As the Salesians of Karnataka, India begin their twenty fifth year of ministry in the Bellary District, they have seen their mission change as they have responded to the needs of the time and the place they are in. On their arrival there in 1982, the pioneering Salesians addressed the pastoral needs of an ever growing population. As they became more firmly established, the Salesians began a vocational training program in 1989, preparing young people for future work. This newly established Center for Social Action quickly found itself in the position of expanding its services as new needs became apparent. In conjunction with other local NGO’s, the Salesians of Hospet are working to improve the lives of impoverished young people and their families. One of the groups most in need of this special advocacy is the ever expanding number of child laborers in the mines of the region.

The Salesian mobile school for children of themines, Hospet, Karnataka.

Since 2000 especially, with new government economic policies, a shift to privatization, open market economy,a deregulated mining industry, and wide-open markets in China, South Korea and Australia, mining companies have bought up thousands of acres of land in the Bellary district and employ hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, mainly Dalits and Tribals. And many of these workers are children.

It is estimated that as many as 200,000 or 50% of the workers are children, some as young as 5 – 8 years of age. Fr. Jose Pazheparambil, the Rector of the Hospet community and executive director of Don Bosco there, points out the most recent developments however, which have forced them to take their schools to the mines, since the kids often cannot, or are not allowed to, come to their school which is just 2 kms away from the mines. The normal schooling is a bridge course. “With the consent of parents we bring them here and keep them here on a bridge course for a while, maybe six months or more” Fr. Jose said. But when the classes have to go to the mine pits, it’s a different story. These “mobile schools” do their best but struggle to get their students. Mining is lucrative, and parents, struggling with overwhelming poverty, often force their children to work in the mines.

To give our readers a better understanding of the situation the Salesians are addressing in Bellary, we present some of the findings of a Task Force commissioned by the Indian Government. Armed with this report, the Salesians have become even stronger advocates for the young and their families.

The Mining Economy
India is the fourth largest iron ore producing country in the world. The demand for the mineral has gone up due to the low prices and high quality of the ore (62% iron content). However, Indian ore is cheaper because of very cheap labor and low transport costs. In fact, government investigators found serious human rights violations and highly exploitative conditions of mine workers in their work.

On average, a rough head count of the workers revealed that there were about 100 workers in one acre of mining activity. It was found that 50% or more (as there are almost three children for every two adults) of them were children of all age groups beginning with age five. All the mines visited by government investigators had child laborers. In fact, the entire mining economy gets to be projected as a sustainable and profitable industry because of the large-scale child labor employed and the flouting of all social and environmental laws.

The mine owners say they only employ the adults, but as the families live at the mine site the children join in the mining activity. Owners say that the parents force them to employ the children. The parents admit that it is very hard work for the children, but they cannot survive otherwise.

Background of Mining in Bellary District
Karnataka is a state with vast areas of mineral resources of which the Bellary district has the most extensive range. The concentration of mining activities is mainly in Bellary, Hospet and Sandur taluks. Most of the mining is being done by small mining companies while there are a few large public sector companies like National Mineral Development Corporation, Mysore Minerals, Ltd. and some private ones like Vijayanagara Steels. Further, many of the works are sub-contracted to private miners and contractors. Mining activity occurs in forest lands also, although the Forest Conservation Act has stated that mining is a non- forestry activity. The minerals found in the district are iron ore, manganese, quartz, gold, copper, granite and decorative stones. The list of working mines as of 2004 show that there are a total of 3 major mines in Bellary range extending over an area of 81.30 hectares, 6 big mines in Hospet range with 725.52 hectares, and in Sandur range a total of 37 mines spread over 2671.37 hectares with an average lease period of 10 years.

History of Mining in the Area
Mining activities were undertaken on a very small scale right from the 1800’s by the British Government and earlier than that by the local kingdoms for their weaponry and other domestic products. However, the main occupation of the area was agriculture and agricultural labor, the principal crops being jowar, bajra, onions, paddy, ragi and other minor millets. In 1994–5, mining began to take on greater importance after five years of recurrent drought and the mechanization of agriculture. In many places it was found that the land-owners have experienced crop failure due to heavy dust pollution in the neighboring mining lands and have been forced to convert their fields into mine sites as well. And so, the shift to mining from agriculture was both a result of desperation and a desire for a quick profit. The landless agricultural laborers were forced to find new work. The mines became their only option. Mineral exports to China, Korea and other countries started on a small scale in 1995, but by 2000, the scramble for iron ore led to social and ecological chaos in the district.

The Mining Rush – Strike While the Iron is Hot

Mother and child at the mine fields of Hospet, Karnataka.

Miles and miles of agricultural land on the foothills have been converted into iron ore mines. The quiet farm life was replaced by a frenetic rush of people and vehicles. Trucks, bulldozers, crushers, jeeps and wagons on rail tracks became almost as numerous as the inhabitants of the area. Sadly, this societal transformation and the livelihoods of all those who operate or drive the machinery are dependent on the work of little children, some as young as five and eight years. However, it is difficult to obtain accurate data and information on the number of mines, the extent of mining activities, the labor force involved and the trade routes of each of these minerals. This is due to the fact that there is a lot of illegal mining that is “allowed” because of the collusion of politicians, mine owners, traders, contractors, exporters, transporters and owners of processing units.

