10:00:00 Title
10:00:34 Gravestones in German cemeteries. Nowadays around two thirds of all gravestones originate in India, where they are produced much cheaper than elsewhere. But how can India produce these stones so cheaply? We were suspicious the quarries were using children – effectively bonded slaves – to maximise their profits.
10:00:50 In the hinterland of India’s coastal port Chennai we go in search for clues. This region is packed with quarries.
We officially registered in a branch of the firm Enterprising Enterprises. The business is one of the ten largest stone dealers in the world, selling its black granite directly to Europe.
They are expecting us. Did the management especially prepare itself for our visit? Normally 86 people work here. Today, however, the heavy diggers have been brought out. There is no trace of child labour.
10:01:28-10:01:39 V. Raghu, (V. Raghu, Enterprising Enterprises)
We don’t encourage child labour, and that’s why we never employ childs in any of our factories, quarries or any of our industries.
10:01:41 Jayaraj Manoharan, a member of the labour union of quarry workers, has fought for more than 25 years against child and slave labour in Indian quarries. Benjamin Pütter is a child rights expert for the German auxiliary organization Misereor, which came to international attention through its campaign against child labour in the Indian carpet industry.
Together they want to investigate the claims that stones produced by children and slaves are exported to Germany and elsewhere.
10:02:13-10:02:54 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children rights expert Misereor)
No one in India wants to explain it to me. Take a look – film it – there are children working openly. Child labour is illegal in India, and carries heavy punishments. Quarries are given special punishments if they employ children. Therefore we’ve got to look at why they’re there. I have to pretend to be someone else. I’ll say: “I’m a German importer of gravestone and I want to see how the granite is mined and that I want to buy direct. This should lead to a conversation about sales, to questions about the people that work there, the working conditions and what role the children serve.
10:02: 57 On the way to the next quarry. Time for a final strategy discussion between Pütter and Manoharan.
10:02:59 Pütter
Which inspection should be done should be done, which kind of inspection just will give you some more background on inspection system.
10:03:06 Pütter plays the role of the stone dealer. We follow.
10:03:12 Officially we are making this video for Pütter’s customers back in Germany. Suspicious dealers study his false visitor’s card.
10:03:16 Pütter
So what is interesting also that..
10:03:20 Because of this, Manoharan and his colleague Raju Gopal decide to follow with a second, hidden camera.
10:03:29 Pütter mimes the critical expert, pulling all attention on himself.
10:03:34-10:03:45.
The biggest market for Paradise granite is Germany and Italy. The Germans buy little blocks for gravestones. Germany they buy small blocks for graveyard stones.
10:03:46-10:03:57 Manoharan!
Come, come! Come, come! See child labour is there; child labour is there, there, there.
10:04:00
So, child labour for Germany?
Meanwhile, Pütter had wondered through the site with the management.
10:04:14 Manoharan stopped the racing boy, to ask him about his age and working conditions.
10:04:24 Shortly afterwards we discovered the next child.
10:04:27 – 10:04:30 Manoharan
That’s Bophal! His name is Bophal!
10:4:38 Children at gigantic deep bore drills. They work in incredibly noisy conditions, with no protective clothing, in the middle of dense dust and with only plastic flip-flops/sandals on their feet. And all that for 300 rupees the week - less than 6 Euros.
10:04:54 –10:05:19 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children rights expert Misereor)
Everywhere I go I get told there is no child labour in export quarries. It really gets me that I can see with my own eyes here behind me and also below here in the hole, not just doing auxiliary tasks like they say – I don’t know, maybe somewhere there is a child carrying the water. But here the children are working on bore holes, you can see, they are doing the most dangerous and difficult kind of work, in the worst of the dust. It’s terrible what is happening here. It’s illegal under the most stringent laws, Indian and international laws – and it’s just going on.
10:05:32 So who buys this “dirty” stone? What connections does the company have in Europe? We ask the boss.
10:05:44-10:05:49
Question:
You export directly to German companies and factories or
10:05:50-10:06:02 Quarry owners
We sell to local factories over here, we also export to Germany. Local factories like Enterprising Enterprises, they buy from us and they make other products and remarket it.
10:06:06 Enterprising Enterprises – do they then also receive stones mined by children?
10:06:20 We leave, before our disguise is uncovered. Time for first reflections.
