized sector, where minimum wage requirements do not apply. See id. art. 3(1)(a) ("The government shall set minimum wages for employments specified in the attached schedule and subsequent amendments to that schedule.").
46. See R. K. Misra, Preliminary Report on the Child Labour in the Saree Industry of Varanasi 13 (1995) (documenting a study undertaken by the Human Rights Cell of Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi) (unpublished report, on file with author). Any number of justifications are available at the community level in support of children taking up a job at an early age. It is said that in order to . . . become an accomplished artisan one has to start working at an early age. Those who start working at the "late" age of 12 years might pick up the craft within a few months but they would never be able to pick up speed in their work. As against this, those starting at the "right" age of six or seven years become very good workers after an apprenticeship of 5 to 6 years. . . . [This belief] ensures continuous availability of child labour at low wages. Id.
47. Interview with Shamshad Khan, Founder and Secretary, Centre for Rural Education & Development Action (CREDA), in Mirzapur, Mirzapur district, Uttar Pradesh, India (19 Dec. 1995); see also CACL, supra note 3, at ch. VII (arguing that child labor causes poverty "because it deprives the nation of a skilled and trained labour force, and further contributes to adult unemployment.").
48. See generally HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CHILDREN'S RIGHTS PROJECT & HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/ASIA, supra note 6, at 27-41 (providing a further description of the following legislation as well as other Indian labor legislation).
49. INDIA CONST, art. 21.
50. See S. K. SINGH, BONDED LABOUR AND THE LAW 48-51 (1994).
51. INDIA CONST, art. 24 ("No child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment.").
52. Id. art. 39.
53. INDIA CONST, art. 23(1). Begar is an ancient caste-based obligation, a "form of forced labour under which a person is compelled to work without receiving any remuneration." People's Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India, A.I.R. 1982 S.C. 1473, 1486 [hereinafter Asiad Workers' Case].
54. Asiad Workers' Case, supra note 46, at 1486.
55. Id. at 1490.
56. Id.; see also REDDY, supra note 13, at 66-92 (discussing Supreme Court decisions affecting bonded laborers).
57. Asiad Workers' Case, supra note 46.
58. INDIA CONST, art. 23(1). Consequently, post-Act social action litigation on behalf of bonded laborers was brought under both the Bonded Labour Act, supra note 9, and the Constitution of India. See REDDY, supra note 13, at 66-92 (discussing cases).
59. Bonded Labour Act, supra note 9, §§ 4-6, 14.
60. Id. §16. The maximum penalties for a first-time offender are less under the Child Labour Act than under the Bonded Labour Act in terms of potential length of incarceration (one year), but the penalties are significantly stronger in terms of monetary punishment (ten to twenty thousand rupees). Child Labour Act, supra note 7, § 14(1).
61. Bonded Labour Act, supra note 9, § 2(1)(g)(i)-(v).
62. Some bonded laborers receive no wages at all, apart from meager food stipends and a yearly change of clothing; some receive extremely low wages, constituting as little as 10 percent of the mandated minimum wage; some receive a standard wage in theory, but in fact lose 70 or 80 percent of it, sight unseen, back to the employer as "interest" on the advance. Some laborers are working to pay off a 500 rupee loan, others a 15,000 rupee loan. Some inherited their debt from their parents; others have contracted for a ten-month period of servitude. Some work sixteen hours a day, 365 days a year, every year of their lives. Others work ten hours a day, six days a week. See HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CHILDREN'S RIGHTS PROIECT & HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/ASIA, supra note 6.
63. Bonded Labour Act, supra note 9, § 2(1)(i)(a)(b). Because no minimum wages have been set by the government for children's work, the second prong of this definition applies.
64. Id. § 1 2.
65. Interview with Bachittar Singh, Mirzapur District Collector, in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, India (19 Dec. 1995); see also SINGH, supra note 43, at 124-25, 142, 147. Singh describes multifarious duties of district magistrates and notes that "[n]o District Magistrate . . . can perform all the assignments properly, given to him under the Act." Id. at 147.
66. Bonded Labour Act, supra note 9, § 1 2.
67. Id. § 11 (requiring the magistrate to secure and protect "the economic interests of [the] bonded labourer so that he may not have any occasion or reason to contract any further debt[].").
68. Id. § 13.
69. The text of the Act provides: (a) to advise the District Magistrate . . . as to the efforts made, and action taken, to ensure that the provisions of this act . . . are properly implemented; (b) to provide for the economic and social rehabilitation of the freed-bonded labourers; (c) to co-ordinate the functions of rural banks and co-operative societies with a view to canalizing adequate credit to the freed-bonded labourers; (d) to keep an eye on the number of offences of which cognizance has been taken under [the] act; (e) to make a survey as to whether there is any offence of which cognizance ought to be taken under [the] act; (f) to defend any suit instituted against a freed-bonded labourer or a member of his family . . . for the recovery of the whole or part of any bonded debt. . . . Id § 14(1).
