India's Child Coal Miners

Children as young as 7 mine coal under deplorable conditions in northeastern India, where local authority overrules national laws against such practices.

Podum, age 12, rides in a box used to transport coal. He’s Nepalese. He, his father, and one of his three brothers work in the mines. He says he earns $30 a week. Note the flashlight strapped to his head. (Pics Daniel Etter)

By Daneil Etter

Jaintia Hills, (Meghalaya) : Under life-threatening conditions, an estimated 70,000 children work in the coal mines in the Jaintia Hills in northeast India, according to a children’s rights organization working to end the practice. The youngest of the miners are just 7 years old.

For the equivalent of a few dollars a day – $5 per cartload of coal – they work narrow, unreinforced seams in 5,000 small mines. Most are Nepalese, who are allowed to apply to work here, but many are Bangladeshis, who are here illegally. Others are Indian. Some have been sold by their families as indentured laborers, according to Impulse, an India-based children’s rights group.

While Indian law prohibits child labor, India’s Constitution grants the tribal and native communities in this region exclusive rights over their land, which includes operating the mines. Lawsuits against mine owners are conveyed by national courts to local courts, where mine owners are unlikely to be prosecuted, says Hasina Kharbhih, head of Impulse.

Mine manager Purna Lama says there is no money for safety measures. Cave-ins are always a threat; wooden ladders leading down to quarries are slippery with moss; there is little or no access to medical care, sanitation, safe drinking water, or even adequate ventilation. Mr. Lama estimates that there are eight accidents a month in the mines, at least two of which are fatal.

A mine owner, asked about the dismal working conditions and child labor, dismissed the claims as media rumors.

Impulse and another nongovernmental organization are pressuring the mine owners. Some have stopped hiring children.
Chotu, 16 (foreground, and other workers load coal into a bucket in a mine’s open central shaft that will be lifted out by crane. An entrance to a coal tunnel is in the background.

Podum, age 12, rides in a box used to transport coal. He’s Nepalese. He, his father, and one of his three brothers work in the mines. He says he earns $30 a week. Note the flashlight strapped to his head.

 Yong (r.) and Teisu (c.) load coal into a coal crusher near a mine. Both boys say they are 13, but neither was sure about his age. Most workers at this mine are Nepalese, who are allowed to seek jobs here. Other miners are Bangladeshi, who work in India illegally.

 Workers load coal onto a truck. Those trucks bound for Bangladesh may return with illegal child workers who have been promised good jobs.

 Girls play outside a coal mine in the Indian state of Meghalaya. No girls work in the mines, but some may work outside them. Some children are here with their families; others may be bonded laborers whom their parents sold to middlemen. The middlemen, in turn, sell them to mine owners.

 At day’s end, a young man – he says he’s 18 – climbs a ladder out of a coal pit 200 feet deep. Coal is excavated from long tunnels just 20 to 40 inches high that are dug into the walls of the central pit. The cramped tunnels may wend for 3,000 feet.

 Coal miners and their families watch a Bollywood film in a makeshift movie theater in a miners’ camp.

 Jhusi, age 9 (foreground) mines coal; Durga, 5 (in doorway), is a coal miner’s son. They’re resting at their home in a coal miners’ camp. Children as young as 7 work in the mines.

 Ani, age 15, crawls out of a ‘rat hole’ in a coal quarry in the Jaintia Hills of India. There are an estimated 5,000 such mines employing 70,000 children, according to India-based children’s rights group Impulse.

 Podum, the worker pictured in the second photo, jumps into a pond near the mine during a free moment. He told a reporter that the work is very difficult and dangerous, but that he’s not scared to do it

via csmonitor