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Indians step up crusade against child slavery
NEW DELHI. Sept 20 : Indian activists have stepped up a crusade against child slavery In carpet looms, worrying exporter* who see buyer* and profit* (lipping away, reports AFP.
"Definitely our export* will be affected." said Sung Khedup. a member of the non-governmental Carpet Export Promotion Council. "This campaign is giving us all a bad name. We can't deny that our earnings will be affected"
The council had expected ex ports to bring in 300 mil lion dollar* tn the fiscal year
to March 31. a 20-per cent Jump over 1991-92. making carpet* one of India's largest net foreign ex-' change earner*.
But the campaign against fee lories where thousands of children live in virtual slavery has begun to bite, and the threat of a boycott of Indian carpets looms large
Germans, who accounted for 35 per cent of India's 1991 carpet export earning, are turning away from Indian carpets Under pressure from Humtan Right* group* demanding certification that child labour ha* not
been used
Last month, meanwhite, legislation was Introduced in the US Congress to ban the import of products using child
The bill cited India's carpet Industry as an economic exploiter of children, some 300.000 of whom serve In conditions of virtual slavery according to documented accounts In a country where 55 million children are forced by poverty to work.
In the first ouarter of the current fiscal year. Indian car C sales to overseas mar-s earned 60 billion dol-
lars, or 15 million dollars less than anticipated.
"We Are afraid there could be a (further) drop In the near future if the campaign continues," said TS Chandha, Secretary of the Export Promotion Council
The committee for eradication of child labour In the carpet Industry I* determined to pursue the campaign and wants a "free of child labour" label on every carpet •ent out of India after careful monitoring.
"We appeal to consumer* throughout the world that they »hould not become a
party in a crime by buying a carpet woven by children," said Kailash Satyarti. who heads the organisation
Satyarthi Laso chairs the South Asian Coalition of Child Servitude, which on Friday organised a Carpet Children * Day here. In the Pakistani cities of Peshawar and Lahore, the Nepal capital Kathmandu, and London and New York.
About 150 boy* and girl* dressed in tattered clothes, some a* young as six years, demonstrated In front of the Labour Ministry in New Delhi demanding
"childhood, not wages.
They were mortgaged by their poor parent* to carpet looms in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh for a few hundred rupees (few dollars). and rescued by activi ties who raided the loom* with police assistance in August and September
Some complained of night blindness after weaving fine silk and cotton for 16 hours a day. Others had asthma or tuberculosis from inhaling 1 wool fluff, or suffered de formed fingers and chronic backache