70. See REDDY, supra note 13, at 163.
71. See id.
72. See id at 176 (citing inter alia Lr. No. Y-11011/4/84-BL, dated 14 Feb. 1986, Dir. Gen. (Labour Welfare), Ministry of Labour, Government of India). There was much discussion in 1996 of raising the rehabilitation allowance to the more realistic sum often thousand rupees, but the central government failed to do so. The state of Tamil Nadu, however, unilaterally implemented such a raise in August 1996. Affidavit from the State of Tamil Nadu to the Supreme Court, filed 20 Aug. 1996.
73. Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, supra note 6, §§ 4-6.
74. Id. § 2 (defining "child" as a person less than fifteen years old).
75. Id.
76. Id. §§ 4-6.
77. The twenty-five occupations and industries where child labor is prohibited are: beedi-making; carpet-weaving; cement manufacture; cloth printing, dyeing and weaving; manufacture of matches, explosives and fireworks; mica-cutting and splitting; shellac manufacture; soap manufacture; tanning; wool-cleaning; the building and construction industry; manufacture of slate pencils; manufacture of agate products; manufacturing processes using toxic metals and substances; "hazardous processes" as defined by section 87 of the Factories Act, 1948 (63 of 1948); printing as defined by section 2(k)(iv) of the Factories Act, 1948 (63 of 1948); cashew and cashew nut processing; soldering processes in electronic industries; railway transportation; cinder picking, ash pit clearing or building operations in railway premises; vending operations at railway stations; work on ports; sale of firecracker and fireworks; and work in slaughter houses. Child Labour Act, supra note 7, § 3, sched. pts. A, B, as amended by Government Notification Nos. SO. 404(E) (5 June 1989), SO. 263(E) (29 Mar. 1994).
78. Child Labour Act, supra note 7, § 14(1).
79. Id. § 14(2).
80. Id. § 16(1).
81. WEINER, supra note 20, at 80-81.
82. See id. (reporting the finding of a government-appointed commission that "rampant corruption . . . compromise[s] enforcement of child labour laws"). The prevalence of corruption among factory inspectors, labor inspectors, and others charged with enforcing child labor laws was confirmed to the author by multiple sources, including an official of the national government. Interview with R.V. Pillai, Secretary General of the National Human Rights Commission (28 Dec. 1995).
83. See COMMISSION ON LABOUR STANDARDS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE, supra note 26, at 40.
84. Factories Act, No. 63 (1948) (India) [hereinafter Factories Act].
85. Id.
86. Child Labour Act, supra note 7, § 3.
87. Id.
88. See infra text pt. IV(D)(8).
89. INDIA CONST, art. 24.
90. Child Labour Act, supra note 7, § 10.
91. Interview with R.V. Pillai, Secretary General of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), in New Delhi, India (28 Dec. 1995). According to Mr. Pillai, there is frequent collusion between medical officers of the government and employers of child labor, who bribe the medical officers in order to obtain certificates stating the children working for them are above the age of fourteen. Id. Mr. Pillai stated that some medical officers are "notorious" for engaging in these acts, to the extent that the NHRC has recommended to some district magistrates that they file criminal charges against corrupt medical officers. Id. See also COMMISSION ON LABOUR STANDARDS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE, supra note 26, at 40 ("[R]ampant corruption . . . compromise[s] enforcement of child labour laws.").
92. See HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CHILDREN'S RIGHTS PROJECT & HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/ASIA, supra note 6, at 46-61.
93. 50,000 Cr Beedies Consumed Annually, INDIAN EXPRESS, 1 Feb. 1995. One crore, abbreviated as "cr," equals ten million rupees. Annual sales equal forty billion rupees. Id.
94. See NEERA BURRA, BORN TO WORK: CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA xxiv (New Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press 1955) (citing estimate of 327,000 child workers in the beedi industry); R. Vidyasagar, A Status Report on Child Labour in Tamil Nadu 8 (written for UNICEF (Madras), 1995) (reporting that there are 248,000 child beedi workers in Tamil Nadu). Other states with beedi production are Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Uttar Pradesh.
95. See NEERA BURRA, BORN TO WORK: CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA xxiv (New Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press 1955) (citing estimate of 327,000 child workers in the beedi industry); R. Vidyasagar, A Status Report on Child Labour in Tamil Nadu 8 (written for UNICEF (Madras), 1995) (reporting that there are 248,000 child beedi workers in Tamil Nadu). Other states with beedi production are Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Uttar Pradesh.
96. See Pradeep S. Mehta, Cashing in on Child Labor, MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, Apr. 1994, at 24, 25. The minimum wage for beedi rolling varies from state to state. Established minimum wages do not apply to children, but are a good indicator of the market value of labor. Many activists and some government officials are pressing for legal reform to apply the same minimum wage to adults and children, on the grounds that such a move would decrease child labor and increase adult employment. Currently, the number of unemployed adults - fifty-five million - approximates the low end of the estimated number of working children in India. See id.