10:06:34-10:06:47 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children rights expert Misereor)
We saw plenty of evidence of child labour. We met several 12, 13, 14-year-old children, who couldn’t go to school, because they have to work all day. Children that work in these quarries have a life expectancy of 35-38 years.
10:06:47-10:07:16 Manoharan, (Jayaraj Manoharan, labour union of the quarry workers)
I found nearly 38 people are working in that quarry and among the 38 only 16 are elderly people. Of the remaining 22only children, the age of 12, 13, 14, 15 no one is even 18. Most of them are child labourers. Some of their parents receive some advance from the owner and are living somewhere there.
10:07:16-10:08:03 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children rights expert Misereor)
It would be now, of course, be possible to confront the quarry owner with the charge that children work there and that that is forbidden under Indian law. It is conceivable. But I didn’t take you with me to expose this guy, because if we did, the kids would be sent away to goodness knows where, we don’t know where they come from, how they got here, we don’t know their story at all. We don’t know their names or their hometowns, how many brothers or sisters, whether there is a school in their town. If we were to have a word with the quarry owner, then these children would be sent away and lost to us. We wouldn’t know what would happen to them. They could be forced into prostitution or worse. We don’t want that. We want to help them. And so therefore we need to know all the facts. We need a strong, local, social action group that can actually do something. When we’ve got that, then we can help the children.
10:08:08-10:08:46
We follow the stones’ trail into the offices of Enterprising Enterprises in Chennai. It is here the gigantic raw blocks of granite are turned into wall or floor tiles. The Indians work the stones by hand. Often the finishing is done exclusively here - thanks to low costs and unbeatable prices. All that is missing from the gravestones is the German inscription.
Indian granite is big business. Last year around 50,000 tons of granite was exported from the subcontinent directly to Germany. An even larger quantity arrives through other routes, such as through Italy.
10:08:48-10:08:57 Bremerhaven is one of the centres of the European stone trade. Enterprising Enterprises container has finished its 10 000 km sea crossing.
10:09:07 from here the stones go on to Unna – to the firm HABU, according to estimates the biggest German importer of Indian granite.
10:09:21-10:09:23 Stefan H.
Good Morning!
10:09:24 We meet the man in charge of purchasing. He is also responsible for the Indian branch of the firm HABU. With the cheap stone, HABU has cornered the German market.
10:09:35 –10:09:37 question
So this is mostly Indian?
10:09:37-10:09:40 Stefan H.:
yes, in this hall, in fact, just about 100%.
10:09:42 HABU gets almost all of its stone from a single distributor:
10:09:48 –10:09:58 Stefan H., (purchase leader, HABU)
Enterprising Enterprises are our biggest supplier. Between us we cover around 99.9 percent of all grave stone imports out of India.
10:9:59-10:10:01 question
And what about child labour? Can you safely exclude that?
10:10:02-10:10:27 Stefan H.
There is child labour in India. There’s no doubt. But in the granite industry, it’s a different story. The machines and tools that they use are just too heavy and complicated for a child to use. Therefore in the granite works there just isn’t any child labour.
Did 10:10:33 Is it possible that the child labour we saw back in India was just an isolated case? We test another export quarry.
10:10:44 But as soon as we even reach the foot of the hill, we are intercepted.
10:10:55-10:11:08 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children right expert Misereor)
We just saw the driver. They won’t give us permission to go any further. I wanted to go up with him – I told him we would go together, we could visit the manger. He said: NO! This is the first time I’ve experienced this. No one can go up. He’s gone to see whether the manager will come down.
10:11:10 The jeep comes back. With his false papers Pütter manages to get us access.
10:11:21-10:11:23 Pütter
Follow me discreetly with the other car
10:11:28-10:11:30 Our vehicle isn’t allowed on the site
10:11:32-10:11:45 Pütter
The man, who is sitting just there, next to the camera, just warned that the manager that he should pay attention to us, that something fishy is going on. But what else exactly he said, I‘m not sure. I don’t speak Tamil. I only understood the bits that sound like Hindi.
10:11:50 The tried and tested diversion manoeuvre also works here. Manoharan busies himself on the search for child labour whilst Pütter distracts the manager, posing as a stone dealer.
10:12:06 We were turned away from here. What is there to conceal?
10:12:12 the gigantic open cast mine consists of numerous pits. Manoharan picks one of them, and again yields results.
10:12:48 Noise makes conversation almost impossible.
10:13:01 Shortly after Manoharan met a supervisor from his local region. A valuable information source, as it later turns out.
