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Are tiny hands necessary to weave delicate knots? An ILO study (*) refutes one of the most common, though fallacious, arguments of apologists for child labour in the hand-woven carpet industry - the so-called "nimble fingers" argument.
Approximately 130,000 children work in India's hand-knotted carpet industry, 80% of whom are located in Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state (over 140 million people) and the centre of the rug industry. These children account for approximately 22% of all weavers in the region, an ILO study of 362 carpet-weaving establishments and 2,130 weavers estimates.
The working conditions are often poor, involving long hours sitting in one position, breathing cotton and wool fibres, eye-strain from doing very fine work and poor lighting. In the smallest enterprises the only light often available is the natural light filtering in through an open doorway. Only 41% of the firms surveyed consistently have electric lighting.
Children are more likely to work in larger establishments: the smallest enterprises are family operations where the father and other family members might both weave carpets and till a plot of land, whereas the larger businesses use almost all hired labour. In the one-loom enterprises (56% of all enterprises), approximately 14% of weavers are children, while the number of child labourers rises to around 33% in businesses with five or more looms.
Although the proportion of child labour rises with the size of firm, the proportion does not rise as the quality of carpet increases; in fact, children are more likely to work on low-quality than on the highest-quality carpets. There is "no evidence that children dominate any particular design or quality niches". The opposite would be the case if the "nimble fingers" argument were true, the study contends.
If the "nimble fingers" argument does not hold in the hand-knotted carpet industry, then it probably does not hold in other industries, the study suggests.
Rejection of the "nimble fingers" argument is reinforced by the ability of adults to master carpet-weaving skills. Many adolescents and young adults who attend government training centres go on to run their own weaving businesses, while weavers say it takes a year to become fully proficient, whether one starts as an adult or a child.
Women are almost completely absent from the carpet-weaving industry in north India. This is not the case in other countries or other parts of India.
India's Factories Act has influenced the current structure of the carpet industry, the study finds. Costly health, safety and labour regulations to which large firms are subject do not apply to cottage industries. Only a small proportion of establishments - 4% of the survey's weighted sample - have five or more looms.
Given the small scale of many weaving enterprises and the fact that weaving charges make up approximately 40% of the total production cost, with the loom owner receiving a fee equivalent to 10% of production costs for supervision and provision of looms and premises, it is clear that the use of child labour can add greatly to the revenues and profits of loom owners.
The extra labour costs involved in eliminating child labour become much easier to absorb further down the distribution chain. Importing country wholesalers mark up the carpets around 65%, while foreign retailers typically mark up the carpets by approximately 200%. With sales or value-added tax, the carpets can easily cost four times as much to the consumer as the Indian export price, Richard Anker, one of the study's authors, explains. This means that the overall savings in production costs from the use of child labour are very small when compared to the foreign retail price.
Finding solutions which satisfy both local weavers and foreign retailers must avoid a beggar-thy-neighbour spiral, the report warns. The study contends that solutions are best elaborated at an international level: "If carpet-producing countries simultaneously implemented a no-child-labour strategy in their hand-knotted carpet industries, none of them would be at a competitive disadvantage."
Methods of reducing child labour such as those used in the garment industry in Bangladesh, where there is tripartite collaboration to ensure that the children are treated well and that there are educational opportunities for them until they are replaced without economic hardship to their families, is not likely to work in the hand-knotted carpet industry, Anker contends. "Neither labelling nor inspection is likely to work here because the industry is too fragmented. It is impossible to control the thousands of cottages where one or two carpets per year are woven. We need solutions that address the general problems of poverty while developing alternative sources of both employment and education."
Anker believes that child labour is not necessary in the carpet industry. Children do not possess a unique skill and there is a ready pool of surplus adult labour ready to take over from them. "People should not be fooled into thinking that child labour is necessary for the industry to survive. The irreplaceable skills, or "nimble fingers" argument should no longer be used to justify the use of child labour in the carpet industry or any other industry."