97. Interview with longtime social welfare activist (name withheld), in Madras, India (21 Nov. 1995).
98. See Jacob Varghese, Freedom at Mid-Day, WORLDVISION: A WORLDVISION OF INDIA MAGAZINE, 1993, at 6, 6-7.
99. See supra note 70 and accompanying text.
100. Interview with social activist, supra note 89.
101. Id.
102. Vidyasagar, supra note 87, at 9.
103. See id. (citing a study of one beedi manufacturing village wherein 25 percent of all beedi rollers had tuberculosis).
104. Interviews with child bonded laborers (names withheld), in North Arcot district, Tamil Nadu, India (25 Nov. 1995).
105. Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act, No. 32 (1966) (India) [hereinafter Beedi Act].
106. See supra text pt. III(D).
107. Beedi Act, supra note 97.
108. Id. § 2(i) (emphasis added).
109. See Asha Krishnakumar, Reprehensible By Any Name: Children in Beedi Industry, FRONTLINE (Madras), 17 Nov. 1995, at 87.
110. Child Labour Act, supra note 7, § 3.
111. Interview with R. Vidyasagar, researcher and author, in Madras, India (17 Nov. 1995).
112. See HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CHILDREN'S RIGHTS PROJECT & HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/ASIA, supra note 6, at 62-73.
113. The "silver" referred to throughout this discussion is not pure silver, but instead a blend of lesser metals.
114. Vidyasagar, supra note 87, at 14.
115. Interview with Mr. Velusamy, village leader, in village near Salem, Tamil Nadu, India (30 Nov. 1995).
116. Background information on the silver industry of Salem was provided by a local nongovernmental organization, on 30 November 1995. This organization works with more than 250 bonded child silver workers in the Salem area. It requested anonymity in order to avoid possible repercussions against its programs or staff.
117. See, e.g., STANLEY WOLPERT, INDIA 90 (1991).
118. Factories Act, supra note 77, §§ 2 (m)(i)-(ii).
119. Id. § 14.
120. Id. § 23.
121. Id. § 41 (F).
122. Id. §§ 51-55, 71.
123. See supra text pt. III(D).
124. Telephone Interview with J.L. Poland, Project Officer in Salem, Tamil Nadu (1 Dec. 1995).
125. See HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CHILDREN'S RIGHTS PROJECT & HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/ASIA, supra note 6, at 73-89.
126. See generally Silk Exports May Fall 20 P.C., THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE, 7 Mar. 1996, at 1, available in, 〈http://www.indiaserver.com/news/bline/1996/03/07/BLB01.html〉. India is the world's second largest producer of silk, and silk exports contribute significantly to the country's foreign exchange earnings, generating $260 million in revenues during 1995. See id. Eighty-five percent of Indian silk production, however, is consumed domestically. See Vidya Sundaresan, Silk Exports May Miss Target This Year, THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE, 22 Nov. 1995, available in, 〈http://www.indiaserver.com/news/bline/ 1995/11/22/BLFPO4.html〉.
127. See generally Silk Exports May Fall 20 P.C., THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE, 7 Mar. 1996, at 1, available in, 〈http://www.indiaserver.com/news/bline/1996/03/07/BLB01.html〉. India is the world's second largest producer of silk, and silk exports contribute significantly to the country's foreign exchange earnings, generating $260 million in revenues during 1995. See id. Eighty-five percent of Indian silk production, however, is consumed domestically. See Vidya Sundaresan, Silk Exports May Miss Target This Year, THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE, 22 Nov. 1995, available in, 〈http://www.indiaserver.com/news/bline/ 1995/11/22/BLFPO4.html〉.
128. See Ian Jack, Introduction, CRANTA, Spring 1997, at 7, 10 (stating the 1994 average per capita income in India as $249). Only approximately 200 million of India's 950 million inhabitants are middle class or above, indicating that the majority of Indians earn well below this national average. See Cosmetics Sector Poised for a Leap, TIMES OF INDIA, 12 Dec. 1995, at 5.
129. See Ian Jack, Introduction, CRANTA, Spring 1997, at 7, 10 (stating the 1994 average per capita income in India as $249). Only approximately 200 million of India's 950 million inhabitants are middle class or above, indicating that the majority of Indians earn well below this national average. See Cosmetics Sector Poised for a Leap, TIMES OF INDIA, 12 Dec. 1995, at 5.
130. There is also significant bonded child labor in the silk powerloom industry, with at least 35,000 bonded children working the powerlooms of Tamil Nadu alone. Interview with R. Vidyasagar, supra note 103.