10:13:12-10:13:27 Manoharan, (Jayaraj Manoharan, labour union of the quarry workers)
One of the supervisors comes out of Karnataka, like us. He gave more information like as a friendly…I asked about his family, personal matters. Then he started to give more information about child labourers.
10:13:28-10:13:54 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children right expert Misereor)
Of the 350 people who work there, 60 children aged between 12 and 16 years are working illegally. And we didn’t even speak to everybody: we had a contact there, who gave us the numbers. We saw the children ourselves. We spoke to a couple. Anything else would have been too dangerous. We were there as a buyer from Germany and even then we noticed what was going on. Someone had their suspicions: what were they really doing here? There’s something fishy! And we were so close to being thrown out!
10:13:57 back to the German granite dealer HABU – with a surprise in tow.
10:14:04 question
I’d like to show you what I brought along.
10:14:19 H.
That’s a shot of the quarry
10:14:20 question
That’s a shot of the quarry where we filmed.
10:14:28 machine
Enterprising Enterprises, they buy our material – From you? – Yes!
10:14:36 H.
I’m not totally sure myself – but they are certainly very young people.
10:14:42 question
What have you got to say about that?
10:14:45 H:
I am very shocked. I would not have expected that in the quarries. This is a new one on me. Child labour itself, of course isn’t, but that it also goes on in such heavy work. I simply would not have expected it. I’ve been made aware of it in production services. But in the quarries...
10:15:07 question
But your firm is also naturally partly responsible for this.
10:15:20 H.:
We’ve got to check out which quarry this happened in. And we will, of course, speak with our supplier whether he, if that was a supplier, wants to cooperate with such firms.
Is 10:15:36 question
The question is, is there any kind of control system, to control it?
10:15:39 H.:
No, I have…. No, no no, there is no control system. No one here travels to the quarries to see what’s going on.
10:15:46 HABU seems really not to have known what was going on it its suppliers’ mines. But to us it’s becoming clear: we only saw the tip of the iceberg. In this quarry in Bangalore, innumerable children break crushed rock and stones for the booming Indian building industry.
10:16:04-10:16:15 Manoharan
This is like this, many people at the time of blasting, packing. At the time of packing the dynamite, they have to hit it and it blasts the same hand.
10:16:36 here working conditions are even more archaic. And the children are even younger.
10:16:47-10:16:49 Manoharan
What is with your parents?
10:16:52-10:16:57 Manoharan
His father is expired. His mother has gone to the hospital.
Does 10:16:58-10:16:59 Pütter
How many suits does she have?
10:17:07 Manoharan
Two and you? How many shirts do you have? He has two shirts.
10:17:18-10:17:33 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children right expert Misereor)
We’re here in one of the mid sized quarries. I’ve never seen anything like it – about 2000 people. But the most shocking thing is the number of children who are also here. It’s actually a school day. It is a day when the children have to be somewhere else. A quarry simple isn’t the place for children.
10:17:34 Raju Gopal leads us further
10:17:36-10:17:54 Gopal, (Raju Gopal, labour union of the quarry workers)
It seems to me its been going on for generations. Already by this delicate age, the child is playing with a hammer. As the child grows, so does the size of the hammer. That’s the only development in its life.
10:18:01-10:18:09 Gopal, (Raju Gopal, labour union of the quarry workers)
Here there is widespread use of what might be called serfs - people working to pay off a debt to the owner. They are working from one end of the breach to the other.
10:18:14 Among them is Njtredden and his oldest son Madis. Madis is 13 years old. He has worked in the quarry for 5 years.
10:18:29
The whole family works here: mother Maligaammal, 11-year-old sister Shanti and the newest member of the family - Manju. They all break rocks for road building.
10:18:43-10:19:02 Njtredden
I owe the quarry owner 30,000 rupees. I had to borrow money, because one of us was always sick, and for meals and for things for the children. My debt is always getting bigger, instead of smaller. And so I am a bondsman of the owner.
10:19:03-10:19:28 Madis
Every morning around seven, after breakfast, we grind our tools. Then we go to the quarry. We work there the entire day until evenings around seven. That is what passes for life for us. There is never anything left over.
10:19:30 Gunpowder for the next explosion. Dangerous work. Despite this, the whole family earns only 60 rupees per day, or just over one Euro. They will probably never pay back their 30 000 rupee debt. That’s how bondage works – a form of modern day slavery.
