Visit Indian Travel Sites
Goa,
Kerala,
Tamil Nadu,
Andhra Pradesh,
Delhi,
Rajasthan,
Uttar Pradesh,
Himachal Pradesh,
Assam,
Sikkim,
Madhya Pradesh,
Jammu & Kashmir
Karnataka
|
Indian kids stitching sports balls for top Oz footie brands | Australia's two top football brands - Sherrin and Canterbury - are running operations in India that use child labour for stitching sports balls. According to an investigation,
the poorest of Indian children are made to stitch sports balls for these companies and are paid very little in return. The 12-month investigation by the Herald discovered that regardless of noteworthy reforms to India's huge but poorly regulated sports ball industry, children are still working, sometimes forced, in the painstaking and painful hand-stitching of footballs, netballs and soccer balls. The children who stitch Sherrin and Canterbury balls
are employed unofficially, through subcontractors, who pay them for each ball
stitched, the paper said. Stitching together the four pre-cut panels of a Sherrin
Auskick football can take more than an hour, and to someone who is stitching these
balls, it is worth 7 rupees, it added. Soccer balls or netballs, with more panels,
pay up to 28 rupees a piece for three or four hours work, while the cheapest,
smallest, footballs pay as little as 4 rupees, it said. Most of these poor child-stitchers
earn about between 50 and 60 rupees, according to the investigation. The sourcing
manager for Canterbury Australia and New Zealand , Jason Law, said he was horrified
and extremely disappointed by the evidence provided to him regarding child labour.
"We will definitely be delving into it ourselves a lot deeper and making sure
we stamp out whatever is going on up there," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted
Law, as saying. It has been observed that most of these stitchers often end up
with chronic back injuries from the unnatural sitting position, and they regularly
pierce their fingers with the sharp, heavy needles, or slice their hands on the
wax-coated string, the paper said. India is the largest exporter of sports balls
to Australia , and nearly 10 million Indian-made balls were shipped into the country
last year, 45 per cent of all sports ball imports, it added.
|
|
|
|
|
|