India
Brick KilnGravel Quarry
Indonesia
Bekasi DumpJermals
Gravel Quarry
Jermals
Brick kilns and gravel quarries are a common sight in West Bengal, Orissa and the surrounding states of India. The children that work here are exploited 12-16 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Their world consists only of these mud holes, drying fields, kilns, rock piles and grinders. At night they sleep in the open or in makeshift shelter where sanitary conditions are nonexistent. There are no schools here, and for many there isn’t even a family. Over 1/3 of the children working at this kiln and 1/4 of the children at the quarry have been shipped here from other areas, where their parents have been forced to either sell them into slavery or are dependent on the meager wages that these children can provide.
The work is extremely brutal, hazardous, abusive and sometimes lethal. Working all day in the hot sun where temperatures regularly climb above 100º F, these children carry well over one ton of clay and rock each day. At the kiln, they crouch as they fabricate thousands of bricks in old-fashioned molds. At the quarry, they are exposed to rock that leads to respiratory illness.
Nonetheless, the kids come, driven by necessity and often unaware of what they are entering into, as they are sometimes tricked or virtually kidnapped by unscrupulous agents.
The meager pay and hard work are just the beginning. These children tend to be chronically tired from the long hours and irregular rest, increasing the probability of accidents and injuries. Disease, malnutrition and permanent skeletal injury are the common lot. Medical treatment is primitive or non-existent. None of these children go to school.