10:20:06 The family lives in a village right on the edge of the pit. Most of the residents are also serfs. Even the miserable cottages do not belong them, but rather to the owner of the quarry. They all live from hand to the mouth. There is only rice. In this place, there are no laws – only those of the owner.
10:20:25-10:20:51 mother
The owner tells us: „Don’t waste time! Don’t fight!“ He says: „work hard and earn your money. On Sunday you can relax and have a good meal!“ But that is impossible because we earn so little.
10:20:54 This is the Stone Association in Bangalore, the Indian stone industry trade union. We are expected for an interview.
On behalf of the Indian labour union, Benjamin Pütter is going to propose a sort of kitemark for granite exporters, that guarantees no child labour was used, and that the company has passed independent inspections.
The Stone-Association agreed to the interview on the condition that we wouldn’t ask any questions to the subject of child labour. But that’s not why we’re here:
10:21:08 – 10:21:20 Pütter (under)– So that they learn more skills, actually what these people want in Zignum they say normally.
10:21:27-10:21:39 Stone-Association (Munavar Basha, association of the Indian stone industry)
Not in the granite industry! Impossible! Its skilled work. You have seen the blocks we export is 20, 30, 40 tons, so children have no work at all.
10:21:39-10:21:45 Pütter - Yesterday we visited in Krishnagiri a quarry, it turned out the children were also working there.
10:21:45-10:21:57 Stone Association, (R. R. Hegde, association of the Indian stone industry)
See maybe 1 or 2 cases his son wanted to help, maybe father is sick, – okay, that cannot be an issue, and generally this machinery is maybe used for their own purposes.
10:21:57-10:22:07 Pütter
They were working at these machines; drilling machines bringing in this metal so you make holes in it, on those machines the children were working.
10:22:07-10:22:09 Stone Association
5- 10 percent maybe that!
10:22:13 Pütter (under)
I am quite sure that you want to make business and be on the safe side with it and you don’t want to be in jail or you don’t want to…and you are doing your share of social service also.
Pütters bargaining tool is the German market. Child labour is bad publicity and therefore bad for business. The Association knows that – and surprisingly agree to independent inspections for the quarries.
10:22:28 –10:22:48 Stone Association (R. R. Hegde, association of the Indian stone industry)
They are getting money on…..employment…left over material. We have selected members, 2 from Germany, two from here, all put together we have a team, no problem. We can see, we will go surprisingly, we check, we blacklist, ok, we buy only that person who is, we can guide them, ok, this is our condition…if you are not using…they will be decertified.
Pütter –
Its not a goodbye, it’s a see you again.
10:22:52 Of course this offer has to be taken with a pinch of salt. But for Pütter it is at least a step into the right direction.
10:22:58-10:23:09 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children right expert Misereor)
New points of contact are there. We said, we want to accept independent inspections. If that’s because of market forces – so be it.
10:23:12 It’s also a new point of contact for the Stonemasons in Germany. Up until now, they were unable to prove whether Indian granite was sourced without child labour, even when, as with Michael Storr, they became aware of the problem. He had been himself to India, and seen with his own eyes the problems.
10:23:28-10:23:47 Storr (Michael Storr, Steinmetz)
I saw in India how the children were forced to work there, since they were very young. It was just slavery by the owners exhorting their power over the children. Bondage is illegal, so the owners target children, who can’t defend themselves.
10:23:51 An independent Control system would help Michael Storr and his customers out of this moral dilemma. They could guarantee Indian stones in Germany were sourced from mines that didn’t use child labour or debt bondage.
10:24:06 With the help of Manoharan and Gopal – India could one day guarantee free quarries.
10:24:19 with support from the Labour Union former serfs established a union here and took over the mine from the earlier owner. Today they regulate all matters themselves.
10:24:31-24:40 woman
we want our children to go to school. Previously that was impossible, because the nearest school is so far away. So we built our own school in the village.
10:24: 43 The Union fought hard and lobbied the Indian Government for funding for their mine. Now they have machines to do the hard work once done by children. Child labour and servitude have been wiped out from this mine. Gopal dreams one day it will be the same everywhere.
10:25:07 –10:25:19 interview Gopal, (Raju Gopal, labour union of the quarry workers)
our dream is the end of servitude. 40 families now live in this free quarry. We want not only these 40, but rather all 4000 families in a similar position become their own men, and free like us.