131. Id.; see also Report of the Commission on Bonded Labour in Tamilnadu, 31 Oct. 1995 at 73, submitted in connection with Madras S.C. Civ. Writ Petition No. 3922 of 1985 (India) (on file with author); Misra, supra note 39, at 10.
132. Misra, supra note 39, at 3.
133. Interview with Director of government cocoon market, in Magadi, Bangalore Rural District, Karnataka (7 Dec. 1995).
134. No systematic study has been undertaken on child labor in the silk industry of Karnataka. Nonetheless, a detailed study of one taluk (subdivision of a district) near Bangalore found 10,000 bonded child silk workers in that taluk alone. See India Community Development Service Society, survey in Magadi taluk, Bangalore District, Karnataka (1995) (on file with Human Rights Watch, Kannada) [hereinafter ICDSS Survey]. Based on this figure, an overall estimate of 100,000 is conservative.
135. See SANIAY SINHA, THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN SILK: A WEALTH OF OPPORTUNITIES 11 (1990).
136. See id. at 31.
137. Id.
138. See Letter from Rudi Rotthier, freelance author, and Marleen Daniels, freelance photographer, to Lee Tucker, Counsel, Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Project (1 Nov. 1995) (on file with author) [hereinafter Rotthier/Daniels Letter].
139. Interviews with silk reelers (names withheld), in Ramanagaram, Karnataka (6 Dec. 1995).
140. See ICDSS Survey, supra note 124.
141. See Rotthier/Daniels Letter, supra note 128.
142. Interview with Mathews Philip, South India Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring, in rural Bangalore district (7 Dec. 1995).
143. We witnessed many children working in the twining factories and spoke with several of them briefly, usually in view of their employers. We were unable to gain access to the children in a setting more secure and conducive for interviews. Instead, we relied largely on information provided by a local social welfare organization, India Community Development Service Society (unpublished materials). Although the particulars of these three testimonials were confirmed repeatedly by our own conversations and observations, the testimonials themselves were recorded by the social welfare organization.
144. Rotthier/Daniels Letter, supra note 1 28.
145. See SINHA, supra note 125, at 63.
146. Interview with Mathews Philip, supra note 132. Interview with female leatherworker (name withheld), in Amber, Tamil Nadu (26 Nov. 1995) (reporting the same phenomenon in the shoe factories of that town).
147. Interview with Mathews Philip, supra note 128.
148. Id.
149. Id.
150. Interview with R. Vidyasagar, supra note 103.
151. See Misra, supra note 39, at 8.
152. See id. at 10-11. One cannot become 3 weaver before he is about 14 years of age, depending upon his ability to learn and his physical development. . . . Having worked at very low wages as a child worker before he matures into a weaver, he would not have the necessary capital to install his own loom and to arrange for the material to be able to work on his own. Besides, there may be the liability of an advance taken by his parents which has to be cleared. All this forces him to work on the loom owned by someone else (generally the loom-owner who employed him as a child worker) on a piece-rate basis. . . . Thus one who starts as a child labourer has to remain a captive of the loom owner for a number of years even after becoming a weaver. . . . [T]he exploitation of the child worker continues even after he ceases to be a child and matures into a full-fledged weaver. While working on the loom of his previous employer-cum-creditor, his bargaining power to settle the wages remains circumscribed by his outstanding obligations to his previous employer. . . . The system so operates that a weaver does not become independent till he reaches 30 or 35 years of age." Id.
153. See Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, supra note 6.
154. Interviews with loomowners and other townspeople (names withheld), in Vallurayakkam village, Tamil Nadu (23 Nov. 1995).
155. B. N. JUYAL ET AL., CHILD LABOUR: THE TWICE EXPLOITED (1985).
156. See Misra, supra note 39, at 5.
157. Id. (citing JACARAN, 14 Dec. 1994). This drastic action was sanctioned by the boy's community and family, being "an approved method of mending the ways of one who played truant from the work." Id.
158. Child Labour Act, supra note 7, § 3, sched. pt. B(4) (listing cloth weaving as a hazardous occupation in which the employment of any child under the age of fourteen is illegal). Although employment of children as silk reelers and twisters is not forbidden, the conditions of such work violate the regulatory provisions of the Child Labour Act. Id. § 13(2).
159. Factories Act, supra note 77, §§ 2(m)(i), 2(m)(ii) (defining factories where child labor is prohibited). This definition would apply to all of the twisting factories and many of the hand loom centers.
160. Interview with M.P. Vijaykumar, North Arcot District Collector, in Vellore, Tamil Nadu (27 Nov. 1995); see also Misra, supra note 39, at 42.
161. Interview with Director of government cocoon market, supra note 123.
162. See SINHA, supra note 125, at 47, 57.
163. Interview with Director of government cocoon market, supra note 123.
164. See SINHA, supra note 125, at 47, 57.
165. The World Bank is another major funder of India's silk industry. See HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CHILDREN'S RIGHTS PROJECT & HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/ASIA, supra note 6, at 74-75.
