The darker side of glittering bangles

Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim month of fasting, provides an annual boost for the glass bangles’ industry, but behind the glittering bangles lies another story - one of child labour, poverty, deprivation and hardship.

Nine-year-old Muhammad Rizwan, who is employed at a workshop in a congested alley in Lahore, polishes, sorts and packs piles of glass bangles. He is one of four small boys engaged at the workshop. Their hours of work increase as Eid approaches.

"Usually we work eight or nine hours a day. At busy times like this we work for up to 16," said Rizwan, as his 11-year-old cousin, Muhammad Fayyaz, looked on. Both boys are from Sahiwal, 160km southwest of Lahore, and were brought to the workshop by a relative. They each earn around 1,000 rupees (about US$13) a month.

"Our parents are very poor. We have to work, though I would like to go to school," said Fayyaz. "If the workshop owner is happy with our work he may give us some extra money and then our parents will be happy. Maybe they will buy us new shoes for Eid," he said.

Pakistan’s huge glass bangle industry is centred on the city of Hyderabad, Sindh Province, and most production is for the domestic market. Dawn newspaper in May 2007 estimated that some 7,000 boys and 3,000 girls worked in the industry nationwide. The International Labour Organization (ILO) reckons 30,000 families are supported by the industry.

Photo: Kamila Hyat/IRIN

Children work an average of about 12 hours a day in the glass bangles' industry, according to ILO

Study

An Occupational Health and Safety study in the glass bangles’ industry commissioned by the ILO for the government's Centre for Improvement of Working Conditions and Environment found children worked an average of nearly 12 hours a day.

The study highlighted the risks of working in proximity to the furnaces used in the moulding and joining processes, and also from toxic chemicals during coating and painting. Children would sit hunched for hours over hot stoves while shaping the trinkets, putting their health at risk, it said.

"I no longer wear bangles because I have seen the terrible conditions these children work in," said Raheela Abbas, 22, a student who visited Hyderabad several years ago for a sociology research project.

NGO calls for action

The glass bangle industry is just one sector of the economy exploiting child labour: Some 3.3 million children aged 5-14, according to the Pakistan government's Federal Bureau of Statistics, are engaged in full-time work. Non-governmental organisations such as the Islamabad-based SPARC (Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child) reckon 8-10 million children are thus employed.

"The childhood of these children is taken away from them. SPARC believes that child labour must be eliminated; it is not enough to educate children within the workplace," Fazila Gulrez, SPARC’s national manager for promotions, told IRIN.

Photo: Kamila Hyat/IRIN

Customers browse for bangles to match outfits

Gulrez attributed the continuing existence of child labour to the current levels of social acceptance, adding: "The notion that poverty is a cause is inaccurate. In fact child labour itself leads to poverty and creates a vicious circle… The high drop-out rate from schools, with 50 percent leaving education within the first five years of primary education, also contributes to child labour."

There appears to be a widespread lack of awareness about child labour in the manufacture of bangles. "I had no idea small children made these," said Uzma Waseem, 32, buying bangles for her three daughters at a shop in Lahore.

Others, such as bangle salesman Fahim Beg, defend the use of child labour: "I know there are workshops in Lahore. It is sad children have to work there but at least their labour helps feed families".

It is attitudes like these that SPARC is trying to change.

kh/at/cb