10:25:20-10:25:37 END
10:00:34 Gravestones in German cemeteries. Nowadays around two thirds of all gravestones originate in India, where they are produced much cheaper than elsewhere. But how can India produce these stones so cheaply? We were suspicious the quarries were using children – effectively bonded slaves – to maximise their profits.
10:00:50 In the hinterland of India’s coastal port Chennai we go in search for clues. This region is packed with quarries.
We officially registered in a branch of the firm Enterprising Enterprises. The business is one of the ten largest stone dealers in the world, selling its black granite directly to Europe.
They are expecting us. Did the management especially prepare itself for our visit? Normally 86 people work here. Today, however, the heavy diggers have been brought out. There is no trace of child labour.
10:01:28-10:01:39 V. Raghu, (V. Raghu, Enterprising Enterprises)
We don’t encourage child labour, and that’s why we never employ childs in any of our factories, quarries or any of our industries.
10:01:41 Jayaraj Manoharan, a member of the labour union of quarry workers, has fought for more than 25 years against child and slave labour in Indian quarries. Benjamin Pütter is a child rights expert for the German auxiliary organization Misereor, which came to international attention through its campaign against child labour in the Indian carpet industry.
Together they want to investigate the claims that stones produced by children and slaves are exported to Germany and elsewhere.
10:02:13-10:02:54 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children rights expert Misereor)
No one in India wants to explain it to me. Take a look – film it – there are children working openly. Child labour is illegal in India, and carries heavy punishments. Quarries are given special punishments if they employ children. Therefore we’ve got to look at why they’re there. I have to pretend to be someone else. I’ll say: “I’m a German importer of gravestone and I want to see how the granite is mined and that I want to buy direct. This should lead to a conversation about sales, to questions about the people that work there, the working conditions and what role the children serve.
10:02: 57 On the way to the next quarry. Time for a final strategy discussion between Pütter and Manoharan.
10:02:59 Pütter
Which inspection should be done should be done, which kind of inspection just will give you some more background on inspection system.
10:03:06 Pütter plays the role of the stone dealer. We follow.
10:03:12 Officially we are making this video for Pütter’s customers back in Germany. Suspicious dealers study his false visitor’s card.
10:03:16 Pütter
So what is interesting also that..
10:03:20 Because of this, Manoharan and his colleague Raju Gopal decide to follow with a second, hidden camera.
10:03:29 Pütter mimes the critical expert, pulling all attention on himself.
10:03:34-10:03:45.
The biggest market for Paradise granite is Germany and Italy. The Germans buy little blocks for gravestones. Germany they buy small blocks for graveyard stones.
10:03:46-10:03:57 Manoharan!
Come, come! Come, come! See child labour is there; child labour is there, there, there.
10:04:00
So, child labour for Germany?
Meanwhile, Pütter had wondered through the site with the management.
10:04:14 Manoharan stopped the racing boy, to ask him about his age and working conditions.
10:04:24 Shortly afterwards we discovered the next child.
10:04:27 – 10:04:30 Manoharan
That’s Bophal! His name is Bophal!
10:4:38 Children at gigantic deep bore drills. They work in incredibly noisy conditions, with no protective clothing, in the middle of dense dust and with only plastic flip-flops/sandals on their feet. And all that for 300 rupees the week - less than 6 Euros.
10:04:54 –10:05:19 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children rights expert Misereor)
Everywhere I go I get told there is no child labour in export quarries. It really gets me that I can see with my own eyes here behind me and also below here in the hole, not just doing auxiliary tasks like they say – I don’t know, maybe somewhere there is a child carrying the water. But here the children are working on bore holes, you can see, they are doing the most dangerous and difficult kind of work, in the worst of the dust. It’s terrible what is happening here. It’s illegal under the most stringent laws, Indian and international laws – and it’s just going on.
10:05:32 So who buys this “dirty” stone? What connections does the company have in Europe? We ask the boss.
10:05:44-10:05:49
Question:
You export directly to German companies and factories or
10:05:50-10:06:02 Quarry owners
We sell to local factories over here, we also export to Germany. Local factories like Enterprising Enterprises, they buy from us and they make other products and remarket it.
10:06:06 Enterprising Enterprises – do they then also receive stones mined by children?
10:06:20 We leave, before our disguise is uncovered. Time for first reflections.
10:06:34-10:06:47 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children rights expert Misereor)
We saw plenty of evidence of child labour. We met several 12, 13, 14-year-old children, who couldn’t go to school, because they have to work all day. Children that work in these quarries have a life expectancy of 35-38 years.
