Not Made by Children

Lead Partner: Global March Against Child Labour
Project Partners: Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA)
Project Location: India (NCR, Bangalore, Tirupur)

Project Description

This project aims to contribute to the development of a responsible and accountable garment supply chain in India (Bangalore, New Delhi, Tirupur) by the elimination of the worst forms of child labour and trafficking for forced labour. It envisages strengthening the efforts against child labour and trafficking for forced labour through the improvement of inspection and monitoring processes in the garment supply chain, providing comprehensive remediation for victims, and promoting decent work for adults.

It is estimated that 1,000 families will be positively impacted by the project with 700 being able to positively differentiate between child work and child labour, and 300 reporting incidences of missing and/or trafficked children from their communities/villages.

The project expects to scale up existing activities via:

• a multi-stakeholder garment steering group on child labour coordinated by the Global March to strengthen a sector-wide effort to implement improved workplace and business practices.
• strengthening the labour inspectorate’s capacity to inspect and monitor violations of child labour in the garment supply chain through training materials/programmes
• generating awareness of core labour standards across supply chains, through outreach initiatives and dialogue with workers and sub-contractors, including trade union organising and collective bargaining
• a remediation plan will be put in place for withdrawal of child labourers from supply chains, transitioning them through the state education system and skills training programmes as appropriate
• based on lessons learned from the project, a comprehensive toolkit will be developed to inform and guide multi-stakeholder, sector-wide approaches for sustainable solutions to eliminate child labour, forced labour and promote decent work.

The project will be implemented in three garment clusters in the New Delhi (National Capital Region, NCR), Bangalore and Tirupur, and is expected to cover approximately 20% of total garment export from India, impacting on 100,000 garment workers and withdrawing 2,000 child labourers from the RMG sector. It is expected to enhance the capacities of 30 labour inspectors on child labour inspection and monitoring. Through a broad and inclusive multistakeholder initiative, it is expected to impact ethical and responsible business practices in the RMG sector in India and inform and guide other practitioners and stakeholders through a comprehensive toolkit for future programmes and interventions.