Mining Processes
Mining activities are undertaken for about eight months in a year as the mines close down during the monsoon season. Lands are taken on lease from the Department of Mines, Government of Karnataka through the state pollution control board (SPCB).

During the visit of a investigative team from the government, it was not clear how land transfers took place for private lands, what procedures were being followed for obtaining leases from the government, and what was the cost of compensation or rent paid to the owners. Discussions with workers, supervisors and landowners on the field indicate that most of the leases were private transactions between the landowners and mine owners/contractors. The prevailing attitude was to just grab a lease, either legally or illegally, and become rich overnight.

The mining activity in the iron ore mines consists of the extraction of the ore, breaking the rocks into small stones and pebbles, and grinding them into fine powder. Iron ore is bought and sold in all these forms. Therefore, the mining area has vast stretches of extraction sites, stone crushers, stockyards, dump yards, weighing and permit yards, truck yards, and wagon loading points across the railway line.

Interviews with contractors, mine owners, mine workers, and local media indicate that there may be large black market transactions with exporters from China, Korea, and other countries and with the traders within the country. As most of the works are sub-contracted, it is difficult to trace the routes or pin down accountability both with regard to workers and to the environmental issues.

The work place is just a vast expanse of open mine fields, without any shelter. It is also the living quarters for the workers. Some of the semi-casual workers are given makeshift bamboo huts. All the migrant workers are given only a small plastic sheet which is made into a two-by-two feet tent for the entire family to live in. Infants and babies are crawling and walking at the mine site and sometimes assisting their older siblings at work. The infants are inhaling the dust from the ores and eating the iron ore mud when playing. Both rain and sun are a curse to the workers. Babies are left to sleep in the open. The tents are too small for the entire family to take shelter if it rains. Their work gets interrupted because the rain makes the lumps too damp to grind into fine powder.

There are no toilets provided, so women and girls have to undergo the humiliation of ablutions in public as the entire mine sites are felled clear and do not have a single tree or shrub. There is no water provided at the work place. The women and children walk long distances after their working hours or early in the morning to fetch water from the neighboring villages, private wells, or bore wells. Some mine owners supply drinking water by trucks, but the supply is not regular or adequate for the inhabitants of the camps. The rest of the water requirements are met from the mine pits by collecting the contaminated water. The children do not have clean water for washing their hands,  bathing, or for washing their clothes. They eat food with iron ore contaminated hands in the open site while dust from the mine sites falls into the food as it is prepared. Many of the children are suffering from skin allergies, and intestinal and respiratory ailments as a result of this.

As the workers live at the mine site, they sleep in the open pits surrounded by cesspools with mosquitoes and other insects. They do not have any electricity and cannot afford to purchase kerosene to provide lighting for themselves. Rations are purchased from the nearby private traders at much higher rates for poorer quality food-grains. Since they are constantly moving from one mine owner to another, they lead unpredictable lives and so children have completely dropped out of school. Even local children barely attend school, but the teachers are reluctant to give the drop out rate for fear of being reprimanded by the government.

As the mine workers are only casual laborers, they do not have any health cards to give them access to the public health services set up by the labor ministry. They have to go to the private clinics that have mushroomed in Hospet and Sandur after the mines opened and most of their “disposable income” goes towards purchasing medicines, which provide only temporary relief. As mine workers are developing more serious and chronic illnesses like tuberculosis, silicosis, cancers, respiratory illnesses, physical disabilities due to accidents, and several degenerative impairments, they are unable to perform any labor. As a result of this, they have to push their children earlier and earlier into this hazardous industry.

What was disturbingly visible was the high floating population in the region where it is difficult for the workers to have any social cohesion and, on the other hand, is making them vulnerable to exploitation by traders, truck drivers, miners, contractors, etc., economically, socially and sexually. Discussions with women workers revealed that they are at the mercy of these layers of exploiters who force them to perform sexual activities for their daily wages. The sudden emergence of clinics around Hospet and Bellary for sexually transmitted diseases and the large increase of HIV-AIDS cases are alarming signals of the level of sexual exploitation in the area.

Children work alongside their parents.

Migrant child workers are most vulnerable to sexual exploitation, especially girl children who are working in these mines in large numbers. Socially, women and children are becoming victims of alcoholic male members of the families and many of them complained of being physically abused and having to give a major part of their wages for the purchase of liquor. Chewing tobacco was commonly seen at the work site. There have been incidents of accidents and deaths but we were told that there was hardly any compensation given and the contractors normally hush up the cases.

The Salesians have committed themselves to assisting the child laborers, providing them the best education possible given their situation of forced labor. But they are also working to change the situation so that the children will be free to be children, not cheap labor in a very dangerous place. Intervention now can help rescue this generation of child laborers from a life in the mines and perhaps a life shortened through accident or impaired health due to the toxic nature of their work. Your generous support allows us to help projects like Hospet and other programs in the Salesian world that work to protect the rights of children and prevent them from being harmed in any way.