10:06:47-10:07:16 Manoharan, (Jayaraj Manoharan, labour union of the quarry workers)
I found nearly 38 people are working in that quarry and among the 38 only 16 are elderly people. Of the remaining 22only children, the age of 12, 13, 14, 15 no one is even 18. Most of them are child labourers. Some of their parents receive some advance from the owner and are living somewhere there.
10:07:16-10:08:03 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children rights expert Misereor)
It would be now, of course, be possible to confront the quarry owner with the charge that children work there and that that is forbidden under Indian law. It is conceivable. But I didn’t take you with me to expose this guy, because if we did, the kids would be sent away to goodness knows where, we don’t know where they come from, how they got here, we don’t know their story at all. We don’t know their names or their hometowns, how many brothers or sisters, whether there is a school in their town. If we were to have a word with the quarry owner, then these children would be sent away and lost to us. We wouldn’t know what would happen to them. They could be forced into prostitution or worse. We don’t want that. We want to help them. And so therefore we need to know all the facts. We need a strong, local, social action group that can actually do something. When we’ve got that, then we can help the children.
10:08:08-10:08:46
We follow the stones’ trail into the offices of Enterprising Enterprises in Chennai. It is here the gigantic raw blocks of granite are turned into wall or floor tiles. The Indians work the stones by hand. Often the finishing is done exclusively here - thanks to low costs and unbeatable prices. All that is missing from the gravestones is the German inscription.
Indian granite is big business. Last year around 50,000 tons of granite was exported from the subcontinent directly to Germany. An even larger quantity arrives through other routes, such as through Italy.
10:08:48-10:08:57 Bremerhaven is one of the centres of the European stone trade. Enterprising Enterprises container has finished its 10 000 km sea crossing.
10:09:07 from here the stones go on to Unna – to the firm HABU, according to estimates the biggest German importer of Indian granite.
10:09:21-10:09:23 Stefan H.
Good Morning!
10:09:24 We meet the man in charge of purchasing. He is also responsible for the Indian branch of the firm HABU. With the cheap stone, HABU has cornered the German market.
10:09:35 –10:09:37 question
So this is mostly Indian?
10:09:37-10:09:40 Stefan H.:
yes, in this hall, in fact, just about 100%.
10:09:42 HABU gets almost all of its stone from a single distributor:
10:09:48 –10:09:58 Stefan H., (purchase leader, HABU)
Enterprising Enterprises are our biggest supplier. Between us we cover around 99.9 percent of all grave stone imports out of India.
10:9:59-10:10:01 question
And what about child labour? Can you safely exclude that?
10:10:02-10:10:27 Stefan H.
There is child labour in India. There’s no doubt. But in the granite industry, it’s a different story. The machines and tools that they use are just too heavy and complicated for a child to use. Therefore in the granite works there just isn’t any child labour.
Did 10:10:33 Is it possible that the child labour we saw back in India was just an isolated case? We test another export quarry.
10:10:44 But as soon as we even reach the foot of the hill, we are intercepted.
10:10:55-10:11:08 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children right expert Misereor)
We just saw the driver. They won’t give us permission to go any further. I wanted to go up with him – I told him we would go together, we could visit the manger. He said: NO! This is the first time I’ve experienced this. No one can go up. He’s gone to see whether the manager will come down.
10:11:10 The jeep comes back. With his false papers Pütter manages to get us access.
10:11:21-10:11:23 Pütter
Follow me discreetly with the other car
10:11:28-10:11:30 Our vehicle isn’t allowed on the site
10:11:32-10:11:45 Pütter
The man, who is sitting just there, next to the camera, just warned that the manager that he should pay attention to us, that something fishy is going on. But what else exactly he said, I‘m not sure. I don’t speak Tamil. I only understood the bits that sound like Hindi.
10:11:50 The tried and tested diversion manoeuvre also works here. Manoharan busies himself on the search for child labour whilst Pütter distracts the manager, posing as a stone dealer.
10:12:06 We were turned away from here. What is there to conceal?
10:12:12 the gigantic open cast mine consists of numerous pits. Manoharan picks one of them, and again yields results.
10:12:48 Noise makes conversation almost impossible.
10:13:01 Shortly after Manoharan met a supervisor from his local region. A valuable information source, as it later turns out.
