India’s Invisible Laborers: Connecting the Aajeevika Bureau, Internal Labor Migrants, and the Government to Combat Exploitation, Low Standard of Living and Child Labor in India’s Construction Sector

Problem Statement

Although the Aajeevika Bureau has enjoyed much success in providing services and legal support to adult migrant laborers in Gujarat, young migrant laborers have fallen through the cracks in these efforts. The number of child migrant laborers is difficult to estimate because of the temporary nature and the “invisibility” of migrant work, and also because of a lack of genuine government initiative on collecting comprehensive data on migrants. Even so child labor is an enormous part of the informal sector of the Indian economy, estimated at 30-100 million migrants. Aajeevika claims to focus its energy on “the most vulnerable of migrants,” but it is important to note that the indicators of vulnerability are not just caste and relative poverty, but also age. Young labor migrants face the same hardships as adult labor migrants, but are even more subject to employer abuse and are less likely to organize against it. Unless Aajeevika begins to address child migrant labor more specifically, starting in the construction industry of Gujarat which employs high numbers of young migrants, it will fail in its mission to “provide lasting solutions to economic and socio-legal problems of migrant workers.”

1. Young migrant laborers in the construction industry live in terrible conditions without access to basic needs or services.

Young migrants who migrate and live with their families often live in enormous slums near their place of employment or near places of potential employment such as airports, hotels, and other construction sites. Here migrants are vulnerable to eviction, experience health risks, and do not have access to subsidized food or healthcare.

Young migrants who migrate alone often live on the streets with no access to shelter, basic needs, or basic services like the aforementioned food and healthcare. Other young migrants live at their place of employment. In these cases, the situation begins to resemble indentured servitude. In addition to lacking basic needs and services, young migrant laborers might experience heightened exposure to verbal, physical, and sexual abuse.

2. Young migrant laborers in the construction industry experience extremely unsafe and unfair working conditions.

Young migrants are preferred by construction companies because they are the least likely to unionize. These young children work long hours in harsh conditions for little pay. Injuries are common and there is inadequate medical assistance or compensation. India has the world’s highest accident rate among construction workers. A recent study by the International Labor Organization (ILO) shows that 165 out of every 1000 workers are injured on the job. The sexual exploitation of young girls by masons, contractors, the police, and others is routine. Labor contractors further exploit children by taking cuts of their pay, demanding they work overtime and using caste-based modes of oppression to maintain exploitative labor hierarchies. Because they are replaceable and work is hard to come by, and because they are young and afraid for their own safety, few young migrant workers make any reports or complaints.

3. Young migrant laborers are not being educated.

A 2006 study estimated that six million children leave school every year in India and migrate alone or with their families in search of employment. Their lack of education perpetuates poverty into each successive generation. Young migrant laborers at destination do not typically have opportunities for education, because there are few schools for migrant children and because even when there are, they may have to work instead of attending school because their labor is critical to their household’s livelihood. From an economic standpoint, an uneducated workforce this large will remain stagnant instead of acquiring better and higher-paying jobs that increase the country’s GDP.

4. Existing child labor laws are not enforced.

Child labor is rampant although the Constitution of India states that no child below the age of 14 years shall work in any factory or mine or engage in any other hazardous employment (Article 24). The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 years in “occupations and processes that are hazardous to their lives and health.” The Factories Act, 1948, prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 years in factories. In 2006 a new law was passed which bans domestic, restaurant, and hotel work by children under the age of 14. However, enforcement of these laws is weak and employers are rarely punished. The continued neglect of these violations is driven by an under-resourced official inspection system, lack of political commitment, and pressure from politically influential industrialists to maintain the status quo.

5. Rural poverty and lack of economic opportunities push children and their families to migrate in the first place.

Economic inequality between source and destination regions of India like southern Rajasthan and Gujarat, respectively, is the force behind this internal migration. Under-funded schools do not have the capacity to retain youth when the youth and their parents feel that it is their responsibility to work and provide for the family, especially if this education doesn’t feed into readily visible employment opportunities where they live.