Brick Kiln Database

CEC is looking at bonded labour and forced labour in India''s brick kiln industry. In its worst form bonded labour practice is an employer-employee relationship that institutionalizes and operationalises through the feudal system of debt and intergenerational bondage. However, forms of bondage are changing and are getting redefined according to the need of the emerging new societies and economies. Forced labour is an extension of bondage. Vulnerability of bonded/forced labour needs to be understood as ensemble of factors that defines the social, economic, political and cultural positioning of workers that prevent workers from entering employment avocations as free labourers. They are unable to claim and enjoy labour rights.

In global India, forced and bonded labour exists in commodity production for the Indian and global markets. Workers are controlled by the employers in lieu of an advance or delayed payment or non-payment of minimum wages and restriction on freedom of mobility. Another emerging phenomenon is hiring migrant workers who can also be controlled easily as they do not speak the same language as local workers and hence remain divided. Further, relocation of industries to rural and semi urban settings with accommodation/dormitory related to the workplace keeps them distanced from the state arms or social monitoring. All these practices amount to bondage that escapes the limited and set traditional parameters. Debt bondage, or bonded labour has been identified as an institution or practice similar to slavery.

The Indian government in 1976 adopted the Bonded Labour System Abolition Act, 1976 (BLSAA), which defines slavery largely as a debtor-creditor relationship in employment, primarily in inter-generational customary bondage. It has inherent constraints in addressing contemporary forms of bonded labour in agriculture and non-agricultural sectors as ''feudal'', ''traditional'' agrestic forms of bondage no longer exist. So far the strategy of the government and other stakeholders has been to work within a Human Right  framework addressing bondage as a worst form of Human Rights violation and as a strategy release the person from that situation. But studies of CEC have revealed  that this strategy has only enabled bondage in newer forms.

Currently CEC is looking at bonded labour and forced labour in India's brick kiln industry. The objective of the exercise is to work towards reducing poverty and vulnerability of workers in the brick kilns. This is being done through facilitating access to entitlement and benefits, improving the working conditions through continuous engagement with kiln owners and local authorities by seeking the implementation of relevant legislation; releasing labourers from extreme bondage with the help of legal provisions and judicial courts as well as empowering workers by facilitating their organisations.

CEC has developed a holistic framework whereby questions of labour bondage, invisibility of women workers, child labour, technology and environmental degradation are considered comprehensively by bringing different stakeholders together for effective results. From 2016 onwards, CEC has been implementing a project “Empowering CSOs for Decent Work and Green Bricks in India’s Brick Kilns” with the financial support of European Union. It has brought diverse stakeholders together to improve labour conditions, enhance equality and ensure sustainable growth in the brick kiln sector. The stakeholders are brick kiln owners, workers, local authorities, knowledge partners working on green technology and CSOs active on issues of human rights, labour rights, women rights and child rights.  Prayas and Terres des Hommes, Germany are partners in the project. Currently, work has been going on in destination states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tripura and the source states of Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar.

To understand the brick kiln sector properly, the project undertook a series of research, later published in three volumes viz. “Labour Market Dynamics and Industrial Relations”, “Archaic Technology, Social Relations and Innovations in the Brick Kilns of India” and “Health of Workers and Exposure to Emissions”. Since migrant workers constitute the back bone of the brick industry in India, a four year continuous mapping and documentation of Migration pattern has been capturing the emerging challenges of labour conditions in India. For capacity building of CSOs, eight training modules on 8 components of Decent Work viz., Labour Rights, Safe Work, Entitlements and Social Protection, Gender Rights, Child Rights, Right of Representation and Forming Collectives, Financial Literacy, and Safe Migration, have been developed (in both Hindi and English).

One of the most burning issues in brick fields is high percentage of children residing with parents in the kilns and consequently, the involvement of child labour in brick production. This is due to the pattern of “family migration? that occurs typically in this industry. To enhance child rights in the brick kilns, the project has provided an opportunity to 3284 children with Bridge Course Learning Centres in the last three years.

The project has reached over 10000 brick kiln workers in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tripura. To increase bargaining power of brick kiln workers, over 5000 workers have been collectivized enhancing voice share in articulating their concerns. A National Struggle Committee of Brick Kiln Workers was formed in October 2018 to provide the workers, CSOs and workers collectives from across the country a national level platform to discuss and negotiate their key concerns with influencers and take their demands forward. A total of 348 key stakeholders have received capacity building trainings which has mobilized CSOs to undertake action on the ground to improve the lives of brick kiln workers.

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