Child labor in the production of cottonseed in India, particularly in the state of Andhra Pradesh, has been extremely widespread. Children, especially girls, are employed by farmers in order to cut costs as they are paid well below the minimum wage and the wages paid to adult workers. The child workers are often in a state of debt bondage since their employers pay an advance to the children’s parents and then they must work to meet the amount paid. The children generally work at least nine hours a day, but during the winter, they often work up to 12 hours a day. Pesticides used during production cause health problems for the children and they report experiencing headaches, weakness, disorientation, convulsions and respiratory problems and the long-term effects of exposure to toxic chemicals has not been measured. Migrant child laborers, who often come from farms where their parents do not own sufficient land to earn a living income, are especially at risk for labor abuses. Multinational corporations like Monsanto and Bayer are major purchasers of cottonseeds from this region. While the companies have started to take action to address the concerns of workers and civil society, there is still much more work to be done to end child labor in the industry.
In August 2007, ILRF, along with international partners including OECD Watch, India Committee of the Netherlands, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe and Eine Welt Netz NRW, released a report focused on recent trends in employment of child labor on cottonseed farms in India. The report estimated that roughly 416,460 children were still working on cottonseed farms in the four major producing states in India. Read the report here.