10:13:12-10:13:27 Manoharan, (Jayaraj Manoharan, labour union of the quarry workers)
One of the supervisors comes out of Karnataka, like us. He gave more information like as a friendly…I asked about his family, personal matters. Then he started to give more information about child labourers.
10:13:28-10:13:54 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children right expert Misereor)
Of the 350 people who work there, 60 children aged between 12 and 16 years are working illegally. And we didn’t even speak to everybody: we had a contact there, who gave us the numbers. We saw the children ourselves. We spoke to a couple. Anything else would have been too dangerous. We were there as a buyer from Germany and even then we noticed what was going on. Someone had their suspicions: what were they really doing here? There’s something fishy! And we were so close to being thrown out!
10:13:57 back to the German granite dealer HABU – with a surprise in tow.
10:14:04 question
I’d like to show you what I brought along.
10:14:19 H.
That’s a shot of the quarry
10:14:20 question
That’s a shot of the quarry where we filmed.
10:14:28 machine
Enterprising Enterprises, they buy our material – From you? – Yes!
10:14:36 H.
I’m not totally sure myself – but they are certainly very young people.
10:14:42 question
What have you got to say about that?
10:14:45 H:
I am very shocked. I would not have expected that in the quarries. This is a new one on me. Child labour itself, of course isn’t, but that it also goes on in such heavy work. I simply would not have expected it. I’ve been made aware of it in production services. But in the quarries...
10:15:07 question
But your firm is also naturally partly responsible for this.
10:15:20 H.:
We’ve got to check out which quarry this happened in. And we will, of course, speak with our supplier whether he, if that was a supplier, wants to cooperate with such firms.
Is 10:15:36 question
The question is, is there any kind of control system, to control it?
10:15:39 H.:
No, I have…. No, no no, there is no control system. No one here travels to the quarries to see what’s going on.
10:15:46 HABU seems really not to have known what was going on it its suppliers’ mines. But to us it’s becoming clear: we only saw the tip of the iceberg. In this quarry in Bangalore, innumerable children break crushed rock and stones for the booming Indian building industry.
10:16:04-10:16:15 Manoharan
This is like this, many people at the time of blasting, packing. At the time of packing the dynamite, they have to hit it and it blasts the same hand.
10:16:36 here working conditions are even more archaic. And the children are even younger.
10:16:47-10:16:49 Manoharan
What is with your parents?
10:16:52-10:16:57 Manoharan
His father is expired. His mother has gone to the hospital.
Does 10:16:58-10:16:59 Pütter
How many suits does she have?
10:17:07 Manoharan
Two and you? How many shirts do you have? He has two shirts.
10:17:18-10:17:33 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children right expert Misereor)
We’re here in one of the mid sized quarries. I’ve never seen anything like it – about 2000 people. But the most shocking thing is the number of children who are also here. It’s actually a school day. It is a day when the children have to be somewhere else. A quarry simple isn’t the place for children.
10:17:34 Raju Gopal leads us further
10:17:36-10:17:54 Gopal, (Raju Gopal, labour union of the quarry workers)
It seems to me its been going on for generations. Already by this delicate age, the child is playing with a hammer. As the child grows, so does the size of the hammer. That’s the only development in its life.
10:18:01-10:18:09 Gopal, (Raju Gopal, labour union of the quarry workers)
Here there is widespread use of what might be called serfs - people working to pay off a debt to the owner. They are working from one end of the breach to the other.
10:18:14 Among them is Njtredden and his oldest son Madis. Madis is 13 years old. He has worked in the quarry for 5 years.
10:18:29
The whole family works here: mother Maligaammal, 11-year-old sister Shanti and the newest member of the family - Manju. They all break rocks for road building.
10:18:43-10:19:02 Njtredden
I owe the quarry owner 30,000 rupees. I had to borrow money, because one of us was always sick, and for meals and for things for the children. My debt is always getting bigger, instead of smaller. And so I am a bondsman of the owner.
10:19:03-10:19:28 Madis
Every morning around seven, after breakfast, we grind our tools. Then we go to the quarry. We work there the entire day until evenings around seven. That is what passes for life for us. There is never anything left over.
10:19:30 Gunpowder for the next explosion. Dangerous work. Despite this, the whole family earns only 60 rupees per day, or just over one Euro. They will probably never pay back their 30 000 rupee debt. That’s how bondage works – a form of modern day slavery.
