The review provides compelling evidence of the persistence of bonded labour in a wide range of economic sectors and in many different States. Although the more traditional forms of agrarian labour attachment in India have declined substantially, new forms of bondage have emerged in more modern agricultural as well as in the informal economy. Migrant labourers appear particularly vulnerable to bonded labour exploitation today, through recruitment systems where labour contractors and intermediaries lure ill-informed workers from their home communities with advance payments and false promises of well-paid, decent work. 
The paper also addresses some of the proactive measures taken by the Government of India, its civil society partners and the ILO to address the prevention and rehabilitation of bonded labour.

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Bonded Labour in India: its Incidence and Pattern

Child Labor in Carpet Weaving: Impact of Social Labeling in India and Nepal

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight that child labour is complementary to adult labour in the brick kiln industry.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a case study of bonded labourers in the brick kiln industry of Southeast India.Findings – The paper finds that child labour is used by parents in the moulding process in order to avoid falling into debt bondage. In this industry, brick making is organized as a home‐based enterprise. Thus, child labour increases the family productivity and consequently its income. In case of a ban on child labour bonded parents will be worse‐off. NGOs can play an essential role by preventing families from falling into bondage and by improving their living standards.Originality/value – The results may help the NGOs address child labour issues in the developing world.

Is child labour a substitute for adult labour

The basic strategy for the fight against child labor has been boycotting efforts followed by labeling practices This article reviews the development of these practices and their impact on the hand-knotted carpet industry in India The authors highlight the fact that though labeling has responded to many of the criticisms of boycotts, labeling too has shortcomings related to its rustworthiness in situations where information is highly asymmetrical among stakeholders The labeling may lack credibility and, thus, arguably, has limited impact on the hand-knotted carpet industry The article discusses why and how labeling may lack credibility Since the article is a conceptual assessment and not an empirical study, it draws on other sources for relevant empirical information

Child Labor and Responsible Consumers From Boycotts to Social Labels, Illustrated by the Indian Hand-Knotted Carpet Industry

India is a major producer and exporter of hand-knotted carpets to the world since the beginning of the British rule over India. Majority of the hand-knotted carpets exported from India are produced in the Bhadohi-Mirzapur region, popularly called as the carpet belt of India. Given deplorable working conditions and very high prevalence of child labour in the cluster, in the mid-1990, four social labels were implemented to improve the labour standards, in addition to slew of labour laws implemented by the state of India. The objective of this study is to explore the prevailing labour standards and effectiveness of social labels in improving labour standards in the hand-knotted carpet manufacturing cluster. This study found that even after the implementation of social labels and slew of labour laws, there had been barely any improvement in the working conditions of carpet workers. The workers continued to be adversely incorporated in the carpet commodity chain. However, realising that there is very little scope of social upgrading in this occupation, many carpet workers have shifted to other occupations. But this study found very few child workers in carpet manufactories in the cluster.

Labour standards in global value chains in India: the case of handknotted carpet manufacturing cluster

Social labelling is an initiative introduced in the nineties with a view to eliminating the exploitation of child labour in carpet production in India. The four labelling programmes, viz, RUGMARK, Kaleen, STEP and Care and Fair are analysed in terms of their mechanisms, approaches, objectives and their effectiveness over 35 villages spread over nine districts in three states in India.

Alakh N Sharma

Papers

Impact of Social Labelling on Child Labour in Carpet Industry