A study that looked into the employment practices of labour in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka’s textile and garment sector has raised concerns over the manipulation of age documents to facilitate underage employment.
“Migrant workers often obtain Aadhaar cards with falsified ages, sometimes through brokers,” the study noted, while recommending that the Union government address this loophole in identity verification processes.
The study, Prevalence of Girl Child Labour in the Indian Textile Industry – A Study on the Textile & Garment Clusters in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, flagged that employers occasionally resort to hiring children via referrals from their existing employees.
Researcher Dr M Karthik, an Associate Professor at the Institute of Public Enterprise in Hyderabad, attributed this trend to the high attrition rates in textile factories and tight export deadlines.
The study, funded by and submitted to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), recommended conducting awareness programmes, specifically for parents and adult workers, highlighting the risks and illegality involved in employing children.
Role of individual states
“State-level interventions are essential, especially in monitoring the informal sector, which often escapes regulation. Labour inspectors currently focus only on registered factories, leaving cottage industries and household production units unchecked,” it noted.
Dr Karthik recommended the setting up of dedicated helplines at the district level to encourage reporting child labour, especially in industrial areas. The identity of the informer should be confidential, he added.
During the study, the researcher found brokers playing a role in recruitment, although workers interviewed did not explicitly acknowledge the existence of middlemen. “Anecdotal evidence suggests their significant involvement. Therefore, the state (governments) should implement stricter regulations on brokers and enact legal provisions to punish those recruiting underage workers,” he suggested.
Recommending further studies to reveal nuanced insights into the motivations of both workers and employers in employing/referring children, the research urged the NHRC to collaborate with academic institutions to promote further qualitative research on child labour.
“Qualitative approaches are especially effective in capturing the complexities and social dynamics driving child labour,” the study noted.
“The study was conducted amidst media allegations of bonded child labour in the sector, particularly under schemes like Sumangali in Tamil Nadu, where girls are employed from a young age until marriage, with promises of wedding expenses being covered,” Dr Karthik said.
Child labour mostly absent in organised sector
The investigation found that child labour under 14 was largely absent in the organised sector, but remained prevalent in unregulated segments of the production chain. The employment of adolescents, though legal under certain conditions, often prevents them from completing their education, affecting long-term opportunities.
“The competitive pressures of global markets push some Indian companies to adopt exploitative labour practices. While the organised sector shows improvement due to government policies, eradicating child labour in the unorganised sector remains a challenge,” he said.
The path forward demanded a multi-stakeholder approach—integrating industry, government, and academia—backed by strong laws, district-level enforcement, community awareness, and systemic support to end exploitative labour practices.
The report underscored the colonial legacy of industrial growth in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, where Tamil Nadu leveraged the value of cotton and silk more effectively. Yet, the expansion came with exploitative side effects—consumerism, income inequality, caste and gender discrimination, and the exclusion of marginalised communities from higher-skilled jobs.
Though civil society and state interventions existed, they were being critiqued for failing to address the ideological roots of child labour. These interventions often address surface-level economic or social issues, ignoring deeply ingrained cultural hierarchies that decide a child’s position and value in society.
“Girl children, being doubly marginalised by both age and gender, face a near-total absence of empowerment, making their labour largely invisible and unchallenged,” the study noted.
Pandemic and global inadequacies
Despite a widespread desire for economic growth, the nation often overlooked the social and ethical costs of ignoring exploitative labour practices.
The report also highlighted the normalisation of child trafficking across several states, a trend that intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic, with families often complicit by inaction. “This normalisation forces a rethinking of development itself—what it should mean and whom it should benefit,” Dr Karthik suggested.
He went on to add that the pandemic revealed global inadequacies in protecting children’s rights, as child labour rates surged. While the legislation exists, the issue remained severely underreported, whether in factory work, agricultural labour, or domestic servitude. The persistent belief that children were easily coerced silences them and stalls progress.
The study, conducted with the help of a questionnaire, involved nearly 400 workers each in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. It focused on four cities, Tirupur and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, and Mysuru and Bengaluru in Karnataka.
News Curtesy: South First