166. See id. at 102-117.
167. 23 Children Rescued from Bondage, STATESMAN, 26 Jan. 1996.
168. Id.
169. Id.
170. See Mehta, supra note 88, at 24.
171. See Ela Dutt, Rug Firms With No Child Labor Need Help, INDIA ABROAD, 3 Feb. 1995, at 16.
172. See Hamish McDonald, Boys of Bondage: Child Labour, Though Banned, is Rampant, FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW, 9 July 1992, at 18, 19.
173. See infra text pt. IV(D)(1).
174. See McDonald, supra note 162, at 19 (citing increasing reports of rape and other sexual abuse against Nepali girls working in the Indian carpet industry).
175. See Mirzapur Carpets - Taking Exports to a New High, ECONOMIC TIMES, 10 June 1996. Germany and the United States together account for 60 percent of the export market; other major importers include Britain, Japan, Canada, Sweden, Australia, France, Italy, and Switzerland. See id.
176. See Edward A. Gargan, Bound to Looms by Poverty and Fear, Boys in India Make a Few Men Rich, N.Y. TIMES, 9 July 1992, at A8.
177. See Molly Moore, Factories of Children; Youth Labor Force Growing in Asia to Meet Export Demand, Help Families, WASHINGTON POST, 21 May 1995, at A1 (explaining that the highest concentration of carpet villages is in Mirzapur district, but carpet is also a dominant industry in the neighboring districts of Allahabad, Varanasi, and Jaunpur).
178. See BURRA, supra note 87, at xxii.
179. See Ex-Child Labourers Make a Fresh Start, TIMES OF INDIA, 31 July 1995 (documenting how carpet manufacturers are finding new ways to exploit the poverty of Bihar: in addition to bringing Bihar children into bondage in the carpet belt, manufacturers are beginning to bring bondage to the children, setting up thousands of looms in the poorest districts of Bihar).
180. Anti-Slavery International, Slavery Today in India, Factsheet B, July 1994 (stating that 10,000 boys have been kidnapped from one Bihar district (Chichoria) alone) (on file with Anti-Slavery International).
181. See PHARIS HARVEV & LAURA RIGGIN, TRADING AWAY THE FUTURE: CHILD LABOR IN INDIA'S EXPORT INDUSTRIES 70 (1994).
182. See Prem Bhai, The Working Conditions of the Child Weaver in the Carpet Units of Mirzapur and Summary of Findings, in DOCUMENTATION ON LAW REIATING TO EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN 145, 151 (1985). A detailed 1984 study found that approximately 50 percent of migrant child weavers were paid only in food; another 40 percent of them received only one or two rupees per day. See id.
183. Except where otherwise noted, all child testimonials are from author interviews, 19 Dec. 1995, conducted in several rural villages of Mirzapur district, Urtar Pradesh.
184. See, e.g., Bhai, supra note 172, at 146. [They are] forced to work for long hours under inhuman conditions for no wages or nominal wages. Some of them are . . . ill-treated, beaten, tortured, abused, branded, kept half fed, half clad, without facilities or safe drinking water, medicine, or rest, and are not allowed to move freely or change their employer. . . . Four children complained that they were tied . . . and slung on to a jackfruit tree, then dropped to the ground several times by pulling the rope upwards and then loosening it suddenly." Id.
185. Centre for Rural Education and Development Action, based in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh.
186. See, e.g., Ex-Child Labourers Make a Fresh Start, supra note 168 (reporting on a twelve-year-old boy who escaped from bondage after three years of working 4:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. in a carpet factory in Mirzapur and never receiving wages).
187. Interviews with carpet weavers and social activists, in Mirzapur district, Uttar Pradesh (19 Dec. 1995); Interviews with carpet weavers and social activists, in Jaipur district, Rajasthan (13-14 Dec. 1995); see also McDonald, supra note 162, at 18-19.
188. Moore, supra note 167.
189. See Bhai, supra note 172, at 151.
190. Mehta, supra note 88, at 24.
191. See, e.g., 19 Children Rescued from Bonded Labour, INDIAN EXPRESS, 9 Nov. 1995 (reporting on a young boy who was required to knot carpets during the day and operate the loom owner's thrashing machine at night). One night, the machine cut off the boy's arm. "His master, however, did not consider it sufficient reason for medication." Id.
192. Three castes were represented in the villages near Viratnagar: Raigar, Rajput, and Jat. Raigar is a low caste and one of the scheduled castes; Rajput and Jat are higher castes. All of the carpet weavers in these villages were Raigar, while all of the local landowners were Rajput or Jat. The traditional occupation of these Raigars was shoemaking, an occupation considered unclean by traditional Hindus.
