Click to play videoSivakasi (Tamil Nadu): When the Australians win the Champions Trophy in Mumbai or a Delhiite gets married, firecrackers invariably become a part of the celebration. As the dazzling fireworks lit up the sky, what gets lost in the din is the fact that these firecrackers are manufactured by child labours.
Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu has been infamous for employing children in manufacturing firecrackers. As a result of legislations brought in over the years, children have been removed from the factories, but they continue to do the same work from their homes even today.
In villages across Sivakasi district, one invariably encounters illegal makeshift firecracker manufacturing units, with young children working in them. At Vetrilaiurani village, CNN-IBN spotted a firecracker unit with 30 children working inside it.
Their soft and tiny fingers churn out fireworks for up to 10 hours a day. Children like seven-year-old Sinthanaichelvan are paid just Rs 30 a day and are a cheaper option than an adult worker, who will demand Rs 80.
“I make firewhips and cartoon crackers,” Sinthanaichelvan would tell you. And how many of them does he make in a day? “Ten cartons,” pat comes the reply.
The unit is run by a group of villagers. Pal Pandian is one of them and his children, too, work in it. He says they have no option but to make their children work. This illegal unit fetches them more money than working for someone else, he says.
“Unless our children work with us, we cannot afford anything, not even clothes or food,” Pandian says.
Locals say about 15,000 people are dependent on these illegal firecracker units for a living, among them are thousands of children who spend their time making firecrackers.
While the small and illegal firecracker units justify the use of child labour, bigger factories are more discreet. They outsource the work to contractors like Ezhumalai, who get the job done in the villages. Eventually, it's the little child back home, who does the job and the contractor and the company simply evade the blame.
"We do not know if children work at home. At factories, they do not work," Ezhumalai, a firecracker contractor, claims.
It's probably a reminder of the fact that no law or campaign can put an end to child labour in the firecracker industry of Sivakasi and the rest of Tamil Nadu.
Young Muniaraj was a child labour in the fireworks industry in the 1980s. Today he's an activist. He says all that has changed in Sivakasi today is the way children are robbed of their childhood.
"In our times, the factories would do it openly. Today, they have found new ways of keeping children at separate places or outsourcing work," Muniaraj points out.
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