Where silk garrotes childhood

When Sargunam needed Rs 5,000 for an operation to remove her uterus, she did what people in her village near Kancheepuram had been doing for generations -- she mortgaged her 11-year-old son Ravi Kumar to raise the money.

Similarly, Chinakuzhantha, 38, pledged her 12-year-old daughter Ramini to pay her husband's medical bills. Earlier, she had mortgaged her elder son to clear other debts.

Leela borrowed Rs 2,000 to carry out urgent repairs to her house two years ago. As a collateral, she offered her 10-year-old son Muthu and committed him to work about 12 hours a day in one of the local silk handloom units to pay off the debt. His tasks included stretching the warps for the looms and manually feeding the threads for the intricate designs of silk saris for which he earned a paltry Rs 10 per day.

''Advance'' money for child labour is easily available in the flourishing silk industry of Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu. As the money offered -- ranging from Rs 2,000 to Rs 15,000 -- is the highest than in any other industry, parents are inclined to succumb to it greedily, leasing out their children as a matter of course.

It is not only poverty that drives parents to mortgage children; it is also greed. Of the amount borrowed by Muthu's mother, her wastrel husband squandered Rs 500 on liquor. Things changed only after the intervention of a non-governmental organisation, the Working Women's Forum, which gives poor families loans to clear debts and redeem their children.

The mothers often express remorse and regret for giving their children away, but they do it anyway.

''My husband earns so little and I have two smaller children to feed'', was Kannimma's explanation for pledging her daughter Satya, 12, for Rs 2000. Satya does not resent her mother placing her in unconditional bondage.

Resigned to her fate, she works from 7 am to 7 pm for Rs seven a day. On festivals she has to report as early as 5 am and leaves as late as 9 pm. She does not get overtime, but ''I may get a gift worth Rs 25 or a dress'', she said with a shrug.

Muthu, however, felt deeply betrayed when he was withdrawn from school by his mother and made to work in a dingy, suffocating small factory. Suffering at the hands of an insensitive and harsh employer, the boy silently accepted his lot because ''I saw how much my mother suffered due to my father's drinking.

Muthu is luckier. With the help of two loans of Rs 1,000 each sanctioned by the women's co-operative network, his mother Leela was able to get him released.

Leela also drew strength and gained confidence from her meetings with WWF staff to confront her drunkard husband.

''I started to nag him, imploring him all the time to stop drinking and get a job," she said. The result is that he now helps her on the loom at home and can weave up to one sari a month.

According to Muniamma, who is in charge of the network, credit programmes are being extended to 40 villages and 35 blocks in Kancheepuram. Of the estimated 450 bonded child workers in the area, 150 have been rescued by the network since its inception. Efforts are on to get the rest also released.

While loans are usually obtained by mortgaging either land or gold, the poor can only mortgage their children to contractors and sub-contractors. The children work like slaves till the debt, with an usurious rate of interest, is paid. That usually takes a long time, said Muniamma.

Under the WWF's credit schemes, Muniamma said, ''We dissuade the parents from going to moneylenders and give the parents loans on a rotational basis every 10 months. Families that habitually offer their children are identified and denied loans.

The WWF also runs several non-formal education centres and night schools to rehabilitate former child labourers, but the staff admit that most children who have been released from bonded labour are doing the same kind of work at home. A mindset developed over generations cannot be changed overnight, they said.

''You cannot absolutely abolish child labour. Our organisation is interested in building a social platform by strengthening the woman's role at home and outside,'' said Jaya Arunachalam, WWF president. Such an empowered woman, she hopes, can be sensitised on the need to send her children, especially the girl child, to school. This, Arunachalam said, would check the fresh entry of children into the workplace.

Contractors provide looms and raw materials to almost all households engaged in weaving. The contractor gets a profit of Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 on a sari whereas the entire family of the labourers gets a meagre Rs 700 to Rs 800.

According to V Iraianbu, district collector of Kancheepuram, greed often surmounts need when such parents are concerned. "Unless parents co-operate and stop sending their children to work, there was little the administration can do to contain the problem, he claimed.

The collector, he said, holds periodical review meetings with inspectors of factories. At the last meeting, it was even claimed that with the release of nine children, child labour no longer existed in factories.

The inspectors had also identified 17 child workers in non-hazardous industries like hotels and embroidery establishments.

''But as the drop-out rate at schools indicated a different picture, I have asked for a re-survey in these areas to ascertain if the children could have been withdrawn from schools for induction into weaving,'' the collector said.

According to a WWF coordinator, the numbers might hold in the case of registered factories. The real problem, however, lay with non-registered set-ups operating from wayside shops and private homes all over the area, where most of the child labour was concentrated. Official statistics do not take account of this sector, she said.

As most silk looms are crowded together in dark, damp and poorly-ventilated quarters, contagious diseases spread quickly among among child workers. The report of the global project, established in 1994 to monitor and promote children's rights, cites tuberculosis and digestive disorders as occupational diseases of the weaving community.

Children often sit long hours with their legs tucked beneath them or hanging in the cold, damp recesses. Back and leg ailments are common, as are damaged knee joints and rheumatism. The fine silk also damage the children's hands.

But despite the presence of agencies like the WWF, and in the absence of enforcement agencies and better understanding, children like Ravi continue to work long, miserable hours.

"I have taken two loans from the women's co-operative but these were not enough to clear my Rs 5,000 debt... We are hardly able to make ends meet. I do not know how I will be able to redeem my boy."

UNI