193. Interview with Ratan Katyayni, Mukti Dhara Sansthan, in Viratnagar, Rajasthan (13 Dec. 1995).
194. See HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CHILDREN'S RIGHTS PROJECT & HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/ASIA, supra note 6, at 90-94.
195. Interview with social activist (name withheld), in Viratnagar (14 Dec. 1995) (explaining that approximately 80 percent of the child carpet-makers in Rajasthan are female).
196. Interview with village chief (name unavailable), in village near Viratnagar, Rajasthan (13 Dec. 1995).
197. Id.
198. Id.
199. See Anti-Slavery International, supra note 170.
200. See id.
201. See HARVEY & RIGGIN, supra note 171, at 69. As of 1991, the number of government-run carpet-training centers was reported as approximately two hundred. See WEINER, supra note 18, at 86.
202. Child Labour Act, supra note 7, § 3, sched. pt. B(2).
203. See B. N. Juyal, Official schemes exacerbate situation in Northern States, VIGILINDIA, No. 69, Aug. 1995, at 6, 6.
204. See id.
205. Interview with local children's rights activist (name withheld), in Viratnagar, Rajasthan (13 Dec. 1995).
206. Child Labour Act, supra note 7, § 3, sched. pt. B(2).
207. INDIA CONST, art. 24.
208. Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 (No. 30 of 1979) (India).
209. See Gargan, supra note 166 (citing Sudhir Kumar, Subdivisional Magistrate, Varanasi district).
210. See McDonald, supra note 162, at 19.
211. See id.
212. Child Labour Act, supra note 7, § 14(1).
213. Interview with Bachittar Singh, supra note 58.
214. Interview with Ashok Shekhar, Rajasthan Labour Commissioner, in Jaipur, Rajasthan (15 Dec. 1995).
215. See S. B. Civ. Writ Petition No. 263 of 1995, Ugam Raj Mohnot v. State of Rajasthan and Others, filed 18 Jan. 1995, H.C. Rajasthan, Jaipur Bench (on file with author).
216. COMMISSION ON LABOUR STANDARDS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE, supra note 26, at 41.
217. See id. at 42-45 (describing eighteen policies, laws, committees, etc. established by the central government since 1921).
218. See id.
219. See id. at 45.
220. "Nonformal education" is typically part-time instruction that emphasizes basic literacy and life skills. It is geared toward working children.
221. See COMMISSION ON LABOUR STANDARDS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE, supra note 26, at 49.
222. See id.
223. See id. Additional IPEC programs serve nearly 55,000 children. See MINISTRY OF LABOUR (INDIA), supra note 3, at 11.
224. See MINISTRY OF LABOUR (INDIA), supra note 3, at 5.
225. See Data on Child Labour Yet to Be Compiled, HINDU, 10 Apr. 1995, at 13 (using the figure of 850 crore rupees). One crore is equal to ten million rupees.
226. See MINISTRY OF LABOUR (INDIA), supra note 3, at 5.
227. See Collectors Meeting on Child Labour, STATESMAN, 10 Sept. 1995, at 8 ("India has told International Labour Organization it requires no external financial assistance for the various remedial measures it is taking [to eliminate children from the workforce in hazardous industries]."); India Rejects Aid to Tackle Child Labour, STATESMAN, 12 Mar. 1996, at 17 ("The Government today informed the Rajya Sabha that it had rejected the offer by some countries to help India check the problem of child labour, saying it preferred to depend on its own resources."); India Spurns Aid to Abolish Child Labour, TIMES OF INDIA, 11 Feb. 1996 (reporting the national labour secretary's statement: "We have now decided that there is no need for external funding. We are adequately financing the programme ourselves."). Resistance to foreign aid is linked to the government's sensitivity to external critiques of child labor. According to one report, "the Indian government is known to have discouraged suggestions, including one from the European Union, for financial assistance . . . [in order] to avoid any meddling in its programme for abolition of child labour." Id. Some believe that the government is using external aid as a bargaining chip in the ongoing debate over linking trade and labor issues. This way, "[i]f the developed countries demand that the pace of compliance with international labour standards should be faster[,] . . . India could then ask for a substantial part of the cost of the programmes to be shared by the developed countries." Id.