10:20:06 The family lives in a village right on the edge of the pit. Most of the residents are also serfs. Even the miserable cottages do not belong them, but rather to the owner of the quarry. They all live from hand to the mouth. There is only rice. In this place, there are no laws – only those of the owner.
10:20:25-10:20:51 mother
The owner tells us: „Don’t waste time! Don’t fight!“ He says: „work hard and earn your money. On Sunday you can relax and have a good meal!“ But that is impossible because we earn so little.
10:20:54 This is the Stone Association in Bangalore, the Indian stone industry trade union. We are expected for an interview.
On behalf of the Indian labour union, Benjamin Pütter is going to propose a sort of kitemark for granite exporters, that guarantees no child labour was used, and that the company has passed independent inspections.
The Stone-Association agreed to the interview on the condition that we wouldn’t ask any questions to the subject of child labour. But that’s not why we’re here:
10:21:08 – 10:21:20 Pütter (under)– So that they learn more skills, actually what these people want in Zignum they say normally.
10:21:27-10:21:39 Stone-Association (Munavar Basha, association of the Indian stone industry)
Not in the granite industry! Impossible! Its skilled work. You have seen the blocks we export is 20, 30, 40 tons, so children have no work at all.
10:21:39-10:21:45 Pütter - Yesterday we visited in Krishnagiri a quarry, it turned out the children were also working there.
10:21:45-10:21:57 Stone Association, (R. R. Hegde, association of the Indian stone industry)
See maybe 1 or 2 cases his son wanted to help, maybe father is sick, – okay, that cannot be an issue, and generally this machinery is maybe used for their own purposes.
10:21:57-10:22:07 Pütter
They were working at these machines; drilling machines bringing in this metal so you make holes in it, on those machines the children were working.
10:22:07-10:22:09 Stone Association
5- 10 percent maybe that!
10:22:13 Pütter (under)
I am quite sure that you want to make business and be on the safe side with it and you don’t want to be in jail or you don’t want to…and you are doing your share of social service also.
Pütters bargaining tool is the German market. Child labour is bad publicity and therefore bad for business. The Association knows that – and surprisingly agree to independent inspections for the quarries.
10:22:28 –10:22:48 Stone Association (R. R. Hegde, association of the Indian stone industry)
They are getting money on…..employment…left over material. We have selected members, 2 from Germany, two from here, all put together we have a team, no problem. We can see, we will go surprisingly, we check, we blacklist, ok, we buy only that person who is, we can guide them, ok, this is our condition…if you are not using…they will be decertified.
Pütter –
Its not a goodbye, it’s a see you again.
10:22:52 Of course this offer has to be taken with a pinch of salt. But for Pütter it is at least a step into the right direction.
10:22:58-10:23:09 Pütter, (Benjamin Pütter, children right expert Misereor)
New points of contact are there. We said, we want to accept independent inspections. If that’s because of market forces – so be it.
10:23:12 It’s also a new point of contact for the Stonemasons in Germany. Up until now, they were unable to prove whether Indian granite was sourced without child labour, even when, as with Michael Storr, they became aware of the problem. He had been himself to India, and seen with his own eyes the problems.
10:23:28-10:23:47 Storr (Michael Storr, Steinmetz)
I saw in India how the children were forced to work there, since they were very young. It was just slavery by the owners exhorting their power over the children. Bondage is illegal, so the owners target children, who can’t defend themselves.
10:23:51 An independent Control system would help Michael Storr and his customers out of this moral dilemma. They could guarantee Indian stones in Germany were sourced from mines that didn’t use child labour or debt bondage.
10:24:06 With the help of Manoharan and Gopal – India could one day guarantee free quarries.
10:24:19 with support from the Labour Union former serfs established a union here and took over the mine from the earlier owner. Today they regulate all matters themselves.
10:24:31-24:40 woman
we want our children to go to school. Previously that was impossible, because the nearest school is so far away. So we built our own school in the village.
10:24: 43 The Union fought hard and lobbied the Indian Government for funding for their mine. Now they have machines to do the hard work once done by children. Child labour and servitude have been wiped out from this mine. Gopal dreams one day it will be the same everywhere.
10:25:07 –10:25:19 interview Gopal, (Raju Gopal, labour union of the quarry workers)
our dream is the end of servitude. 40 families now live in this free quarry. We want not only these 40, but rather all 4000 families in a similar position become their own men, and free like us.
10:25:20-10:25:37 END