Blog: India and human trafficking: a situation update

• Jalandhar, Punjab

  23/02/2010 1:11:04 PM

  The two main sports ball (soccer ball) sewing areas in India are both in its north: Meerut in Uttah Pradesh caters for the domestic market and Jalandhar in the Punjab for the export balls. Over a few days, I visited both places to investigate whether child labour is still a problem in this industry.
  
  I’d been warned by colleagues that Australians are not so popular in the Punjab at present due to the recent incidents against Indian students. Having been told not to publicise my nationality, I was a little apprehensive in advance of my visit there. By contrast, however, the Punjabi people were so welcoming. They constantly invited me into their shops and homes for cups of chai, poured mustard seed oil at the entrance of their doorways to signify that a special guest was about to enter their home and, on my departure, encouraged me to return again. ...

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• Gem polishing, Jaipur

  22/02/2010 9:31:39 AM

  Jaipur is India’s 11th largest city, and one of its fastest growing. The area is rated lower than the average on the national development index. World Vision India, supported by Australian sponsors, works in some 20 slum areas within the city; areas that mostly do not have electricity or running water.

  Slums are considered illegal by the government. As registering an address would validate the location, the government mostly does not issue Registration Cards to slum residents. The residents therefore are marginalised and often find it hard to access government services and work.

  In the slum’s littered alleyways, I came across a gem polishing workshop. Gem cutting and polishing is considered a hazardous occupation under India’s child labour laws, but it is not hard to find children working in this industry.

  The workshop was no more than 1.5m x 2m in size and was dimly lit but housed some seven ...

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• Jaipur, Rajasthan

  18/02/2010 7:59:01 AM

  The State of Rajasthan is especially popular with foreign tourists for its palaces and walled cities, camel rides, and the exquisite, colourful saris worn by its women. These saris are among many of the items you seen in Jaipur’s famous markets, along with jewellery, spices, kitchenware and sweets.
  
  The saris are often delicately embroidered with sequins and gems. These bejewelled saris can easily take a month or two for one person to hand stitch. What the tourist books don’t seem to write, however, is that often it is children that are hand stitching these colourful creations.
  
  In Jaipur, I visited a few sari stitching centres and saw children working in most of them. In the first, the child I saw was smiling and referred to the man stitching away beside him as his “sewing teacher”. He seemed happy enough. The boy told me that he attended school and sewed for ...

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• New Delhi, India’s capital

  17/02/2010 7:18:03 AM

  Arriving in New Delhi late at night, I had a strong sense of déjà vu. Ten years ago, I lived and worked with the Tibetan community-in-exile in the northern Indian state of Himchel Pradesh, so I’ve passed through this chaotic, dusty but elegant city many a time. But I think the déjà vu had more to do with the evening street lights that wash out the heavy traffic with a surreal sepia-tone which make you feel like you’re dreaming. Unfortunately, the lights do little to wash out the constant blurting of car horns...

  It took us 1 hour and 40 minutes to weave through the 12 kilometres from the airport to the guesthouse. Delhi traffic is especially bad at present: much of the city is dug up to build the new Metro line. The aim is to finish the line in time for the Commonwealth Games this October, but it ...

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• Chennai, South India

  16/02/2010 8:59:14 AM

  I spent the day with my colleagues from Melbourne - Ian and Jacqui - in back-to-back meetings at the World Vision India head office in Chennai, better known to most Australians as “Madras”.

  In spite of the jet lag, I must say that our local colleagues have been consistently impressive. We met with specialists in the areas of gender, humanitarian emergency relief, program design and transformational development.

  We were given an overview of contemporary India. With a population of 1.15 billion people, India is apparently positioned as 12th amongst the wealthiest of nations. 456 million people – or some whopping 41.6% - live under US$1.25 per day, but reportedly the country has some 24 billionaires who control one-third of its wealth.

  Of course, it’s the children who suffer the most from this extreme poverty and disproportion of wealth. Asian Development Bank statistics indicate that there are 12.59 million Indian child ...

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• Arriving in India

  15/02/2010 11:08:24 AM

  The sign at Chennai airport read “Seek to perform your duty but lay not claim to its fruits.” While I confess that this quirky Indian-ism did make me smile, I found there to be much wisdom in the motto. As the leader of World Vision’s “Don’t Trade Lives” campaign, it’s apparent to me that World Vision’s efforts to combat poverty – and the campaign’s vision to end human trafficking and slavery – can only be achieved by the actions by many, not by one alone. I see our work as more about correcting societal wrongs than about “lay[ing] claim” to any “fruits”.
  
  The WV youth movement - Vision Generation, individuals, churches and others have tirelessly demonstrated their support for the Don’t Trade Lives campaign over the past two years. During this time, we’ve seen major chocolate companies take some steps to clean up its supply chain and stop using trafficked ...

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