228. See Collectors Meeting on Child Labour, STATESMAN, 10 Sept. 1995, at 8 ("India has told International Labour Organization it requires no external financial assistance for the various remedial measures it is taking [to eliminate children from the workforce in hazardous industries]."); India Rejects Aid to Tackle Child Labour, STATESMAN, 12 Mar. 1996, at 17 ("The Government today informed the Rajya Sabha that it had rejected the offer by some countries to help India check the problem of child labour, saying it preferred to depend on its own resources."); India Spurns Aid to Abolish Child Labour, TIMES OF INDIA, 11 Feb. 1996 (reporting the national labour secretary's statement: "We have now decided that there is no need for external funding. We are adequately financing the programme ourselves."). Resistance to foreign aid is linked to the government's sensitivity to external critiques of child labor. According to one report, "the Indian government is known to have discouraged suggestions, including one from the European Union, for financial assistance . . . [in order] to avoid any meddling in its programme for
229. See Collectors Meeting on Child Labour, STATESMAN, 10 Sept. 1995, at 8 ("India has told International Labour Organization it requires no external financial assistance for the various remedial measures it is taking [to eliminate children from the workforce in hazardous industries]."); India Rejects Aid to Tackle Child Labour, STATESMAN, 12 Mar. 1996, at 17 ("The Government today informed the Rajya Sabha that it had rejected the offer by some countries to help India check the problem of child labour, saying it preferred to depend on its own resources."); India Spurns Aid to Abolish Child Labour, TIMES OF INDIA, 11 Feb. 1996 (reporting the national labour secretary's statement: "We have now decided that there is no need for external funding. We are adequately financing the programme ourselves."). Resistance to foreign aid is linked to the government's sensitivity to external critiques of child labor. According to one report, "the Indian government is known to have discouraged suggestions, including one from the European Union, for financial assistance . . . [in order] to avoid any meddling in its programme for abolition of child labour." Id. Some believe that the government is using external aid as a bargaining chip in the ongoing debate over linking trade and labor issues. This way, "[i]f the developed countries demand that the pace of compliance with international labour standards should be faster[,] . . . India could then ask for a substantial part of the cost of the programmes to be shared by the developed countries." Id.
230. Interview with organization leader (name withheld), in Mirzapur (19 Dec. 1995); Interview with organization leader (name withheld), in Firozabad (22 Dec. 1995); Interview with organization leader (name withheld), in New Delhi (27 Dec. 1995).
231. Interview with organization leader (name withheld), in Mirzapur (19 Dec. 1995); Interview with organization leader (name withheld), in Firozabad (22 Dec. 1995); Interview with organization leader (name withheld), in New Delhi (27 Dec. 1995); see also RIGHTS OF THE CHILD, supra note 33, at 100-07.
232. See BURRA, supra note 87, at 13-14 (citing the Baroda Operations Research Group's 1984 estimate of forty-four million child laborers in India). Taking into account population growth and employment trends, that figure would be approximately sixty million in 1995. Another frequently cited figure is one hundred million child laborers, a number that corresponds to the government's estimate of all non-schoolgoing children, who are assumed to be working more than eight hours a day. Official government figures on the working child population, on the other hand, are based on the 1981 census and are absurdly inaccurate, with the government claiming there are only about seventeen million child laborers. A 1994 report by the Indian government's Department of Women & Child Development, the Indian Council for Child Welfare, and UNICEF-lndia concluded that "the number of working children is closer to 90 million than the figure of 20 million assumed by the government." RIGHTS OF THE CHILD, supra note 33, at 102.
233. See CACL, supra note 3, at 8 (stating that the twenty million figure was used by then-Prime Minister Rao on 15 August 1994 when he announced the government's goal of releasing two million child workers by the year 2000).
234. See N. K. Doval, Double-speak on Child Labour, HINDU, 28 Dec. 1994, at 14; MINISTRY OF LABOUR (INDIA), supra note 3; COMMISSION ON LABOUR STANDARDS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE, supra note 26, at 3.
235. See Gerry Pinto, Child Labour in India: The Issue and Directions for Action 2 (1995) (unpublished paper for UNICEF) ("74.8 million children . . . probably engaged in child labour"); RIGHTS OF THE CHILD, supra note 33, at 101 (commenting that ninety million children were not in school and assumed to be working).
236. See Gerry Pinto, Child Labour in India: The Issue and Directions for Action 2 (1995) (unpublished paper for UNICEF) ("74.8 million children . . . probably engaged in child labour"); RIGHTS OF THE CHILD, supra note 33, at 101 (commenting that ninety million children were not in school and assumed to be working).
237. See MINISTRY OF LABOUR (INDIA), supra note 3, at 2. Preliminary numbers released from the 1991 census include a total population of 844 million people, 298 million of whom are children under the age of fifteen. Of these children, 221 million live in rural areas and seventy-one million in urban areas. These numbers are already considered out of date, with most sources reporting an overall population of 900 to 950 million. India's population is expected to cross the one billion mark by the turn of the century.
238. Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, supra note 6.
239. See REDDY, supra note 13, at 54 (documenting that The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Ordinance of 1975 was issued by the central government on 25 October 1975).
240. Bonded Labour Act, supra note 9.
241. See supra pt. III (B).
242. Bonded Labour Act, supra note 9, §§ 10, 12, 14. There are twenty-five states in India, WOLPERT, supra note 109, at 199, and 467 districts. There are also several centrally administered Union Territories. UNICEF, supra note 32, at 4.
