Tirupuri's nemesis?

July 11, 2008
Tirupur, Tamil Nadu

At first sight they look like any other children. When I ask P. Manikandan (13) what he wants to become when he grows up, his face lights up and the answer is spontaneous—a doctor. Even before I could pose the question to him, P. Madhavan (13) jumps in with his response, “I want to become a Collector.” M. Abbas (13) and P. Sathish Kumar (12) announce proudly that they want to become policemen. Normal aspirations, one would assume but, in this case, they are indeed significant considering that all of them were slogging their days (and even nights) out in textile units in and around Tirupur before they were rescued recently by SAVE, an NGO.

We (photographer Keshav Raj and I) had earlier in the day set off for Tirupur, 50 km from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, to check for ourselves the incidence of child labour after Primark, a UK retail chain, cancelled orders worth $586,000 (Rs 2.52 crore) and blacklisted three exporters from the city. The retail chain’s action followed an exposé by BBC, which showed children being employed in Primark’s supply chain.

As we drive across the town, we discover that it is dotted with textile factories—be it for knitting, dyeing and bleaching, fabric printing, garment making, embroidery, compacting and calendaring and other ancillary work. Large “No Child Labour” signboards greet us as we get closer to these factories.

“Big companies, especially the direct exporters, do not employ children as they risk losing business from international buyers, who have imposed stringent ethical standards. But down the supply chain, among the sub-contracting units, child labour continues to be prevalent,” reveals A. Aloysius, Director, SAVE, which focuses on releasing children from the clutches of child labour and rehabilitating them. His estimate: at least 4,000 children are at work in Tirupur. “We at SAVE rescue at least 400 children every year from textile units in Tirupur,” he claims, adding: “We can end this menace only if buyers subject the sub-contracting units to stringent standards applicable to the exporters. Government machinery, too, is found wanting. Inspections, raids, etc., are rare.”

The challenge before the government and buyers, I soon realise, is daunting. Tirupur is a natural cluster of over 6,250 units involved in various stages of garment production. Sub-contracting is the order of the day. Only about 10 per cent of the total exports worth Rs 9,950 crore (2007-08) is handled by companies that carry out the entire process from spinning to finishing. If the sheer number of units were not challenging enough, we—to our surprise— found that almost all the units that we drove past had no name boards whatsoever. They, actually, had no face. Under the circumstances, it will be impossible for the government, leave alone buyers, to send in their representatives for inspection.

With such a cover, these units that operate on wafer-thin margins, can easily employ children who, unlike adult workers, do not complain, learn quickly and are more productive—not to mention the 40 per cent saving in wage costs.

“The child labour problem is not as big as it used to be 10 years ago. It exists today on a much smaller scale,” explains M. Chandran, General Secretary, Banian & General Workers Union, affiliated to CITU, with over 10,000 members whom we meet to get a labour union’s perspective. He considers this to be more a social problem and wants the government to initiate poverty alleviation measures to root out the evil.

It is well accepted that ever since the units in Tirupur began to court exports in a big way, the incidence of child labour had begun to decline. In 1984, exports stood at less than Rs 10 crore. In a little over two decades, these have shot up—to Rs 11,000 crore in 2006-07 before falling to Rs 9,950 crore in 2007-08, on account of a strong rupee.

According to a survey by SAVE in 1992, there were 40,000 child workers in Tirupur. The Tamil Nadu government’s “one-day survey” in 1996 reportedly put the figure at 10,600, though many have questioned the accuracy of the exercise as it came close to Diwali when most workers had left for their native homes. No independent survey has been done since.

We rounded off the trip by meeting A. Sakthivel, Chairman, Poppys group, and President, Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA). We ask him what TEA is doing—the usual denials apart—to safeguard its image and future. “We are in talks with international agencies to devise a system of certification. It works like this: when an exporter sub-contracts a work, he notifies this agency, which then inspects and certifies that no child labour was involved in the process,” he explains. “We agree that there is a failure of the system down the value chain, which we are setting out to correct, but none of the 658 TEA members employs children,” he adds. TEA has also issued a stern circular to all its members to strengthen their monitoring system so as to avoid controversies similar to the one involving Primark.

We leave the town with a distinct feeling that the exporters are emerging from the state of denial they have been in for years. They are beginning to understand that as long as children are employed— either directly or otherwise— their credibility will be suspect. The actions they propose to take now, if initiated, could go a long way in putting to rest the spectre of child labour at Tirupur once and for all. One question remains though: will they act in time?