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Overview of the Brick
Sector
Social Implications
Arti Zutshi
artizutshi@yahoo.com
Datia,
the smallest district in the state of Madhya Pradesh, is an area
where majority of population works in the brick sector in one
capacity or the other. The brick industry in the region is
characterized by an
absence of technological
advancement
and limited
investment in the production process. Most of the people who have
skills, work as labourers for land owners who belong to the moneyed
classes. The production chain has
multiple intermediaries:
the land owner, the lessor of the land, the transporter and,
at the
very end of the chain, the workers.
This huge practice
has profound social implications, especially upon the lives of
people at the bottom of the chain.
Migration
This
is a characteristic feature of the people in the brick
community. Workers are primarily migrants from rural areas with
little education or other skills. Most clamps are located on
agricultural lands and at a distance of two to five kms from the
village. Here, the workers live without basic amenities like
electricity, water and sanitation. Education extends only up to the
primary level and even then the school drop-out rate is high.
The
prevailing daily rates for workers barely provide a minimum level of
subsistence. The need to meet the highest possible targets, as
decided by the clamp owner, forces the workers’ families to spend an
unreasonable time labouring. As all payments are made per 1000
bricks, any additional hand helps push this number at the end of the
day. Thus, entire families are seen migrating to work places. The
complete family: men women and children work and live in extreme
conditions.
Child Labour
Child
labour in this sector is common and children are mostly engaged in
simpler activities that require less strength and
skill. The manufacture of bricks can be extremely prejudicial to
child health because the working conditions are usually unsanitary
and unsafe. As profit maximization remains the primary focus, all
other factors not directly contributing to this are ignored by the
clamp owners.
Although the number of children working in this sector is relatively
small, the occurrence of injuries and illnesses is by far the
highest in this sector. Children as young as five or six years of
age are found working for an average of four to six hours per day in
all parts of the brick-making process. The lack of portable water
and constant contact with clay contributes to the propagation of
infection, and the poor quality of life at clamp sites further
aggravates undernourishment. The workers are deprived any
chance of acquiring a fresh outlook and learning new things.
Larger
family sizes and low income range normally push children into
economically productive work. The boys between the age group of
10-14 years are also engaged in cattle rearing. This, coupled with
an essentially migratory life of the whole family, results in low
enrolment and a high school-dropout rate.
Girls
normally help their mothers in running the family and looking after
their younger siblings. This does not take care of the health care
requirements of young children who invariably live with unattended
infections and diseases. This is deep rooted in the culture and
makes it even more difficult to break through the vicious cycle of
poverty.
Health
The
occurrence of injuries and illnesses is very high in this sector
and, in most cases, leaves the workers stranded. High incidence of
liver and stomach troubles have been reported and the basic
awareness regarding preventive and corrective measures is absent.
Local healers frequently replace medical practioners. Women and
girls, who constitute a large proportion of brick kiln workers, have
to place un-burnt bricks in the ovens and keep a check on the
burning wood or coal. This is frequently reported to have affected
their reproductive health. Coupled with this, are unsanitary
temporary dwellings (without ventilation or drainage) built near the
clamp site, where the whole family stays for upto 8-9 months in a
year.
Gender
Women in this
area, like in other parts of the country, lack access to any kind of
inheritance of material wealth, power, decision making, exposure,
etc.
This
is one region where one can repeatedly hear the men-folk saying that
their women play dual roles and work more than they do, straddling
both household activities and the work at the brick kilns. This
attitudinal change could be attributed to increased interaction with
outside communities and independence of mind as women travel with
their families to near as well as far off places in search of work.
Majority of people in the villages have started living in small
nuclear families. And, it is in these families that the role of
women is gaining more importance and hard-line male attitudes are
softening. q
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Techno Social Integration (TSI)
has emerged as an
important component in the India Brick Project (IBP) |
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The
thought
IBP primarily addressed Technology in its initial phase,
aspects like the development of VSBK models and its
dissemination and social aspect were added to the main body of
the Project at a much later stage therefore ‘problems/issues’
are still defined in technological terms/parameters.
The
Rationale
If problems are defined in technological parameters, developed
or controlled by a particular set of society, then Technology
also controls intervention strategies and approaches, as well.
Technology and environment are basically social criteria and
need to be defined in social terms and to increase capacity to
comprehend social issues more justly, the TSI is to work on
formulating the environment criteria in social terms, which
need not be quantitative and need not be susceptible to well
defined technological inputs.
This committee would need to correct the
starting point by rightly defining the problem then the
‘Social Component’ in IBP.
Aspects
of the Procedure & Purpose of the committee
TSI-C is a five-member team, represented by all partner
organizations
Committee has three specific tasks, namely -
l
Depicting diagrammatically through models the actual
field setting & reflection prevailing in different work areas
l Preparation
for Work Shop agenda for TSI-C with the Gender dimension
strongly interwoven into the main
components
l Anchoring
Gender work in the Community
This committee is to act as forum for promoting new ideas,
insights, new learning’s that emerge from partner teams. Also
continuous improvement on already made models, will continue
as these will be a reflection of the way work proceeds at
different organizations. Committee should monitor & evaluate
its progress through a regular process of sharing ideas and
learning so that ideas gets continuously developed. |
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