243. Bonded Labour Act, supra note 9, § 13.
244. See Chaudhary v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1984) 3 S.C.C. 243, 255 (India).
245. Id.
246. INDIA CONST, art. 21.
247. Id. art. 23.
248. Chaudhary v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1984) 3 S.C.C. 243, 255 (India).
249. Vivek Pandit, Prevention of Atrocities (Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes): Bonded Labour 18 (1995) (unpublished manuscript) (on file with author).
250. MINISTRY OF LABOUR (INDIA), ANNUAL REPORT, 1994-1995, at 97 (on file with author).
251. But see supra text accompanying note 65.
252. See, e.g., K. MAHAJAN & J. GATHIA, CHILD LABOUR: AN ANALYTICAL STUDY 25 (New Delhi: Centre of Concern for Child Labour, Sept. 1992) ("According to the Indian Council for Child Welfare, slavery is on the increase among children below the age of 15 years."). Not only is the incidence of bonded child labor increasing, but the wages paid to bonded laborers are steadily decreasing in real terms. See S. P. Tiwary, Bondage in Santhal Parganas, in CHAINS OF SERVITUDE, supra note 14, at 206 (explaining that since the passage of the Bonded Labour Act, real wages have "tended to come down sharply").
253. See, e.g., K. MAHAJAN & J. GATHIA, CHILD LABOUR: AN ANALYTICAL STUDY 25 (New Delhi: Centre of Concern for Child Labour, Sept. 1992) ("According to the Indian Council for Child Welfare, slavery is on the increase among children below the age of 15 years."). Not only is the incidence of bonded child labor increasing, but the wages paid to bonded laborers are steadily decreasing in real terms. See S. P. Tiwary, Bondage in Santhal Parganas, in CHAINS OF SERVITUDE, supra note 14, at 206 (explaining that since the passage of the Bonded Labour Act, real wages have "tended to come down sharply").
254. Record of Proceedings, 13 May 1994 (copy on file with author).
255. SC Tells States to File Affidavit on Bonded Labor, TIMES OF INDIA, 14 Feb. 1997.
256. Id.
257. RIGHTS OF THE CHILD, supra note 33, at 102.
258. Interview with senior official (name withheld), Ministry of Labour (India), in New Delhi (28 Dec. 1995); see also Scheme to Divert Kids from Hazardous Units, INDIAN EXPRESS, 27 Feb. 1995 ("The government has no record of the number of child labour freed and rehabilitated during the past three years in different parts of the country.").
259. See COMMISSION ON LABOUR STANDARDS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE, supra note 26, at 33.
260. See id.
261. See id. Inspections by the national government presumably took place in New Delhi and other centrally-administered territories.
262. See id.
263. See id.
264. See Doval, supra note 222, at 14.
265. See Moore, supra note 167. According to a report by an Indian Chamber of Commerce and the International Labour Organization, of 4,000 convictions reported since 1986, 3,500 offenders got off with a fine equivalent to five dollars or less. See id.
266. See Hema Shukla, India Insincere in Ending Child Labor, UNITED PRESS INT'L, 12 Sept. 1994.
267. Child Labour Act, supra note 7, § 14(1), (2).
268. Interview with M.P. Vijaykumar, supra note 150.
269. Interview with senior state official (former District Collector of Tamil Nadu)(name withheld), in Madras, Tamil Nadu (22 Nov. 1995).
270. This information was received from various sources at various times. All sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
271. Interview with representatives (names unavailable), Indian Council for Child Welfare, in Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh (22 Dec. 1995); see also BURRA, supra note 87, at xxiii (reporting that 50,000 of 200,000 glass workers in Firozabad are children).
272. Srawan Shukla, Childhood Goes Up in Smoke in the "Land of Glass," TIMES OF INDIA, 19 Nov. 1994.
273. Interview with R. V. Pillai, Secretary General, National Human Rights Commission, in New Delhi (28 Dec. 1995).
274. See MINISTRY OF LABOUR (INDIA), supra note 237, at 96-97.
275. See id.
276. See id. at 97.
277. G. V. Krishnan, TN Has 10 Lakh [one million] Bonded Workers, Says Panel, TIMES OF INDIA, 1 Mar. 1996.
278. Id.
279. Interview with Gopal Jain, attorney, in New Delhi (29 Dec. 1995).
280. Id.; see also REDDY, supra note 13, at 171 (reporting 3,000 instances of fake bonded labor releases and fraudulent rehabilitation in Rangareddy district of Andhra Pradesh: "[A] part of the subsistence allowance paid to them was pocketed by the corrupt officials and politicians.").
281. Interview with M. P. Vijaykumar, supra note 150.
282. Id.; see also 8 Beedi Agents Held Under Bonded Labour Act, INDIAN EXPRESS, 10 Sept. 1995.
283. Bonded Labour Act, supra note 9, § 16.
284. Interview with M. P. Vijaykumar, supra note 150.
285. Id.