Cotton Plantation in India

1. Introduction

Child labour is one of the most serious ongoing unsolved problem in the world. Child labour is defined as “work that children should not be doing because they are too young to work”. Specifically, they are children who are; under 14 years old and working same as the adults rather than going to school; under 18 years old working under unsafe conditions. Child labour violates the child’s freedom and human rights (United Nations, n, d,). In the Convention on the Rights of the Child that has been adopted at United Nations in 1990 clearly writes about children’s rights. It says children have the rights to take an education and they should be protected from any work which is under hazardous conditions, interruption of their education and bad effect of their health and social development (United Nations, 2016). It was estimated that the number of children in child labour was 168 million in 2013 and 85 million of children are involved in dangerous and risky jobs. Comparing in 2000, the number of child labour has decreased by one third but there are still great number of children are working as child labour (International Labour Organization, 2016). In particular, in India, many children are forced to work. India is described as the home for the largest number of child labourers in the world. One of the evil of child labour in India is cotton plantation and textile industry. Cotton plantation and textile industry is important sector of India’s economy. It has 22% of share of cotton production in the world. Also, approximately 40-50 million people in India are involved directly or indirectly in cotton industry (WWF-India, 2012). The main reason for child labour in the cotton industry in India is poverty. Katyal (2015) states 363 million Indians which amount to 29.5% of the total population of India were living under the poverty line in 2011-2012. Therefore, children have to work as child a labourer for their family because their parents cannot make sufficient money to live. The researcher wants to make this problem public and the objectives of this research is to provide reader with the unhappy fact of child labour in cotton industry in India. This research report will investigate based on past and current situation of India’s cotton industry and its problems. The researcher will analysis from “SLEPT” (social, legal, economic, political and technology) viewpoint in this issue. However, since the issue is not particularly related with technology, technology will be eliminated from this research report. At the end of this research report, the researcher will suggest possible solutions that how to save children who work as child labour in India.

2. Discussion

1.1 The Social Effects on Child Labour

Child labour harms children’s healthy growth and physical, mental and social development. Child labour keep children away from school because they are too busy to go to school. Many of parents do not know the importance of education. Their priority is earning money to make their livelihoods. Therefore, children have to be work force for support their family. It is difficult to earn large amounts of money without education. Consequently, this poverty spiral has been continuing for now. In addition, Children are forced to work because they have no free individual at this age. Their parents make decision for their kids and kids obey their parents and there are lack of alternative. Therefore, it highly depends on their parents and their environment that they work as child labour. Children who forced into child labour by circumstances imposed on them birth (Poverties, 2013).

　The fact that makes situation worse is low wages. Even though, children involved in tough work and work long hours, they can get only little wages. It is usually less than wages that adults receive (Environmental Justice Foundation, 2007). For example, an Indian girl who is from rural area, work in cotton plantation were paid only 120 rupees (approximately USD $2) (Neal, 2014). In addition, children are nimble and same height as the cotton. This is the one of reasons cotton plantation prefer to hire children rather than adults (Neal, 2014).

2.2 The Legal Issue of Child Labour

International Labour organization said “Child labour is a violation of fundamental human rights and has been shown to hinder children’s development, potentially leading lifelong physical or psychological damage”. There are many convictions that is for protect children. For instance, Conviction on the Rights of the Child stated: children have rights to receive an education; they are protected from exploitation and any work which working at harmful places that give bad effects to children’s mental physical and social developments and interruption of their schooling. Conviction on the Rights of the Children adopted at United Nations in 1990 and more than 190 countries have agreed with this conviction in 2015 (United Nations, 2016).

2.3 The problems of government (Political)

Indian government have addressed to child labour problem. Indian government banned on the hiring of children younger than 14 years old. Employs those violate child labour law, would impose a three-year jail term and a fine of $900. However, it is tolerating especially rural area. Indian government have failed control every cotton plantation (Kazmin, 2012).

2.4 The Cotton Trade between India and developed Countries (Economic

Cotton is the main export commodity for India and it have been sold very cheap price. Cotton farmers in India suffer from low global cotton prices since they rarely receive subsidies (Fairtrade international, 2011). The price of cotton on 29 February 2016 is US 56.50 cent per pound (Index mundi, 2016). Sincere employers wish for increasing wages to employees but cannot afford to pay it.

Some major well-known companies are involved in child labour without knowing. For example, GAP which is American multinational clothing retailer and H&M which is Swedish fast fashion brand linked to child labour. As a result of that, GAP stopped purchasing cotton from the suppliers which are involved in Child labour soon after knowing the fact. GAP decided to monitor the factories and identify where the cotton supplied from (BBC news, 2007). In addition, H&M is making effort to end to the child labour and support to protect human rights. H&M holds anti-child labour campaign (Doward, 2012).

3 Solutions

This section will discuss possible solutions and addressing